Full documentary [French Subs] – Made in Europe: from mine to electric vehicle

Storyrunner collaboration with SIM² KU Leuven

Pourquoi ce documentaire ?

L’Europe est-elle vraiment en train de somnoler vers l’abîme ? Le tsunami imminent des véhicules électriques chinois va-t-il anéantir l’industrie automobile européenne ? Le documentaire “Made in Europe” examine les défis auxquels l’Europe est confrontée lorsqu’elle tente de mettre en place sa propre chaîne de valeur, entièrement intégrée, de la mine au véhicule électrique. Le film sert de signal d’alarme pour éviter que la stratégie de décarbonisation de l’Europe ne débouche sur une désindustrialisation cauchemardesque. Au contraire, le documentaire montre que la transition de l’Europe vers la neutralité climatique peut aller de pair avec une réindustrialisation basée sur les technologies propres. Fabriqué en Europe. Le présentateur du film, Peter Tom Jones, entreprend un road trip dans les pays nordiques, en commençant par les mines emblématiques d’Aitik et de Kiruna dans le nord de la Suède, après quoi il visite des sites clés dans le sud de la Finlande (Espoo, Harjavalta, Uusikaupunki, Salo) à la recherche des meilleures pratiques en matière de raffinage responsable, de production de batteries et d’assemblage de véhicules électriques. En plus de descendre à 1 400 mètres sous terre et d’interviewer des dirigeants d’entreprises et des experts, M. Jones s’entretient avec un porte-parole clé du peuple autochtone Sami, éleveur de rennes, dans sa région natale de Sapmi, avant de rencontrer des citoyens locaux dans la ville arctique de Kiruna. En raison de l’importance de la loi de l’UE sur les matières premières critiques et de son impact probable sur tout ce qui concerne les VE, Jones s’entretient avec le vice-président exécutif de la Commission européenne, Maroš Šefčovič, afin d’obtenir un point de vue depuis Bruxelles.

Données clés

L’équipe : Réalisateur : Stijn Van Baarle (Storyrunner) ׀ Présentateur : Peter Tom Jones (SIM² KU Leuven) ׀ Caméraman : Michael Van de Velde ׀ Techniciens du son : Casimir De Kimpe & Marius Acke ׀ Graphiste : Jasper Vander Elst

Financement : Cofinancement par Horizon Europe EXCEED, Horizon Europe ENICON et SIM2/SOLVOMET KU Leuven.

Avec, entre autres, Jan Moström, Ulrika Huhtanisaka, Stefan Mikaelsson, Anders Sand, Paivi Kinnunen, Esa Peuraniemi, Matthew Congleton, Pasi Rannus, Maroš Šefčovič.

Remerciements et financement

Financé par l’Union européenne. Les points de vue et opinions exprimés sont toutefois ceux des auteurs uniquement et ne reflètent pas nécessairement ceux de l’Union européenne ou de HADEA et CINEA. Ni l’Union européenne ni l’autorité de subvention ne peuvent en être tenues pour responsables. Cofinancé par la KU Leuven (SIM² KU Leuven et SOLVOMET)

Plus d’informations ?

Contactez le Dr. Peter Tom Jones à la KU Leuven (https://www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/en/person/00025315)

Make no mistake about it the tsunami of Chinese electric vehicles is Coming and Europe is sleep walking into an Abus decarbonization is leading to de-industrialization in Europe and the competition isn’t always Fair sometimes it it feels that we are not competing on the same rules with our competitors if it’s not fair we have to just simply use our uh trade defense mechanisms as long

As the European automotive industry will start the feeling much better than today we need to get our act together from mine to electric vehicle in 10 years how many new mines do you think we will have in Europe I hope that we talk about at least something between 10 to 15 if the

European car industry wants a future we in the Nordic would be happy to provide the critical raw materials needed to make it happen and the Nordic countries lead by Example we start this documentary at the itic copper mine in the North of Sweden the largest open pit Mar in Europe Dr Peter Tom Jones an environmental scientist and climate activist has made a case here for more mining in Europe to counter climate change but by this he refers to more responsible

