No fears from America’s two biggest car makers, GM and Ford, about rising costs for key green metals like lithium, nickel and cobalt, not to mention copper or aluminium.
This week the two giants are pushing ahead with their revamp from old fashioned car makers to full EV rivals of Tesla and other start-ups.
Both revealed more plans for their EV future this week with GM catching the eye with a surprise decision to slash the price of what it plans to be its entry level Bolt model in the US.
The likes of Ford and GM have long histories in handling costs – they survived the two oil shocks, the long period of weak demand after both, invasions of their market by a host of global majors like Toyota. They have dodged and weaved their way through periods of high inflation, low inflation, weak demand and intense competition.
They were saved by the Obama Administration post GFC, but so was the US banking system and dozens of other industries, just as the Trump and Biden administrations saved them and others in 2020 and 2021.
Higher prices for battery metals will not be a game changer for them but an opportunity to attack costs and encourage others to lower theirs. That’s what the likes of Toyota have been doing for decades in Japan – making suppliers bear a lot of the cost of research and development and cost cuts.
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