Much of what Mr. Brunelli suggests in his article is valid.  Access to low cost, high quality EV batteries is essential to the future of U.S. carmakers.  If Chinese carmakers have long-term access to higher quality and lower cost batteries than U.S. carmakers, the U.S. automotive industry will be in grave trouble.  NAATBatt has long warned that “He who makes the batteries will one day make the cars.”  In fact, that was one of NAATBatt’s original tag lines in 2009 (a tag line that generated considerable push-back from major U.S. auto companies at the time).

Yet while Mr. Brunelli is correct in suggesting that U.S. automakers need access to the best and lowest cost EV batteries and that the best and lowest cost EV batteries today are made in China, there is a danger that if U.S. and other auto makers come to rely exclusively or nearly exclusively on Chinese batteries, they will be facilitating the creation of a Chinese battery cartel.  That cartel, if it forms and exercises its resulting market power, can push U.S. and other non-Chinese car makers out of the vehicle market just as effectively as if those carmakers could not compete on price.

U.S. policy today seems focused on keeping Chinese batteries, battery technology and EV’s out of the U.S. market.  I agree with Mr. Brunelli that this focus is misplaced.  The focus should be less on keeping Chinese products out of the U.S. than on making sure that the Chinese products that do come in face viable competition from multiple other sources of supply.  U.S. battery policy should focus less on local protectionism than on squarely preventing the “cartelization” of the battery market.

Protecting U.S. companies and consumers from the dangers of a cartel is not a new concern.   NAATBatt was formed 18 years ago for the purpose of helping to break the power of OPEC over the U.S. economy by introducing another form of fuel to the vehicle sector.  This purpose was soon overshadowed by the fight against climate change.  But first and foremost, NAATBatt was about remediating the impact of a foreign oil cartel on the U.S. economy.

There are two ways to prevent the cartelization of advanced battery supply in North America.  The first is to support the development of multiple sources of battery manufacturing, battery material and battery technology all around the world.  While it would be most beneficial if those sources were located in North America, from the standpoint of fighting cartelization, it does not matter from where those competing supplies come.  It just matters those sources of competing supplies exist.  To that end, the U.S. should be just as interested in supporting the advanced battery industries in Korea and Japan as it should be in building battery manufacturing plants in North America (batteries for defense and critical infrastructure applications, of course, being a different issue).

The second way to prevent the cartelization of batteries is to promote diversity in battery technology.  NAATBatt’s 2025 Sodium-Zinc Battery Workshop recently concluded in Los Angeles.  Many of the workshop presentations pointed out that though sodium and zinc-based technologies have received only a fraction of the attention and investment of lithium-based batteries, they can perform many of the same energy storage applications as can lithium-ion.  Several speakers noted that it is not necessary, for example, that sodium-ion batteries be better than lithium-ion batteries.  It is only necessary that they be able to power some of the same applications as lithium-ion batteries at a price that is at least somewhat competitive.  The price does not really need to be lower.  It is the presence of a viable alternative to lithium that matters.  For it is the mere existence of alternatives that prevents cartels from forming and exercising harmful market power.

So the good news is that the U.S. advanced battery industry should be able to have its cake and eat it too.  There should be nothing wrong with importing Chinese batteries or battery-related technology.  U.S. automakers probably need to do so, at least in the short term.  But in so doing, U.S. industry and the U.S. government must be keenly focused on making sure that Chinese battery companies have viable competitors in the U.S. market and that U.S. battery customers have practical technological alternatives to lithium-ion technology.

Of course, networking is a big part of PowerTrips programs.  Each PowerTrip features a networking lunch or dinner sponsored by the host member.  These meals and breaks during the program allow attendees to get to know the host’s personnel and the personnel of other attendees and explore areas of common business interest.  There is something about meeting industry colleagues during a hands-on manufacturing demonstration that spurs a lot more productive discussion than what occurs at a trade show exhibit booth.  An amazing amount of business gets done during NAATBatt PowerTrip programs, both among attendees and the host and among attendees themselves.

The Rockwell PowerTrip program set a high bar for NAATBatt’s relaunch of the PowerTrip series.  More than 40 NAATBatt member attendees toured several demonstration manufacturing lines and learned how Rockwell Automation technology improves the speed and efficiency of manufacturing processes.  Attendees also heard presentations by senior Rockwell executives, including Rockwell Chairman and CEO, Blake Moret.  The executive presentations covered a wide range of Rockwell interests from emerging manufacturing technology to workforce training.  It was a very interesting and productive day.