Mining responsible mining means minimizing environmental impact safe working conditions while respecting local communities and more responsible mining is also indispensable because the demand for critical materials will Skyrocket by 2040 just look at the figures for lithium Cobalt and nickel we will need these materials in much greater

Quantities if we want to eliminate our dependency on polluting fossil fuels in this documentary the director of the Ku lervin Institute for sustainable metals and minerals goes one step further what if we would show more and I in Europe what if we would take the whole supply chain for our green

Technologies back into our own hands from mine to electric vehicle is that possible my answer is yes we can here in the noric countries they have the resources they have the Technologies and they have the desire to do So even in a geopolitically unstable world with the Russian invasion of Ukraine the threat posed by China and the Everlasting Middle East conflict the Nordic countries are doing well according to the Bloomberg new energy Finance rankings the Nordic countries are the best inclass in terms of Industry Innovation and infrastructure with

Finland just leading its neighbors Sweden and Norway in terms of the overall ranking they are not top of the league yet China is the Undisputed leader because of the sheer quantity of their natural resources and the size of their economy with the arrival of the brand new critical raw materials act there is

New Hope for Europe to be less dependent on other countries but isn’t it too little too late take for instance the car industry the European car industry used to be one of the most flourishing sectors of our economy but with the rapid explosion of EVS electri elect Vehicles everything is changing very

Rapidly in the coming years we will see the Chinese car industry grab a much larger slice of the market Chinese electric vehicles from a host of different brands will be 20 to 40% cheaper than their European Rivals how are consumers going to react well they probably won’t be able to

Resist so an electric car is basically just a computer on Wheels it needs a lot of it and it needs a lot of critical raw materials and these are the two things that China has in large quantities which makes it difficult for Europe to compete electric vehicles require about

Six times more critical Metals than conventional petrol or diesel cars the battery contains lithium Cobalt and nickel the motor requires magnetic materials based on rare earth metals such as neodymium EVS also contain more than a mile of copper wiring inside the electric motor as a result EVS need more

Than double the copper of a regular car everybody knows that China is endowed with loads of critical metals but what comes at a surprise to many is that Europe in fact also has in its Bedrock quite a lot of critical metals that we can exploit and

Extract we have arrived in kiruna in the very North of Sweden 200 km above the Arctic Circle in this iconic town the state-owned mining company lkab discovered in the beginning of 2023 the largest deposit of rare earth metals in Europe the famous Pera deposit this discovery could be a real

Game Cher for our green transition we are allowed to go as close as possible to perer hello hello or welcome to kir and or will be our guide I we have chosen beautiful day on the ground it’s fantastic and for September It’s a Wonderful Kina weather

The ground we will not see this one no it’s kind of hard we’re now going into the car and driving about 1,000 M underground to see one exploration me you you you must be joking thousand met that’s impossible no it’s 1,000 M underground and we’re also going to eat

On the what I think is the deepest underground restaurant in the world we are not taking an elevator but we are going by car driving more than 1,000 M deep through kilomet of pitch black tunnels I guess you can really get lost here if if you take the wrong exit uh

Yes you can get lost but there are there are emergency signs everywhere so if you just follow them you it may take some time but you’ll get out on the other side so I visited a lot of open pit mines but this is a completely different experience and underground mine but it’s

Very important because we’re on our way to the exploration tunnel for this perer Rare Earth deposit where we hope also to find some neodymium and neodymium is extremely important for developing strong permanent magnet magnets for electric cars and wind turbines and in our labs in luren we’ve already done

Quite a lot of tests to show how strong these neodymium iron bar and magnets can be and it’s really spectacular and this is a neodymium magnet we put a magnet here so let’s check how strong it really is this magnet can lift over a thousand times its own weight and these are the

