Not really? The questin is, if South Korea stops all cooperation with the EU tomorrow, will that fab continue to be operational? If the answer is "no", then it matters. It matters a lot
If it does go both ways (say "EU stops all cooperation") and the effects are the same, and no one wants the factory to actually shut down, does something start to matter more/less then?
You walk in, as the EU, and assume control of the facility, by force if needed. The value is that the capacity exists within the bounds of your nation state control.
China knows this, developed countries that lost their manufacturing capacity are relearning this.
I think the EU performing such an action is outside the Overton window, at least for now...
China does know that but they knew how to make the deal palatable enough for auto manufacturers (other companies too, but this one IMO is a big factor in the grand scheme[0]) to all sell out one way or another for a stake in the pie, be it cheaper manufacturing or accessing that market.
Developed countries are re-learning it but are struggling with paying the piper. By that I mean, a lot of manufacturing, especially technology based, can be dirty as heck. Doing certain widgets results in environmental costs that have to be managed or externalized[1].
[0] - I posit, that Auto manufacturers probably keep a lot of documentation around, but also have a lot of history of 'good ideas' being killed by business politics one way or another. You can glean a -lot- of manufacturing tribal knowledge being able to access any existing or new incoming data on that set of signals.
You walk in and realize that there is nothing worthwile inside. The knowledge is gone or was never even there, all the inputs are gone, the process is in shambles, all you have is four walls and some bricked machinery. What now?
Doesn't matter if it's humans or robots, as long as they're producing batteries within reasonably stringent environmental constraints.
That being said, extremely disappointing that the world's most populous country can't be arsed to maximize battery output. They don't seem to be anywhere in the rankings.
Ford in partnership with LG is one example. Stationary storage replacing EV demand that did not materialize. Gigafactories intended for EV batteries are now for stationary storage.
Since batteries are highly recyclable, a core material imported once means we never need to import it again.
Recycling is so effective that with the little that we're currently doing (not enough batteries to recycle yet), we get more battery out of the recycling process than what went in. Because the battery manufacturing is improving and getting more kWh out of the same input materials than when the battery was originally made, and the difference is bigger than anything lost to the recycling process.
Batteries and renewable energy generation are not like building an economy on fossil fuels, which is a very fragile economy vulnerable to massive spikes in input costs. Batteries and renewable energy are fundamentally anti-inflation devices.
Well, they've been trying to build a lithium mine in the desert in Nevada, but environmental groups have stalled it for years with lawsuits and protests.
This is why you can't build anything in America anymore.
Batteries don't have rare-earth materials in them. Lithium, nickel, and iron are very plentiful in the US. The "rarest" of materials that might be mined is Cobalt. That, however isn't because it's a hard to find. Rather, cobalt has basically no industrial applications outside of battery production. And, importantly, not all battery chemistries require cobalt, just the nickel manganese cobalt batteries.
Idaho has a cobalt mine that's not currently in operation. The reason is because demand is super low and the artisanal mines in africa are cheaper than spinning up a full industrial mine.
If it's Russia, the biggest colonialist country in the world, using Neo Nazi "PMC", or trying to annex neighboring countries, it's not colonialism, it's "liberation from colonialists".
If it's China doing mass acquisitions of state and private assets, it's not colonialism, it's "development".
If it's a western country doing what ever, it's colonialism lol it's such a dumb propaganda trope.
So the conclusion is that the new western colonialism is actually looking like a pretty good option, and shouldn't have such a bad connotation, perhaps it should be embraced in this new world order no?
It seems to be about percentage of the 2017 production. But does it measure value or volume?
Does it include lithium-based batteries? I believe they were only introduced to the market in the 1990s, but the graph goes back to 1975. Also, how many of these batteries are lead-acid based car batteries, disposable batteries for electronics, rechargeable or not, etc.