Other highlights of the tour included a visit to Rockwell’s 71,800 square foot green roof and a reception atop Rockwell’s landmark Clock Tower, with a truly stunning view of Milwaukee and Lake Michigan.  The reception was punctuated by what appeared to me to be numerous discussions and new business deals being formulated among NAATBatt member attendees.

The success and productivity of the Rockwell PowerTrip virtually ensures that NAATBatt will continue this program.  If you did not join us in Milwaukee, you really missed something special.  Don’t miss the next one.

If you are a Platinum level NAATBatt member and are interested in hosting a NAATBatt PowerTrip program, please contact Paula Szyper or Jim Greenberger.  We hope to announce the next PowerTrip meeting soon.

But in trying to return manufacturing to the United States through tariffs, the Administration may be confusing a symptom with the disease.  The disease is not a lack of manufacturing in the United States.  The disease is that the United States is underinvesting in manufacturing infrastructure.  That underinvestment has led to the symptom of a declining manufacturing sector in general and to the lack of advanced battery manufacturing in the United States in particular.

Advanced battery manufacturing will not take place in the United States just because we want it to or because the government imposes a tariff on importers.  Manufacturing will only take place if investors fund the construction of new battery manufacturing plants and related supply chain infrastructure.  Today, building a Gigafactory requires about a billion dollars of investment, two to three years of construction, and at least 10 years of profitable operation in order for investors to get a favorable return on their investment.

Unless an investor can see a pathway to profitability for that Gigafactory over time, no investment will be made, no factory will be built, and no manufacturing will return to America.

Tariffs can in theory help investors see that pathway to profitability by protecting a Gigafactory project from low-price foreign competition.  But for tariffs to be effective in promoting investment, they need to be “sticky”.  In other words, investors need to have confidence that the tariff regime will remain in place during the entire period that the project needs to operate in order to produce a favorable return on investment.

President Trump’s problem is that while he can impose tariffs at will, he cannot make them stick.  Investors know this.  Given that major portions of the business community, Wall Street, a large majority of Democrats, and a significant number of Republicans oppose the Trump tariffs, the best that President Trump can do is hold his tariff regime in place for four years.  Four years is just not enough time to support the financing of a new battery Gigafactory, or probably any factory that manufactures advanced technology or heavy industry products.

The Trump Administration needs to start over.  Before imposing a tariff regime, it needs to build a political consensus in favor of the kind of tariffs the President wants to impose.  Only if the tariffs have broad political backing will investors trust that they can survive long enough to benefit their investments.

Building a political consensus supporting tariffs means reaching out to the business community, to Wall Street and even to Democrats to sell the potential benefits of the Trump tariff program.  This needs to be done before that program is enacted, not after.  If President Trump is unable or unwilling to build such a consensus, his tariff regime will fail in its intended purpose.  Unpopular tariffs might raise a few dollars for the federal government in the short term.  But they will not return manufacturing investment or manufacturing itself to America.

Participating members had the opportunity to attend InterBattery 2025, the second largest battery conference in Asia (after CIBF in Shenzhen, China) and meet a wide with a range of Asian battery and battery component manufacturers.  The NAATBatt InterBattery program allowed members to interact directly with decision-makers at the large Korean battery companies.  Those decision-makers tend to be located in Korea, not in North America.  The Onshoring Battery Technology Committee’s InterBattery program gave NAATBatt members an opportunity to interact with those decision-makers in a way that North American battery trade shows do not.

InterBattery 2025 was also an opportunity for the NAATBatt Offshoring Battery Technology Committee to speak with Asian companies that might be considering opening or expanding operations in North America.  The Onshoring Battery Technology Committee’s mission is to help companies from outside of North America more easily move operations to North America and connect with potential partners, suppliers and service providers within the NAATBatt membership.

NAATBatt also participated in the U.S. EV Forum organized by the U.S. Embassy in Seoul in connection with the InterBattery 2025 conference.  A large number of Korean battery companies attended the forum, including representatives of the three major Korean battery manufacturers.