Magnets used in electric vehicles and this is what we’ll be focusing on in our project today Europe is completely dependent on China for imports of neodymium and China’s near Monopoly has had alarming price effects in the past in 2011 China implemented export quotas on neodymium leading to a temporary price increase of

700% and this could easily happen again before we drive to the illustrious peir GAO deposit or wants to show us what European mining these days is all about wow this is a a little city in itself yeah it is and it’s at more than 1,3 300 M underground we’ve arrived at a

New different world the nerve center of the mine we have coffee rooms restaurants ordinary offices wow this is really impressive I did not imagine you can make offices like this at this depth so it’s safe here it’s not going to collapse no it’s safer it takes too long

To go above ground so we have restaurant both above ground and underground oh my God what’s what’s happening here this is amazing what is all this this is where we load and with they work with hydraulic Stone knockers and then this is instead of being down in

The mine we can sit here in a control room using yellys sticks controls of Xbox or PlayStation PlayStation at 1400 M dep isn’t it strange miners doing their job while playing PlayStation Peter Tom Jones gets the chance to show if he’s any good at

It how do I move how do i h yeah you have to feel you have to feel but that’s easier said than done now now he he he thinks he’s loading here what are we doing so with all this Tim are you one of the most modern Min in the world yes

We we aim to be you aim to be but yes you’re not yet or are you um I can’t specifically tell about the other mines but that’s our goal to be one of the modern or the most modern mine in the world and we have come a pretty long way to get There now we can finally drive to the pera deposit since the discovery in the beginning of 2023 miners have been drilling a tunnel from the operational mine to Europe’s largest Rare Earth deposit it contains about 1.3 million tons of rare earth oxides including neodymium that are waiting to be

Mined so we see the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning it’s up to you to choose hello hello welcome welcome to the exploration Rift for p depart we are we finally made it after a long travel down so how far are we from the

Beginning of the perger deposits here uh approximately 5 km but the total length of the exploration Rift is around 8 km so you still need to dig 5 km to get there we have a lot of water here yeah it’s not from if you look at the roof

And and everywhere it’s not it’s it’s from the from the drill rig so it’s no no water from the face or from the tunnel itself it’s from the it’s from the drill rig and the the drilling so here we have reached the end of the tunnel which symbolizes the

Future of Europe 5 km further we have the pera Rare Earth deposit which can provide us with the critical met that we need for a transition to clean energy clean mobility and which also allows us to set up the full value chain from mine to EV in Europe and that’s what we really Want but the mine gives and the mine takes the city is literally sinking into the Earth 125 years of mining has taken its toll we have a the shake every yeah night and sometimes in the day in the day it’s not explosions but the mountain is setting uh together and do you already

See a real physical impact of that to the houses that they start cracking yeah it starts cracking some in some places 6,000 kiruna residents or onethird of the population are forced to relocate the the old houses are being demolished so here behind the the blue fences you can see the beginning of the

Moving of the city these buildings have already been dispossessed and of course it gives a bit of a strange feeling bit of loneliness of the fact that this city is moving but when we talk with the locals in karuna the overwhelming majority doesn’t seem to mind that much because

They believe that the the expansion of the mine is necessary for the future of kiruna how do you feel psychologically about the fact that you have to move no everybody here accept it I’m positive about it I think it’s great I I like it

I’m working in the in the in the m so it’s it’s it’s marvelous it’s necessary for kid so we can still work and live here if you live in an apartment that you rent you get a new place and if you live in an apartment or house that you

Own you get money for it if we cannot take up the blocks from the mine no kir uh kir won’t survive a few kilometers away from the old city center they are building a new one a very modern one we stand here in front of the famous kiruna Church an iconic building that

Was voted from some time ago as the most beautiful building of Sweden 600 tons of wood and the strange thing about this particular church is that it will be moved in its entirety because of the expansion of the mine how they’re going to move this church I have no idea but

They claim that they will do it in 2026 despite all the positive comments of the locals there is one group of people that resists the indigenous Sami population they have lived in and with nature for Millennia fishing hunting and reindeer husbandry are Central to Sami culture and Society the new mining expansion goes against everything they stand for

