Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump’s transition team is recommending sweeping changes to cut off support for electric vehicles and charging stations and to strengthen measures blocking cars, components and battery materials from China, according to a document seen by Reuters…The transition team also recommends imposing tariffs on all battery materials globally, a bid to boost U.S. production, and then negotiating individual exemptions with allies, the document shows…Taken together, the recommendations are a stark departure from Biden administration policy, which sought to balance encouraging a domestic battery supply chain, separate from China, with a rapid EV transition. The transition-team plan would redirect money now flowing to building charging stations and making EVs affordable into national-defense priorities, including securing China-free supplies of batteries and the critical minerals to build them…The transition team calls for clawing back whatever funds remain from Biden’s $7.5 billion plan to build charging stations and shifting the money to battery-minerals processing and the "national defense supply chain and critical infrastructure.”…The Defense Department in recent years has highlighted U.S. strategic vulnerabilities because of China’s dominance of the mining and refining of critical minerals, including graphite and lithium needed for batteries, and rare-earth metals used in both EV motors and military aircraft…A 2021 government report said the U.S. military faces “escalating power requirements” for weapons and communication equipment, among other technologies. “Assured sources of critical minerals and materials” are “critical to U.S. national security,” the report found…Automakers globally have been shifting toward electric vehicles in part to comply with stricter government limits on climate-damaging tailpipe pollution…But the transition team recommendations would allow automakers to produce more gas-powered vehicles by rolling back emissions and fuel-economy standards championed by the Biden administration. The transition team proposes shifting those regulations back to 2019 levels, which would allow an average of about 25% more emissions per vehicle mile than the current 2025 limits and average fuel economy to be about 15% lower.

It wasn’t long ago that China was by far the largest and most profitable market for General Motors. While the company was hemorrhaging money in North America and Europe, and hurtling towards bankruptcy and a bailout, sales and profits from China allowed it to keep the lights on…Now the opposite is true. GM is making record profits at home, but it’s losing enough money in China that there are questions about how much longer it can stay. At the same time, Chinese automakers have flooded their home market with exactly the sort of desirable electric vehicles that Chinese buyers want and American automakers once dismissed…The result has been catastrophic for foreign automakers in China…While GM has yet to announce the details of its restructuring in China, Schuster and other experts said most Western automakers, including GM, are looking at how long they can stay in the world’s largest car market…Chinese consumers who once preferred Western brands now feel Chinese brands are a better value. That new preference is driven in large part by Chinese government policy and incentives to encourage a shift from traditional gasoline-powered cars to electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids…Chinese automakers sell about 70% of the cars in the country, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association. As recently as five years ago, they had only 38% of the Chinese market, with foreign brands capturing the rest…The biggest problem is China’s shift from traditional gasoline-powered cars in recent years to electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids, which now make up a majority of its market. The country had introduced policies and incentives that pushed buyers towards EVs, where they found better cars and better values in the Chinese brands…“Ten years ago, President Xi Jinping and the Chinese automakers decided: ‘We have been chasing global automakers in internal combustion engine vehicles, and we’re not catching up. We’re going whole hog into electric,’” said Dunne…Western automakers tried to stay the course with gasoline-powered cars, and for the most part, so did their JV partners. Now those companies — other than Tesla, which has a factory in Shanghai — are trailing far behind in an effort to keep up with lower priced EVs and hybrids from Chinese automakers, such as BYD…And while Western automakers have all announced plans to sell more electric cars, they’ll be selling gasoline-powered vehicles for at least the next 10 years…And they’re still losing money on EV production, even as Chinese competition gobbles up market share…“They thought they had time that they didn’t have,” Russo said.

European automakers are raising prices of petrol cars and readying discounts on electric vehicles as they brace for yet another challenge - tougher emissions rules that threaten to further shrink profits across the struggling industry…The European Union will drastically lower its cap on automotive carbon dioxide emissions from Jan. 1, meaning at least one-fifth of all sales by most car companies must be EVs to avoid heavy fines…But so far this year only 13% of all vehicles sold in the region have been electric, data from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) lobby group shows…Now the companies will need to sell more EVs, which cost more to make than traditional vehicles, at a time when political and economic uncertainties and declining EV subsidies are deterring consumption, said Mortureux…But carmakers are getting to work, aiming above all to avoid fines that could reach 15 billion euros ($15.76 billion) based on current sales, ACEA chairman Luca de Meo has said…"Carmakers have started with their pricing strategy to steer demand towards battery EVs in order to reach the CO2 targets and avoid potential fines," said Beatrix Keim of the Center for Automotive Research…The price rises will help fund future discounts on EVs, said Denis Schemoul, auto analyst at S&P Global, acting as "an indirect subsidy" for electric car buyers by combustion engine buyers, but very likely hurting margins.

The Democratic Republic of Congo filed lawsuits against Apple Inc. in France and Belgium. In them, it accuses the company of using minerals “pillaged” from the central African nation in its products…Congo’s lawyers have initiated criminal complaints against the US tech giant’s subsidiaries in the two European countries “over the contamination of Apple’s supply chain” with “blood minerals,” according to a statement on Tuesday from Amsterdam & Partners LLP, a law firm working for Congo’s government…Eastern Congo, which is rich in tin, tungsten and tantalum, minerals widely used in electronics including the iPhone, has been wracked by conflicts involving its armed forces and dozens of militant groups for about three decades. The administration of President Felix Tshisekedi accuses neighboring Rwanda of fueling the violence and providing a conduit for traders to smuggle minerals and gold out of Congo. Rwanda has long denied the allegations…The complaints allege that Apple uses minerals that have been “laundered through international supply chains.” They also claim that the firm has also deployed “deceptive commercial practices to assure consumers that the tech giant’s supply chains are clean.”…Congo’s international legal team is tasked with pursuing individuals and companies involved in the “extraction, supply and commercialization of natural resources” that have driven “a cycle of violence and conflict by financing militias and terrorist groups,” according to the statement…This is the first case Congo has filed as part of a strategy to pressure end users who may be using products reliant on minerals that were smuggled or have contributed to conflict.