I was asked to make remarks at the Forum on behalf of NAATBatt.  I sensed that the Korean battery companies were interested in what I had to say, particularly to the extent my remarks related to the battery policy of the new Trump Administration.  As expected, the Korean battery industry does not know what to make of the major policy announcements related to trade and manufacturing, which seem to change rapidly and appear impossible to predict.

In my remarks I told the Korean audience that I could offer no clarity with respect to U.S. policies affecting battery production, including tariffs, the future of the Inflation Reduction Act or the survival chances of various battery manufacturing tax incentives.  I offered the prediction, however, that the frenetic pace of announcements was likely to slow (if out of exhaustion, if nothing else) and a consistent policy toward manufacturing should soon emerge.  That said, I told the Koreans that I cannot predict what that consistent, less frenetic policy is going to be.

I pointed out, however, that whatever the details of the ultimate government policy will be, the basic strategy that the United States, and its interest in attracting Korean manufacturers to the United States, is clear and unlikely to change.  That strategy has three elements.

First, the United States needs to acquire know-how in advanced battery manufacturing, which it by and large does not have today.  That know-how resides in Asia, much of it in Korea.  The United States will continue to reach out to companies in Korea in order to incent them to share that knowledge with U.S. engineers and technicians.  The transfer of know-how, however, will not be a one-way street.  Korean companies should reasonable expect to share in the markets, culture of innovation and world-class research capabilities that U.S. companies and research institutions can provide to them.  The transfer of know-how that the U.S. desires will require a partnership.

The second element of the U.S. strategy is the need to build North American battery manufacturing to scale.  It is abundantly clear that the winners in the world-wide competition for dominance of the lithium battery and automotive markets will be those companies, and those countries, that can produce high-quality products at the lowest cost.  The primacy of low cost in this competition is at this point beyond question.

Manufacturing batteries at the lowest possible cost involves many factors.  But the one indispensable factor is that manufacturing must take place at scale.  Without the ability to amortize the huge capital costs of manufacturing lithium batteries over very large-scale production, making the lowest cost lithium battery will be near to impossible.

China is a case in point.  The Chinese lead the world today in battery manufacturing principally because they have leveraged the scale of the largest EV market in the world in order to reduce the cost of the lithium batteries their companies produce.  This strategy has worked well for the Chinese.  But here is a secret:  As large as the Chinese auto market is, the combined potential EV markets in the United States, Europe, Japan and Korea are even larger.  If those markets can somehow be consolidated, the United States, Europe, Japan and Korea can recapture the advantage of scale from the Chinese.  But this too will require a partnership.

The third element is securing the supply chain for lithium battery materials and components.  Back in the 1970’s, the United States became highly dependent upon a commodity (petroleum), which was largely controlled by a small number of foreign producers.  The United States paid a heavy price for that dependence.  Over following decades that dependence forced the U.S. to spend trillions of dollars to manage affairs in a part of the world might otherwise have had little interest to American policymakers.  The United States will never let this happen again.  But preventing its re-occurrence in the area of energy materials sector will require cooperation with nations in Asia that have, make or process the battery materials and components that the United States will need in the 21^st Century.  This too will require a partnership between U.S. and Asian firms.

Lithium battery technology is one of the most critical technologies of the 21^st Century.  It is becoming more critical by the day.  Securing the U.S. economy’s ability to manufacture that technology profitably and securely is not something that the United States can do alone.  It will require partnerships with allied nations in Asia.  No government policies, however frenetic, will change this fundamental fact.

The positive reactions to the meeting contrasted with uncertainty about the state of the industry as a whole.  No one really knows what is going on in Washington, D.C.  It appears that the Trump Administration has not yet taken a position, favorably or unfavorably, on advanced battery technology.  During a first 100 days filled with chaos and radical change, the fact that no one in the Administration seems to be paying attention to batteries may well be a good thing.

Yet while the chaos and radical change in Washington grabs headlines, the presentations made by speakers and NAATBatt member firms during the NAATBatt 2025 meeting underline the fact that Washington is a side show.  Technological advances will determine whether the manufacture of advanced battery technology in North America will be commercially successful, not government policy.  And those advances keep coming.  A session on AI in the battery industry made some interesting predictions about where the most important technology advances are likely to occur in the battery space.