Hello Stefan Boris Boris welcome to sa me thank you for willing to speak to me yes thank thank you for invitation I have some questions for you don’t know if it’s safe for me to to stand here yes of course why not I have no food so reindeer husbandry is your history and

Your presence yes it is following my ancestors CH choice choice of life and culture yeah and I understand that you believe this way of living is under pressure now from the mining industry here and potential expansions of the mining yes is that the case yes the green transition and the

Demands from European Union puts a very big pressure on the indigenous peoples of the Arctic we are not the entertainment for European union or Europeans we have the right to continue with our culture and livelihoods and re their husbandry if we choose so ourselves and we do obviously do

So during large periods in the year 250,000 of the Sami reindeer are free to graze wherever they want in the Northern parts of Sweden Finland and Norway the mining expansion is disrupting their grazing routes as the landscape is fragmentized and this reindeer husbandry is not only their culture but also their

Food climate change is escalating and it affects everything that is living and it also affects animals and and parasites and diseases are spreading heading to the north that we have never seen before I feel your your pain absolutely uh on the other hand of course we we know that

Without Metals we we can’t make a transition to a climate neutral economy uh when the metals are available here in the north isn’t there a possibility to do it in a way that is socially ecologically culturally responsible we can live without Metals but we can’t live without food if we don’t have the

Possibility to have a food sovereignty as indigenous peoples we have lost one huge and important item for our culture survival the one of the few remaining possibilities to combat climate change for coming generation will be lost and it will be lost forever it is not in amazonus the solution lies only it but

Also up here in the circum poolar Arctic so you don’t see any possibility of a Reconciliation a model in which you share benefits with the mining companies here not if it’s indigenous people to sit with a with a with a bill in the end Dr Peter Tom Jones feels for the

Army their fight for nature and their cultural heritage their plea for a less consumerist society as a DieHard vegetarian and dedicated cyclist Jones fully supports these arguments in his personal life but in a world of 9.7 billion people in 20150 Global degrowth just doesn’t seem very realistic I really feel the Sami

Perspective I really understand the Sami perspective but it is a local perspective and we have to look at this also from a global point of view to meet the climate targets we need so much Metals the question is where are we going to get the metals from are we

Going to mine in regions where human rights are atrocious in regions where biod diversity is been destroyed or are we going to try to do it in those places where we do it in a responsible way that is a fundamental question for me it’s a difficult question a majority

Is in favor of more mining here in the North of Sweden only a small minority is against it the indigenous Sami we have a meeting with Yan moom the CEO of lkab and the president of eurom Mines nice to meet you nice to meet you thank you for

Having me here we talk about the future of mining for energy transition metals in Europe here um in the north of uh Sweden we have the impression that by and large people are in favor of responsible mining of critical Metals except one group which is uh likely the to be the

Sami population so do you have any specific uh plans and how to involve them and get them on board of your your activities course most important thing to have a continuous dialogue with sis and and all stakeholders and what’s I think is important and that is important

For us as a mining company but for all stakeholders is that the most important issue in In Our Lifetime will be how to deal with the climate change and now when we are in the Artic part of of scandinav Ava here we really can see the climate change and the impact and thei

Can see it themselves as well because the reinder are being affected that their culture is being affected so of course we have to have that dialogue and say the only way we can change this is to to reduce our enormous consumptions of oil coal and gas and there are only

One way to do that and that starts in the mine the whole climate change is a question about how to get access to metals and minerals that make it possible to produce electricity to store its electricity and use it but what’s Yan Mam’s opinion on more mining of lithium Cobalt and nickel three

Essential Elements for the battery industry and yes we have these critical Metals in our Bedrock for instance look at this map that highlights all known lithium deposits in Europe there are loads of them your educated guest in 10 in 10 years years how many new mil do

You think we will have in Europe oh make a guess I I I hope that we talk about at least something between 10 to 15 but uh I think that is a stretch in the 10 years perspective but I say 15 years that that we would have an

