Apple EV Batteries To Be Made In China. Duh.
Episode 13. Diversity and inclusion loving Apple has always wanted to diversify into EVs. When they do, guess where their batteries will be made? Hint: it doesn't celebrate diversity.
When and if Apple ever makes a car, it will be powered by CATL batteries. CATL is Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited. It’s one of China’s biggest battery makers for the EV world.
Apple is also partnering with Warren Buffet’s favorite China EV maker, BYD. (Which stands for Build Your Dream.)
Reuters reported that Apple will hire both BYD and CATL to supply batteries for its EV efforts. Reuters also reported strong Chinese EV sales in May by Tesla, BYD, and Geely, which makes the Polestar, on sale in the U.S. now for prices ranging from $54,000 to $156,500. (And I think it is sexier than anything Tesla has put out.)
Apple’s EV might use a lower lithium input battery but who cares. All the lithium is processed in China. It’s car will be the iPhone on wheels – assembled, perhaps, in California, and everything else made in China. They’ll live off their beloved IP as California slips into a Mad Max world of pup tents on Venice Beach and solar farms. We will know which EV is Apple’s because the windshields will always be cracked (also made in China).
There remains a great deal of speculation about Apple and CATL, but unless Apple is shamed into going with a Tesla battery, a Panasonic, or one of the two Korean makers in the U.S., then CATL sounds like a total Apple move.
The entire company is dependent on China workers and American consumers. In the virtual world created by the tech overlords, the American consumer shops in Shanghai now.
China haters in Washington (and in the hedge fund community) like to think the CCP is the problem. Without the help of the Davos Universe, a universe in which Apple CEO Tim Cook surely inhabits, they would be a mainland Chinese problem, and maybe a problem for some smaller neighbors.
The Reuters report is just another example of the enmeshed co-dependency of U.S. multinationals and Chinese labor and supply chains. The only ones who can put a dent in this are the American consumer.
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