Western Battery Technology Aims to Leapfrog China’s Mineral Dominance

Battery startups aim to bypass China with homegrown materials, but one analyst says the West should back rising lithium-ion producers like Hungary or Korea.

A worker is pictured with car batteries at a factory of Xinwangda Electric Vehicle Battery Co., which makes lithium batteries for electric cars and other uses, in Nanjing in China's eastern Jiangsu Province, on March 12, 2021. STR/AFP via Getty Images

China’s stranglehold on the battery market could be loosened with emerging technology that substitutes hard-to-source minerals with alternatives widely available in the West, such as sulphur, according to some U.S.-based manufacturers.

Over the past three decades, China has steadily maintained a grip on the production and manufacturing of every component of battery cells, the current lithium-ion batteries that are integral to modern societies.