| |JULY 20238TECH MINTAccording to a report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA), Europe is in danger of losing the race to become a global battery powerhouse as access to raw materials continues to be a significant barrier combined with growing costs and intense competition.The report presented a warning that the European Union might not succeed in achieving its climate targets since such efforts heavily rely on the adoption of electric vehicles, whose batteries are made up of a mixture of metals, including cobalt, nickel, and lithium.The risk of reliance was noted as early as 2008. A European battery alliance was envisioned for 2017. An action plan was established in 2018. Since then, it has been implemented by the Commission, and initiatives are sprouting up all throughout Europe. The announcements even suggest that Europe may be producing too many batteries."By 2030, if companies implement the announced projects successfully, the EU could reach battery production capacity in the range from 714 GWh to 1,200 GWh", the report states ­ enough to satisfy demand from 2025 and equip up to 16 million vehicles a year in 2030. This "exceeds the pre-COVID peak of new registrations of passenger cars and vans" and even "more than double the Commission's production target".Nearly one in five new automobiles registered in the EU in 2021, according to the ECA, the EU's independent external auditor, had an electrical plug.With about 30 million zero-emission vehicles anticipated to be on European roads by 2030 and the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035, demand is projected to grow.The EU's plan, however, has not considered the bloc's capacity to meet this extra battery demand.The raw material supply for the EU is heavily concentrated in a small number of nations with geopolitical risks that could lead to shortages. The ECA stated that the EU relied on imports on average 78 percent for five important materials.The Democratic Republic of the Congo provides almost two thirds of the world's cobalt, China provides 40 percent of the world's natural graphite, and the EU is totally reliant on imported refined lithium. 76 percent of the world's battery production capacity is located in China.Europe will require too much time for extraction. The largest lithium reserves in the EU are in Portugal, although production is not anticipated to begin until 2026.Additionally, the ECA claimed that the EU's lack of cost-competitiveness is partly a result of high energy costs, the EU Commission's statistics being out-of-date and unfinished, and public money being poorly organized and causing overlaps. EUROPE COULD DAWDLE IN BECOMING A GLOBAL BATTERY POWERHOUSEAdditionally, the ECA claimed that the EU's lack of cost-competitiveness is partly a result of high energy costs
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