Exponential increase so we perhaps talk about something the double I I think we have a a critical mass of of of uh the population Europe understands that that this is necessary to do but not in my backyard so so we have to find a a way of of getting a clearer understanding of

Yes sorry but for the greater good we have to do it and we have to do it here because a deposit is where it is you can’t move it it’s not as a factory you can decide if you want to have a giga Factory here or there but the Theos it

Is there can we develop a different mining model which is more a benefit sharing Community Centric model where the local community also profits directly from the activity I think so we have quite good local understanding and acceptance of mines and you even have the acceptance of most people that they will have to

Move part of the town to yeah we moving actually we’re moving Two Towns both man B and now here K and you’re moving the 600 ton Church to the other side of the town so that’s correct good look with moving that church I’m very curious to

See how this will be done yeah it will be done in a very professional and good way I’m sure it may come as a surprise but new on the list of critical Metals is copper Humanity’s oldest friend in itic they mine copper in a responsible way we have

To be careful with our choice of words I don’t like the term sustainable mining because mining cannot be sustainable you cannot mine metal ores from a location because they don’t grow back like with a forest but I do believe in the concept of responsible mining responsible mining

Means that we mine with a minimum environmental social and cultural impact in the best possible way meeting the most stringent ESG environment social and governance criteria wow one crucial element of responsible mining is safety first time ever in a mining truck in itic safety is a priority driving a mining truck is far

Safer than being a taxi driver in Stockholm they say it’s going to be Fun this is a rumor that female drivers here are better drivers than male drivers I agree you agree yes I agree what’s the reason for that I think we are gentle to the machine you have more patient and the sa we think about the saf so the male drivers drive the little

SUVs and the female drivers drive the big Chucks yes that’s how it should be so what you can see here is responsible mining in action we are sitting in an electrified mining truck driven by a female employee only in Sweden and Finland you can see that wow Tina thank you very much for

This very exciting trip my kids will be jealous I’ve just been in a 600 ton mining truck awesome but now I really need to know more about what is mined here why is copper so important I’m going to find out thank you very much see you next time all the best

Cheers Jones has a meeting with the research director of bolidan Minds on Anders Sun at the very bottom of the pit Anders knows a thing or two about the importance of copper for the green transition lithium is the poster boy for the clean Mobility Revolution why should

We bother about copper I have a piece of copper here actually from this mine and uh I think what you need to think about is that copper it is uh the bread and butter of society and especially talking about uh electrification and what we plan to do with green energy then we

Will need a lot more copper so does that mean that copper is then a critical metal uh it is now listed on the EU list of critical and strategic Metals so if it’s listed then it means we should be worried about the security of Supply if you think of reare Earth oxides for

Instance then you might need you might cover the demand by one mine but uh with copper just for the electric mobile ability you would probably need in the order of 10 miles of this size 10 10 miles of this huge mega monster side yes you must be joking I’m dead serious because I’m

Finnish okay the three largest copper producing countries are Chile Peru and China only a tiny fraction of our bread and butter is produced within the borders of the European Union so taking into account the much higher salaries in Europe how do you compete with the other mins in the rest

Of the world it’s true that we are competing on a on a global market but one advantage that we have here in in the north is that we have access to to quite cheap and green energy but we also we constantly need to work with uh our productivity and uh process efficiencies

Can you give an example on how you can further boost productivity here well one example is uh our automation program so we have one example of an automated truck here behind us uh so we are doing an evaluation now in the mind of uh testing out automat are you serious that

You’re allowing monster trucks to drive on their own we think it is safe yes a lot of people are claiming that we need to open new minds other people would say we need to solve the problem by recycling more the thing is that you can’t recycle

What you don’t have in the cycle yet so for nickel Cobalt rare Earths lithium we need a primary input first and then maybe in 20 25 years then we can close the circle and we can rely upon a recycling economy fully and we don’t need this primary influx Anymore what’s the policy of the European Union in the last 10 years almost no new mines have been opened but times are changing and since the Russian invasion of Ukraine everyone knows how important resources are today I have a meeting with maros sovich the Executive Vice President of the European

