Saudi Arabia’s EV Battery Bets Are a Warning
Apart from China, no country has managed to achieve manufacturing scale. That may be about to change.
Going green?
Photographer: Amer Hilabi/AFP/Getty Images
The world’s oil capital wants to go electric and get clean. To do so, it’s getting its hands on minerals critical for batteries and taking a stake in the electric vehicle-supply chain. That should put countries and companies prone to announcing ambitious plans but then doing little to make them a reality on high alert.
As shortages loom and firms attempt to secure prohibitively expensive resources in a bid to scale up manufacturing, Saudi Arabia has drawn in lithium miners and battery makers to set up operations, filling a critical gap. The country wants 30% of cars on its capital city’s roads to be electric by the end of this decade.