#automotive-supply-chain

#automotive-supply-chain

There's a key reason why many EVs are expensive. Economies of scale just haven't kicked in as they have for gas cars. Over 100-plus years of building dino-burners, we've gotten pretty good at every individual part. There are plenty of firms that can build fuel pumps, turbochargers, alternators, and radiators at scale, leveraging hundreds of thousand-unit volumes to drive per-unit costs down.

If you want to know where an automaker's priorities lie, sometimes it's better to look not at their latest cars for sale, but at where they're investing money for the future. One recent example: Hyundai expanding its manufacturing presence in the U.S., in part to deepen its customer base here. Another came at the end of November, with General Motors revealing that it will invest $550 million in two plants in Ohio and Michigan where specific components are made.

Lars Klingbeil's trip is the first visit to China by a cabinet minister of the current German government, and the trip to Berlin's most important trading partner comes at a sensitive time. Chinese export controls, especially on rare earths, have highlighted the German economy's heavy dependence on China. The German automotive industry, for example, has felt the effects as it faces a shortage of important parts. The trip comes six months into the current government's term

Small suppliers to Jaguar Land Rover have been asked to put up their family homes as personal guarantees in order to access emergency loans, with no direct UK government support on offer for parts makers a month after the carmaker was hit by a crippling cyber-attack. JLR, Britain's biggest automotive employer, is considering making advance payments to top-tier suppliers as it tries to restart production after the hack, but smaller parts makers warn they are on the brink of collapse without urgent cash injections.

JLR was attacked earlier, too. In March 2025, JLR was targeted by the HELLCAT ransomware group, which compromised Atlassian Jira credentials to steal hundreds of gigabytes of sensitive data. This new attack, leading to the systematic shutdown of production facilities and retail systems, suggests either a ransomware attack or a significant system compromise. Clearly, JLR needs to immediately implement capabilities to prevent lateral movement that attackers resort to after an initial breach, among other cybersecurity controls.