Commission if someone can move the needle then it’s this guy I’m really curious to hear his opinions European commissioner maros sovich is one of the architects of the critical raw materials Act and the European battery Alliance he is also responsible for the implementation of the European green

Deal you have very popular name I mean I know in a pop music or I understanding critical the meeting is friendly but more importantly what’s his vision on mining in Europe I know that mining had a bad name because of the history but totally we are in different Century we have

Different Technologies we have different rules we know how to do it in Europe we just have to have a couple of successful projects where we’ll prove look this is how it should be done so member states and investors would would start to believe again in European mining the

Typical number that we hear is that we need at least 10 to 15 new mines for energy transition metals by 2030 do you think this is realistic to to have 13 mines open and being able to process the extraction material in in seven years it’s it’s very ambitious even for

Ambitious commission so I would say we need to go in that direction the mining had this bad AA around it uh but I think that we are gradually changing we would be the most sustainable on this planet because it’s our EOS this is how we do the thing I’ve seen recently that

Clearly the political mood in terms of mining in Europe has has changed for the better but the investment modood hasn’t we still see that investors prefer to put their money in Giga factories rather than in mind so how do we how do we get the investors on board I I I would say

That the that the same mood as it is now with mines was was five years with with Giga factories when I was starting with European battery lines there was also lots of hesitation in that regard but what the investors need to see are the first successful projects and then the

More changes but we need to make it a little bit easier for investors to come and invest but it’s not just about mining the metals in Europe we also need to Pro process and refine them into high Purity Metals how can we as Europe become less dependent here in Finland they show us

The way this is the heart of the smelter so to say and three people are managing the whole thing of course we have a separate contol room for the ASD plants but this is for the smelter in the past decades the refining industry has moved primarily to China

Look at the Chinese market share for refining critical Metals the Chinese are in this domain even more dominant than in mining itself can you explain to me why the Chinese have become so powerful in the refining business for copper nickel lithium Rare Earth anywhere anything they have been investing on

Different processing Technologies for decades already plus they have been um sourcing raw materials for their processes globally so how can we then still compete with them what’s our competitive Advantage we have to be more efficient we have a smelter run by total of uh 570 people in China I would guess

There would be easily 2 to 3,000 working in the similar Plant uh isn’t it beautiful I mean this is the anode copper some spills during the the casting and in my opinion this is a piece of art are the European Metals really refined in a more green and environmentally friendly way take the example of nickel the difference in CO2

Emissions per ton of produced nickel is striking emissions here in Finland are so much lower than in Indonesia the global nickel Powerhouse this is thanks to the low carbon process used in Finland socalled flash smelting I would say the main reason is that we are minimizing the usage of fossile fuels in

Our processes instead we utilize the sulfur that is contained in the concentrates and oxidize it so that generates the heat that we use for for smelting the material so you are producing Metals in a fair way are your customers willing to pay a premium for your fair Metals at least some of the

Customers are aware of of uh importance of the CO2 footprint for example with windmill Farmers which are willing to buy creen copper low CO2 copper for their meal production and also on electrical vehicles uh we are looking for that kind of opportunities could we go one step further and raise a border

Adjustment tax on dirty materials coming into Europe it it would be fair for European metal refining companies because sometimes it it feels that we are not competing on the same rules with our competitors good news for the European refining industry because the European Union is taking action and our message

Is uh very very simple pay the fair carbon price at home or pay it at Borders to Europe because we are we are we are not going to allow anymore that we would be penalized uh for as you said producing fair fair Metals for uh suppressing and lowering

Our our carbon footprint only to be uh kind of replaced by the by the cheap carbon intensed imports from abroad it it will not be easy to implement we have to uh make sure that this mechanism works so we will we are starting now with I would say this reporting phase