The “What Would a Moonshot in Advanced Batteries Look Like” panel focused less on new technology and more on the importance and challenges of reducing cost.  A culture of innovation is the key advantage of  North American advanced battery makers.  But commercializing that innovation will remain challenging as long as oversupply in China keeps prices artificially and unsustainably low in North America.  Panel members Stan Whittingham, Craig Rigby, Joern Tinnemeyer and David Howell agreed upon the centrality of this problem, but could not agree on a solution.

The best part of NAATBatt 2025, as always, was the Member Update Presentations.  This year, 170-member companies signed up to give presentations.  Collectively those presentations provided a better understanding of who is working on what in the North American advanced battery market than any study or report.  The presentations as a whole were as inspiring as they were impressive.

2025 will likely see continued technological progress in advanced batteries and, hopefully, greater certainty about federal government policy supporting it.  NAATBatt looks forward to reviewing that progress and that certainty at its 18^th annual meeting, NAATBatt 2026, on February 9-12, 2026, at the JW Marriott Starr Pass hotel in Tucson, Arizona.

First is that advanced batteries and electric vehicles are not the product of government policy.  They are the product of fundamental changes in energy and automotive technologies that will continue regardless of political leadership.  Government policy cannot affect the existence of this change (though it can affect its pace).  Politics will not prevent the adoption of a superior technology by U.S. businesses and consumers.  As long as we in industry keep our eye on the ball, no change in government policy will cripple our industry.  And the ball is: better, cheaper, faster.

Second, there is a difference between politics and policy.  Modern EV’s, which are still a new and relatively expensive technology, make a great punching bag for a political coalition marketing itself to hard-pressed blue-collar workers.  My guess is that Henry Ford took political heat in the early 20^th Century from politicians representing the vast majority of U.S. voters, who could not yet afford his products.  But Henry Ford got his costs down and ended up doing just fine.

Third, a new approach to some of the challenges of the advanced battery industry in the United States might prove refreshing, and perhaps even beneficial.  Everyone who runs a business appreciates the prime importance of efficiency.  A new focus on efficiency could be beneficial to all good businesses in our industry.

Focusing on the fundamental needs of business in the battery industry could be even more beneficial.  As I have long observed, every business has two problems: a balance sheet problem and an income statement problem.  Over the last four years the federal government has provided necessary and invaluable assistance to many of our members in solving their balance sheet problem.  If the next Administration chooses to focus more on the income statement problem, our industry could benefit as well.

Finally, China.  I have written previously in this blog that we need a new approach to China.  What that approach needs to be and what issues that approach needs to cover go well beyond batteries.  While I will not weigh in on the wisdom of across the board tariffs on everything made in China (and everywhere else), it strikes me that a deal needs to be cut with the Chinese.   Because of the peculiarities of U.S. politics, it needed to be Nixon who went to China.  McGovern could never have done it.  So let’s see what happens in 2025.

I do not wish to discount the apprehension in our industry or to be overly Pollyannaish.  The advanced battery industry received unprecedented moral and financial support over the last four years, which it badly needed.  It may be that we will not have that level of support over the next two to four years.  But the future is far from bleak.  We have a strong technology wind at our back.  The best days of the advanced battery, EV and renewable energy industries lay before us, not behind.  Let’s just keep charging ahead.

Representatives from more than 50 companies and government agencies participated in the forum.  The participants represented the entire breadth of the lithium battery supply chain in the United States.  Avicenne Energy US and Ricardo Strategic Consulting North America led and facilitated the various forum sessions.

The forum has not yet published its final report.  That report will be subject to further discussion and debate among the forum’s participants.  I hope to be able to announce the publication of a final report in this column within the next few weeks.

The principal take-away for me from the forum is that there is an appetite in both industry and government for some sort of track and trace scheme for high capacity lithium batteries in the United States.  It is unclear whether the scheme should be mandatory or optional, or possibly both.  But the forum identified four categories of value that a track and trace scheme could create that might justify the cost of its creation.

The first value is the creation of measurable data that will allow the government and those in industry to understand better the state and stability of the lithium battery supply chain.  This data is already needed to evidence qualification for Section 30D tax credits.  But the data collected has an even more important utility.  To truly understand a supply chain, you must be able to measure it.  And to protect and build a supply chain, you have to fully understand it.  China launched just such an initiative in January of this year.  The Industrial Internet Identification and Analysis System ‘Thorough’ Action Plan (2024-2026), sometimes referred to as the 3-3-1 strategy, seeks to enable precise network coordination across systems, enterprises and regions through the collection of track and trace data.  The United States needs a similar resource.

