Hyperdrive

For Now, at Least, the World Isn’t Making Enough Batteries

Demand for batteries to power cars and store solar energy has overmatched the world’s few suppliers.

A worker installs wiring for a LG Electronics Inc. solar battery on a home in Lafayette, California, which became the first state in the U.S. to require solar panels on almost all new homes built after Jan. 1, 2020. — A worker installs wiring for a LG Electronics Inc. solar battery on a home in Lafayette, California, which became the first state in the U.S. to require solar panels on almost all new homes built after Jan. 1, 2020.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

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By Brian Eckhouse

October 1, 2018 at 10:00 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Evidence of the battery-powered era is all around us. Electric vehicles are cruising down our freeways. Household appliances thrum with stored solar energy that was until recently a daytime-only power source. Governments from California to China and South Korea—even Donald Trump’s Washington—have taken steps that will make battery power more ubiquitous.

There’s just one hitch to this battery boom: The world isn’t making nearly enough. All of the new demand from North America, Europe and Asia is constrained at the moment by a market that remains heavily dependent on a few producers.