In April 2025, the China Programme published an issue of the Oxford Energy Forum on the topic of EV and battery supply chains. The aim of the Forum was to think about how other world regions are seeking to react to the rapidly increasing dominance of China in global battery and EV supply chains. In this podcast Bill Farren-Price talks to Anders Hove to get an overview of the key themes of the Forum. In particular, they discuss the implications of the Trump administration’s tariffs for EV supply chains in the US and Mexico, how developing world economies are navigating the need to work with China while not becoming overly dependant on new technology imports, and how European countries are facing difficult choices when attempting to localize battery production while protecting home industries. A common theme is diversity: while all countries face similar challenges, and are deploying well-established policy tools, their different starting conditions and resource endowments makes a common approach unlikely. Fragmentation is even evident in Europe, where EU efforts at localizing manufacturing and encouraging tech transfer run up against differing priorities of automakers and member states like Hungary. The strategic and economic importance of the car industry makes it inevitable that countries will continue to search for ways to localize production and compete with China. But China’s first-mover advantage and the immense scale of China’s domestic EV market will make it difficult to replicate China’s success.

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