The second value is increasing the efficiency of lithium battery supply chain by lowering data collection costs.  Most if not all of the major vehicle OEM’s already collect track and trace data in order to understand their own supply chains.  But they collect it in different ways and disclose it, if at all, in different formats.  These different data formats require suppliers and downstream users of battery materials to be able to work in and master multiple different formats of battery data.  This increases cost and often results in certain downstream users (e.g., recyclers) not being able efficiently to get the information they need.  Having battery data reported consistently throughout the supply chain would reduce system costs and ultimately reduce the cost of batteries.

The third value is reliable and consistent reporting of battery state of health to consumers.  Vehicle OEM’s and battery manufacturers already have the ability to judge battery state of health and report it to consumers.  Providing that information to consumers is a good business opportunity.  But there is no way that consumers can really compare battery state of health across different brands and battery systems.  It is important to consumers buying a vehicle that they be able to compare apples to apples.  There is, perhaps, a role for government to play in facilitating that ability to compare.

Finally, there may be a role for government to play in facilitating the communication of ESG information from vehicle and battery makers to consumers.  A large part of the EU’s Battery Passport is devoted to collecting information on carbon content, responsible sourcing, recycled content and other ESG topics, which the EU uses to establish minimum requirement for manufacturers to sell high capacity batteries in the EU.  Among the industry participants in the forum, there was not much enthusiasm for making minimum standards of ESG compliance a requirement to sell batteries or vehicles in the United States.  But there was a recognition that there might be value in providing that information to consumers on a consistent basis across brands, allowing consumers to compare apples to apples.  It was noted that there might be benefit to adopting the ESG measurement systems already developed by the EU in its Battery Passport systems in the United States, albeit on a voluntary basis, rather than reinventing the ESG wheel.

Li-Bridge will work to finalize its recommendations with respect to tracking and tracing battery data.  Those recommendations will then be considered by government regulators and policy makers, who will ultimately control what track and trace scheme for batteries the United States eventually adopts.

In developing a final battery track and trace scheme, however, it will be important to proceed with caution.  There is a lot of very interesting data that can be collected from batteries.  And there are a lot of very cool ways to collect it.  As such there will be no shortage of advocates for battery data collection.

We need to keep in mind, however, that data itself is not an asset.  It is a cost.  How you use data is what can make it an asset.  In deciding what battery data to collect and how, regulators and policy makers must be very careful to make sure that the value of how we use the data collected always exceeds the cost of its collection.  This will require a highly disciplined approach to developing a suitable track and trace scheme for lithium batteries in the United States.

Ralph’s resume reads like a laundry list of positions and accomplishments.  He was a past President of the Electrochemical Society. He was an advisor to most of the national laboratories working on advanced battery technology.  He published more than 110 articles and was awarded five patents.  And that barely scratches the surface.  Yet he was also one of the kindest, most decent and most humble men you could ever hope to meet.

Ralph’s most enduring impact on U.S. industry grew out of his article “Factors Affecting U.S. Production Decisions: Why Are There No Volume Lithium-Ion Battery Manufactures in the United States?” published in December 2006.  In that article, Ralph was the first to sound the alarm about the loss of lithium-ion battery manufacturing capability in the United States and the long-term consequences of that loss.

Over the past few years, federal and state governments have made unprecedented investments in electric vehicles and supply chain projects to try to help U.S. manufacturers and U.S. workers regain the lead in lithium-ion battery manufacturing. The revised Section 30D tax credit will inject about $7.5 billion of investment into U.S.-made electric vehicles.  The Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit should generate tax credits of about $30.6 billion to U.S. manufacturers through 2031.  An additional $13.8 billion of subsidies has been awarded by states and localities to at least 51 electric vehicle and lithium-ion battery plants.  Every single one of those investments can trace its origin to Ralph Brodd and his 2006 article.

I first met Ralph in 2007.  It was Ralph who convinced me to found NAATBatt in order to address the looming crisis of lithium battery technology in the United States.  That effort in turn caught the attention of a first-term Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.  The rest is history.

Now Ralph belongs to history.  He had more impact on it than many realize.  Our sincere condolences to Dorothy and to the rest of the Brodd family.  Ralph will be sorely missed.