For one or two years and then once we are very clear about the mechanism and methodology we start to to introduce the levies so here in the Nordic countries metals are produced in a socially and environmentally responsible way I would like to call them Fair Metals in analogy

To Fair Trade coffee or fair trade chocolates and for those products we are willing to pay a higher price a premium so we should should be doing the same thing for fair Metals except that Downstream users should also pay a higher price for them why is Europe counting on the

Nordic countries to resist the Chinese wave what’s their secret here in espo close to Helsinki the capital of Finland the brand new research centers spring up like mushrooms led by The Finnish state-owned Research Center V TT I see so many brand new buildings unbelievable so all these buildings

There it’s all V or I would say that every second building is V and every second building is perhaps all the university according to Bloomberg new energy Finance Finland is number one worldwide in Industry Innovation and infrastructure in the global battery supply chain ranking they are just ahead of their neighbors in

Sweden congratulations py you beat the Swedish yeah that’s true it’s like an ice hockey but yeah to be serious um we have a lot of collaboration with industry and this is perhaps something that not all countries have yeah many countries working with industry is dirty you don’t do that no it’s the absolutely

The opposite here so we want to work with the industry and that’s why we have invested a lot in the piloting facility so that we can prove in the Technologies in Pilot factories researchers test Innovative Technologies if proven successful they can be upscaled by industry in this hydrometallurgical pilot plant VT is

Developing new ways to recycle critical metals from spent batteries and the world of batteries is changing at neck breaking speed so py how can you compete with all these Chinese battery researchers with the current battery technologies it’s very difficult but for example V is developing Next Generation

Batteries one example is this kind of sodium iron battery and uh the idea here is that you wouldn’t use critical raw materials so this kind of battery would be possible to be used in stationary storage are there other examples of uh electric vehicle batteries yes we do

Have so this one is the lithium ion solid state battery and this means that the energy density in this battery is much higher than in the current batteries and what would that mean in terms of the the range of such an electric car that could be perhaps like

50% longer than with the current batteries and I gu I guess the Chinese are also working on this technology yes that’s true so everybody is working on Next Generation batteries and there there’s different kind of chemistries that are being developed research and Innovation is key because also in the domain of battery

Production Europe has some serious catching up to do the global battery manufacturing sector is dominated by one country guess who yes correct China 77% of the market in The Finnish city of Salo we speak to Matthew conlon the US born production director of valmet Automotive where they assemble battery

Packs for all kinds of electric cars and off-highway vehicles So today we’re working without a helmet thank God for that on my haircut It’s always important to have Good Hair Days yes valet Automotive in Finland also has to compete with Chinese products so we’re going to take two

Cells and we’re going to build a mini module and then we’re going to take six mini modules so 12 total cells to build a battery pack and then after the 12 become the battery pack we then build the housing and build the full battery that we send to the customer so are you

Already feeding a lot of uh European made battery cells in your plant here so currently we’re not utilizing a lot of european-made materials for the cells but the rest of our products actually most come from Europe uh the cells currently are coming from Asia uh we do

Have the possibility in the future to utilize European products as long as they meet the same supplier requirements for quality and form CU ideally they would come from a a plant in Sweden or Finland or Norway absolutely so we’re proud to make batteries here in Finland

And Europe and we would love to get more components from Europe okay wonderful so the final product is still about 100 m down the line to walk so in 10 second in 10 seconds we can be there yeah if we run if I run

Very driven by the EU ban on the sale of internal combustion engine Vehicles by 20135 the construction of many battery gigafactories in Europe has been announced but the competition with China and the United States is ferocious and Europe will need to be very resourceful to keep

Afloat so this is what we call a collaborative robot and this is kind of the future of manufacturing where we have a robot without a safety cage where side by side with the human being and it allows us to do operations faster and more stable and safely and does this

Offer a competitive Advantage for Europe definitely I think that this is one of our areas where we can compete with the lower cost areas so with this automation with this technology we can help Drive the cost of the battery lower and therefore complete on the global market from

