Donald Trump has described the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a "green scam" and vowed to repeal it after he returns to the White House in January…This is bad news for sectors such as electric vehicles (EV) and wind power, which have been major recipients of the Biden administration's signature $369 billion energy transition legislation…But some of the "new green deal" money has also been channeled to the U.S. industrial base, such as the $75 million allocated for an upgrade of Constellium's aluminium rolling mill in West Virginia…Will this too be clawed back? It seems unlikely because when it comes to rebuilding U.S. industrial capacity and cutting the country's critical minerals dependency on China, there is remarkable cross-party consensus…Indeed, it was then-President Trump who in 2020 declared the country's "undue reliance" on "foreign adversaries" for critical minerals a national emergency…Trump in his second presidency is unlikely to reverse the drive to metallic self-sufficiency. He may even prove to be an accelerator…Both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have pumped billions of dollars into rebuilding U.S. metals capacity…Seventeen new U.S. battery plants have been announced since the IRA came into effect in July 2022, boosting pipeline capacity by 68% through 2030, according to research house Benchmark Mineral Intelligence…When it comes to investing in the metals needed to supply those gigafactories, most of the projects receiving federal funds are those looking to enhance existing recycling capacity…New smelting capacity needs new mines to supply it and that's where the U.S. minerals investment boom is still struggling to build momentum…Most of the funds committed to the mining sector have been directed at lithium, both for new mines such as Lithium Americas' Thacker Pass and multiple projects experimenting with direct extraction technology…The Biden administration has struggled to reconcile its desire to produce the metals needed for the green energy transition with its environmental credentials…Trump has already promised to reverse Biden's 20-year ban on mining in the Superior National Forest in Minnesota in "about 10 to 15 minutes" of taking office…That in itself won't be a green light for the Twin Metals project, which would still have to get state permitting sign-off, but it's a sign that the Trump administration won't be hobbled by the green-on-green cabinet conflict that characterised the last four years…A new Trump administration is also likely to take a much tougher line on critical metal imports from entities linked to China…Indeed, every sign so far is that Trump 2.0 will double down on the U.S. minerals self-sufficiency drive, even if it means accepting that not all of the IRA funds are a "green scam".

Northvolt, the Swedish maker of battery cells for electric vehicles, said on Thursday it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., and said it has secured $100 million in new financing for the process…Northvolt went in a matter of months from being Europe's best shot at a home-grown electric-vehicle battery champion to racing to stay afloat by slimming down, hobbled by production problems, the loss of a major customer and a lack of funding…Northvolt said operations will continue as normal during the bankruptcy, and said it expects to complete the restructuring by the first quarter of 2025. Northvolt filed its Chapter 11 petition in U.S. bankruptcy court in Houston…The filing by Europe's most developed battery player is the biggest blow yet to Europe's hopes of building its own EV battery sector, reducing Western carmakers' reliance on Chinese rivals such as CATL and BYD…With Volkswagen among its owners, Northvolt has led a wave of European startups investing tens of billions of dollars in battery production to serve the continent's automakers as they switch from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles…But growth in EV demand is moving at a slower pace than some in the industry had projected, and competition remains stiff from China, which controls 85% of global battery cell production, International Energy Agency data shows…Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch told Reuters on Tuesday the Swedish government did not plan to take a stake in Northvolt.

China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. is in talks to establish battery recycling operations in Europe, adding to its footprint in the region as the company prepares to start cell production in Hungary…The world’s largest maker of EV batteries is discussing possible sites with European governments including Hungary, said Jason Chen, CATL’s regional operations chief. A new cell-manufacturing plant in the country is on track to start production in the second half of 2025, he said in an interview in Budapest…Like other Chinese players, CATL sees growth potential in Europe’s EV market after establishing its base at home. Localized production and procurement in the region would help address concerns over jobs threatened by the dominance of Chinese firms as the autos segment shifts to batteries from combustion engines…Establishing a recycling operation will also help CATL, a supplier to Tesla Inc. and BMW AG, to mitigate environmental concerns over battery production and disposal…Chen dismissed concerns over the pace of the transition to EVs…The facility in Debrecen, about 2.5 hours by car from Budapest, is the biggest greenfield investment in Hungary. CATL is targeting annual capacity of 40 GWh in the first phase, expanding to 100 GWh, enough to power more than 1 million cars. 

Exxon Mobil Corp. has signed a preliminary agreement to provide battery metal lithium to an LG Chem Ltd. plant in the US, strengthening the oil major’s role in the domestic critical minerals supply chain…The multiyear deal will cover the supply of as much as 100,000 tons of lithium carbonate from Exxon’s planned project in the US to the South Korean company’s cathode plant in Tennessee, which broke ground last December, Exxon said in a statement…“It’s definitely a challenging market right now,” Patrick Howarth, Exxon’s lithium global business manager, said in an interview. But “the world needs a lot more lithium in the future than it’s producing today. So this is about how do we position our projects in North America in such a way that they can be there to supply North American demand as it increases over time.”

Honda Motor aims to double the driving range of its electric cars by the late 2020s when they start to adopt all-solid-state batteries, a new type of power source under development, the head of its research unit said on Wednesday…All-solid-state batteries, replacing liquid-state lithium-ion batteries, will produce twice the driving range by the end of this decade and over 2.5 times more by the 2040s, said Keiji Otsu, president of Honda R&D…"It's a game-changer of the EV era," Otsu told reporters at Honda's pilot all-solid-state battery production line in Tochigi north of Tokyo. Honda is investing 43 billion yen ($277 million) in the pilot line, nearly half of which is funded with Japanese government subsidies…Honda will start operating the pilot line in January, with goals also to reduce battery size by 50%, weight by 35% and cost by 25% from current levels in the next half decade, Otsu said…Honda plans to increase its annual EV production to over 2 million units by 2030. It also targets a global sales ratio of 40% for EVs and fuel cell vehicles in 2030, and 100% in 2040.

In this exclusive live panel discussion held on November 15, 2024, at 11 AM ET (3 PM GMT), investorTV brought together a panel of industry experts to share their insights on the evolving EV ecosystem and investment opportunities across the value chain.