I didn't expect this post to attract interest, as my HN submissions are one of my personal bookmarking tools (and in fact the only one that I've used for more than a few months without forgetting about it). Apologies for the obscurity!
This is the physical quantity of battery output, in terms of kWh or number of batteries, probably with some weighting to correlate lithium ion to, say, lead acid batteries (though these days this output is nearly only lithium ion, I would guess).
To truly understand what's going on, there are two other series needed which are linked in the related series:
Also note that the time scale for all three are different, as they apparently started recording these at different times.
FRED data is super useful for a high level view of what's going on in various industries, I highly recommend playing with it if you're ever looking at investing or other spaces to work in!
I think you swapped some links the Value (in $) you linked here is the same as the top post (which is a real-output index), but you probably meant: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A35DVS
Value, 100 equals 2017 production. Actual figures [1].
> Does it include lithium-based batteries?
Yes [2]. Chemistry agnostic.
Note, however, that in 2017 “storage battery manufacturing (NAICS 335911) and primary battery manufacturing (NAICS 335912), were combined into a single 2022 NAICS category: battery manufacturing (NAICS 335910).” So comparing across that isn’t straightforward.
Are you sure that's the data set being used in this graph? Taking 2022's value over 2017's anchored value seems to come out to a ratio far higher than any part of this graph shows for 2022. The description text also says it measures indexed real output and other graphs don't beat around the bush about being value based https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A35DVS
This FRED series isn't directly convertible into GWh easily, but has the advantage of being having monthly numbers. Actual real world wide numbers are usually behind paywalls. As far as open sources: this March 2025 publication has these capacity numbers (presumably for 2024):
“Actual production is at about 30% of total capacity, worldwide, apparently.”
I see this as great news for the future as ramping up production to hopefully meet rising demand should be fairly easy. That is of course assuming demand gets to where it needs to be. Another year or two and the economics should simply provide that boost to demand
I think typical factory production rarely gets above 50% of capacity, IIRC. Nonetheless, factories are being built at breakneck speed in the US and other places.
The same IEA report that cited 1TWh/year in 2024 expects that number to be 3TWh/year in 2030. And given the IEA's tendency to underpredict, I'd expect 3TWh/year in 2027 at the very latest, if we're not already there.
The Sankey chart from my IEA link above shows "Other Asia" is roughly half the size of the Europe and US blobs, so roughly a 100 GWh/year estimate, making the total sum to 3TWh/year.
Asia outside of China does provide a lot of anode and cathode material to battery manufacturers.
[1] https://reasonstobecheerful.world/us-grid-battery-storage/
[2] https://english.news18a.com/news/english_224842.html
[3] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/europes-swelling-wav...
[1] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/share-of-manu...
China knows this, developed countries that lost their manufacturing capacity are relearning this.
I think the EU performing such an action is outside the Overton window, at least for now...
China does know that but they knew how to make the deal palatable enough for auto manufacturers (other companies too, but this one IMO is a big factor in the grand scheme[0]) to all sell out one way or another for a stake in the pie, be it cheaper manufacturing or accessing that market.
Developed countries are re-learning it but are struggling with paying the piper. By that I mean, a lot of manufacturing, especially technology based, can be dirty as heck. Doing certain widgets results in environmental costs that have to be managed or externalized[1].
[0] - I posit, that Auto manufacturers probably keep a lot of documentation around, but also have a lot of history of 'good ideas' being killed by business politics one way or another. You can glean a -lot- of manufacturing tribal knowledge being able to access any existing or new incoming data on that set of signals.
[1] - No, we should not externalize, to be clear.
That being said, extremely disappointing that the world's most populous country can't be arsed to maximize battery output. They don't seem to be anywhere in the rankings.
Most of the US' capacity is a partnership with foreign firms (LG, Panasonic, SK On), so why not put an asterisk on that as well?
