Two railways headed in different directions from the African interior encapsulate the rush for so-called "green metals", with competing trade blocs vying for control of these resources to feed their drive to electrify polluting industries…The Lobito Atlantic Railway and the Tazara Railway both run from Africa's resource heavy Copperbelt, with each a providing a key strategic asset to their international backers looking to access the area. The region, which encompasses vast swathes of land between Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), hosts rich reserves of copper and cobalt…The area has played host to great power competition since the first industrial revolution, when an imperial rivalry between Britain and Belgium drove demand for the same minerals. Now the collective western powers — the US and Europe — and China are prioritising both resources to support their transition from fossil fuels, and access to the Copperbelt will play a central role…The Lobito railway is the result of a $450mn joint venture between global commodity trading firm Trafigura, Portuguese infrastructure group Mota-Engil and South-African rail operator Vecturis…The US, EU, African Development Bank and the Africa Finance Corporation signed an initial agreement in October to support the railway as part of the wider Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI), a G7 initiative. The US International Development Finance Corporation said it would provide an additional $250mn in funding for the railway in February, to aid US access to vital raw materials…The eastbound metals rail link from Zambia through Tanzania to Dar Es Salaam on Africa's Indian Ocean coast and onwards toward China's vast manufacturing industry, has a very different history…The Tazara railway was China's original foray into African infrastructure in the 1970s under Mao Zedong. China's current president, Xi Jinping, has called the project a "symbol of China-Africa friendship"…In December, a team of Chinese engineers produced a report calling for a $1bn upgrade to the railway, in what was likely to have been a response to the Lobito Atlantic route. Financing was promised by China under the Belt and Road Initiative…Both projects aim to overcome an increasing obstacle for copper and cobalt producers in the region…The opening of large new mines such as Kamoa-Kakula, the largest in the history of the Copperbelt, and expansions at existing mines such as China Molybdenum's Tenke Fungurume (TFM) and Kisanfu, have clogged arterial roads and monopolised trucking capacity. There are also security issues along the route, with truck drivers regularly attacked, robbed and in some cases killed. Expensive private security firms are employed to guard cargo.

The U.S. Energy Department said on Thursday it gave preliminary approval for nearly $710 million in loans to electric vehicle (EV) technology manufacturing ventures, although the Biden administration still has $221.8 billion in loan capacity to fund clean-energy projects…South Korean company SK Siltron CSS is set to receive $544 million to expand a plant in Bay City, Michigan that produces high power silicon carbide wafers used in electric vehicles…American Battery Solutions separately received conditional approval for a $165.9 million loan to expand its EV battery pack assembly operations in Springboro, Ohio and Lake Orion, Michigan. Both facilities could employ up to 460 people. Jigar Shah, director of the energy department's loan program office, told Reuters in Detroit that applications for $80 billion in financing have come to his office within the past two months from "very sophisticated players."…In total, the department has disbursed $34.43 billion, as of Dec. 31, 2023. It received applications for $263.1 billion in loans, as of end-January…The clean technology sector, including EVs, tumbled from euphoric levels of investment in 2021 and 2022 to "clearly a discipline year" in 2023, Shah said…But he said his office will "lean into good risks," such as lending to projects aimed at producing critical minerals used in batteries and electronics - a sector dominated by China. "China is clearly oversupplying the market. Prices are down," Shah said. But the government's advisers believe "we are going to be short capacity of critical minerals in 2027."

POSCO Future M Co., a battery materials supplier, on Thursday broke ground on its fifth cathode materials plant for nickel, cobalt and aluminum (NCA) batteries in Gwangyang to make the complex in South Jeolla Province the world's largest manufacturing cluster for cathode materials in terms of capacity…The factory is expected to produce 52,500-ton cathode materials embedded in 60 kilowatt-hour batteries annually, enough to charge 580,000 EVs. The products will be supplied exclusively to Samsung SDI Co…Once completed by April next year as scheduled, it will expand POSCO Future M's capacity for cathode materials at its Gwangyang complex to 142,500 tons, the world's largest capacity for a single manufacturing cluster of the materials, POSCO said…"We will push ahead with our goal of producing 1 million-ton cathodes annually by 2030 without delay," Kim Jun-Hyung, chief executive of POSCO Future M, said in the groundbreaking ceremony…In March last year, POSCO Future M started producing single-crystal cathodes for nickel, cobalt, manganese and aluminum (NCMA) batteries to become the first Korean battery materials company to produce them, touted as a game changer in the electric vehicle battery market…The IRA requires that at least half the value of critical minerals and materials in EV batteries must be assembled in North America or its free trade partners.

Mercedes-Benz on Thursday toned down expectations on electric vehicle demand and said it will update its combustion engine lineup well into next decade, becoming the latest carmaker to flag a slower than expected appetite for battery-powered cars…The company now expects sales of electrified vehicles, including hybrids, to account for up to 50% of the total by 2030, a major step back from a previous ambition to prepare for all-electric sales by 2030, which was tied to the condition of favourable market conditions…While automakers and suppliers are betting big on future demand for electric vehicles, investment in capacity and technology development has outrun actual EV demand, boosting pressure on companies to cut costs…Electrified vehicle sales, including of hybrids, were expected to remain at approximately 19-21% of the total, Mercedes-Benz said, in line with reports across the industry of slower growth in EV demand.

Rivian said on Wednesday it sees vehicle production for 2024 hitting 57,000 units, well below the 80,000 units expected…“We made great progress in 2023 despite economic headwinds, and we’re excited about the year ahead. We firmly believe in the full electrification of the automotive industry, but recognize in the short-term, the challenging macro-economic conditions," Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said in statement. "We are aggressively focused on driving cost efficiency throughout the business, achieving positive margins and building our go-to-market function to support our long-term growth."…In terms of its cash cushion, Rivian said it had $7.86 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of Q4, down from the $9.1 billion it had at the end of Q3…For the year, Rivian topped its production goal of 54,000 with 57,232 vehicles produced in 2023 and deliveries coming in at 50,122. Rivian’s production forecast for 2024 is pegged at just over 80,000 vehicles for the year, per Bloomberg consensus estimates…Rivian also reiterated its forecast of reaching “modest gross profit” by the end of 2024. McDonough noted that the company was "very close" to achieving positive contribution margin at the end of the 2023…Pure-play EV makers like Rivian, Lucid, and Fisker have seen their shares hammered over the past year as a string of loss-producing quarters and a tough EV demand environment have left investors with little patience for underperformance…On March 7, Rivian will reveal its more affordable R2 EV, which will be built at its upcoming $5 billion Georgia assembly plant. Rivian is aiming for the plant to be completed by 2025, with new R2 vehicles rolling off the line in 2026.