Directly Current Episode 6: Battery Nationalism and Geopolitics with The Information's Steve LeVine

Has the US lost its manufacturing nerve? EVs and China has become intertwined, mostly because China has developed an unassailable lead in making the most important and most expensive component of any electric car.

They aren’t just a political target just of Donald Trump, who led the charge on an all-out trade war in his first term in office. The Biden administration is imposing a 25% tariff on any vehicle with a Chinese battery pack, and it’s unlikely a Harris administration would change that. Either way, the best batteries are being made in China, and it’s an all out race between the United States and our allies like South Korea to compete.

For this episode of Directly Current, Max speaks with The Information’s Steve LeVine, who runs their reporting on the battery arms race and EVs at large, aptly branded The Electric. Steve is a career journalist who’s covered international affairs in countries like Russia and Kazakhstan, the market for oil in the wake of the soviet union, and most recently, the chaotic new economy and arms race happening with batteries. He even wrote a book about it in 2015. The story of EV batteries is also the story of the world’s greatest superpowers duking it out. Let’s get up to speed with him.

Links:

Steve’s newsletter The Electric

Steve’s 2015 Book, The Powerhouse, on How US Labs Invented The Modern Rechargeable Battery

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