U.S. battery industry cuts losses, shifts to new ventures amid EV bust - https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2026/0303 - March 3rd, 2026
Recycling is so effective that with the little that we're currently doing (not enough batteries to recycle yet), we get more battery out of the recycling process than what went in. Because the battery manufacturing is improving and getting more kWh out of the same input materials than when the battery was originally made, and the difference is bigger than anything lost to the recycling process.
Batteries and renewable energy generation are not like building an economy on fossil fuels, which is a very fragile economy vulnerable to massive spikes in input costs. Batteries and renewable energy are fundamentally anti-inflation devices.
This is why you can't build anything in America anymore.
Batteries don't have rare-earth materials in them. Lithium, nickel, and iron are very plentiful in the US. The "rarest" of materials that might be mined is Cobalt. That, however isn't because it's a hard to find. Rather, cobalt has basically no industrial applications outside of battery production. And, importantly, not all battery chemistries require cobalt, just the nickel manganese cobalt batteries.
Idaho has a cobalt mine that's not currently in operation. The reason is because demand is super low and the artisanal mines in africa are cheaper than spinning up a full industrial mine.
Just want to say this is an entertaining euphemism. It isn’t that labor conditions are poor and work is done by hand, it’s “artisanal mining”.
If it's Russia, the biggest colonialist country in the world, using Neo Nazi "PMC", or trying to annex neighboring countries, it's not colonialism, it's "liberation from colonialists".
If it's China doing mass acquisitions of state and private assets, it's not colonialism, it's "development".
If it's a western country doing what ever, it's colonialism lol it's such a dumb propaganda trope.
So the conclusion is that the new western colonialism is actually looking like a pretty good option, and shouldn't have such a bad connotation, perhaps it should be embraced in this new world order no?
Yes, yes, line go up. This is probably good. But the headline only exists on HN.
It seems to be about percentage of the 2017 production. But does it measure value or volume?
Does it include lithium-based batteries? I believe they were only introduced to the market in the 1990s, but the graph goes back to 1975. Also, how many of these batteries are lead-acid based car batteries, disposable batteries for electronics, rechargeable or not, etc.
This is the physical quantity of battery output, in terms of kWh or number of batteries, probably with some weighting to correlate lithium ion to, say, lead acid batteries (though these days this output is nearly only lithium ion, I would guess).
To truly understand what's going on, there are two other series needed which are linked in the related series:
- Producers' price index, how much the manufacturers are charging per unit of batteries https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCU335911335911
- Value (in $) of shipped batteries (roughly price * volume): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A35DVS (thanks for the correction, laser!)
Also note that the time scale for all three are different, as they apparently started recording these at different times.
FRED data is super useful for a high level view of what's going on in various industries, I highly recommend playing with it if you're ever looking at investing or other spaces to work in!
Value, 100 equals 2017 production. Actual figures [1].
> Does it include lithium-based batteries?
Yes [2]. Chemistry agnostic.
Note, however, that in 2017 “storage battery manufacturing (NAICS 335911) and primary battery manufacturing (NAICS 335912), were combined into a single 2022 NAICS category: battery manufacturing (NAICS 335910).” So comparing across that isn’t straightforward.
[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/Current/ipdisk/g...
[2]
[x] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/revisions/Curren...
- US: 200 GWh/year cell production capacity, 750 GWh/year planned additions [1]
- EU: 200GWh/year cell production capacity, 350 GWh/year planned additions [1]
IEA estimates 3TWh/year total world cell capacity in 2024 (not production, but capacity). So let's guess that China had ~2.5 TWh/year back in 2024.
Actual production is at about 30% of total capacity, worldwide, apparently.
[1] https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/transatlantic-clean-investm...
[2] https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/electric-...
I see this as great news for the future as ramping up production to hopefully meet rising demand should be fairly easy. That is of course assuming demand gets to where it needs to be. Another year or two and the economics should simply provide that boost to demand
Asia outside of China does provide a lot of anode and cathode material to battery manufacturers.