Europe so I think one of the things that makes us special in Europe is our education and Technical ability levels so in Finland for example we have a highly developed educational system and it allows us to leverage our knowledge to then compete with the lower cost areas so of course you have less

Employees but highly skilled employees the battery manufacturing capacity is growing in Europe with five European countries in the top 10 although still far behind China but these battery factories also need resources preferably from our own continent where we need to catch up uh this is the the battery production

Quality of the batteries and therefore we invest a lot of money uh I I think actually more than China in research and innovation of the of the of the batteries and I believe that once we would reach the uh uh full capacity of the gigafactories which are being built

In Europe for producing the batteries also the cost of batteries would would go down and I think that also the the gigafactories one of the reasons they’re more expensive is that the system is not fully developed in Europe so in China they’ve done a very good job of building

The whole value chain so they have everything from the mining the processing and refining to the cell factories to the full assembly in Europe that’s what we need we’re working very quickly to catch up but we’re a little bit behind so you think we can catch up

I do think we can and I think that we will because I think uh the world is changed a lot in the last couple years so I have read in a Chinese newspaper that they say that their lead is unassailable and the the global North is lost yeah but somebody once said the

Titanic was Unsinkable and we saw how that turned out so nothing is impossible so here we can see the final product that we build in our assembly line This is a mild Hybrid battery that we produce in Europe for European customers so today I’ve become very hopeful after hearing this story this is

A battery made in Europe still with Korean cells but in the future we can go one step further produce the batteries here with cells produced in a giga Factory in Europe that is served with materials from Europe that’s the way to go go so I’m definitely not claiming that

Electric cars are the solution for the global climate problem if you just all replace our regular cars with electric cars would still be in traffic jumps all over the place but it is a symbol for a drastic transition that we need to have into terms of our Mobility system we

Need to Electrify our Mobility system electric cars electric bikes electric buses electric trucks these are all part of a bigger Solution the last step in the value chain is the production of electric vehicles in USI kauni in Finland we visit another site of valmet Automotive this independent vehicle contract manufacturer is also a very flexible and fast producer of cars including electric cars from different brands I always say that we can

Manufacture any kind of vehicle it’s a four wheels or three wheels when it’s a steering wheel or autonomous driving so there’s no restrictions what we can produce we have a long history of building the first electric vehicles already back in 2009 2009 yeah 2009 so so so you you already build the

Competence and we are ready for the transition so China makes EV 40% cheaper than we do here how can we survive in Europe uh we see that more as an opportunity than challenge we are independent manufacturers so so we we are serving the market Needs like many major EU based companies valmet Automotive is partly owned by a Chinese company China’s catl has 23% of the shares maybe this is also a reason why valet Automotive sees China as an opportunity rather than a threat but today the clients of this company are limited to European Brands so this

Company should be keen on the European car industry doing well SOA is going to do this anti- subsidy investigation and probably she wants to raise trade barriers and tariffs um do you think that’s a good idea I think it’s a good idea but like I said

I think it doesn’t make sense to start a trade war between the countries who are anyway depending on each other so there needs to be some kind of combination and compromise but the Joe Biden is offering €7,500 tax credit when an American buys a made in America electric car so what should Europe

Do uh Germany has had incentives when you buy a a electri vehicle they have made decisions and that is now vanished away €7,500 I no it was not that much I don’t remember how much was it and not only that but Joe Biden is also directly subsidizing the mines the refineries the

Battery plants every single step in the supply chain is is getting attention business is business I think Europe has to come up with their own own ideas how to how to create the more more jobs in the automotive industry or more awareness of European products so as a

European yes we need to do something I don’t take that much of speculation what it could be tariff is one we know that it’s different here in Europe than in in us and there might be also some other things as long as the European automotive industry will start the feeling much better than

Today the time is running out because all these Chinese cars will enter our Market soon a tsunami of relatively cheap electric vehicles so we have to act fast because decarbonization could lead to de-industrialization and that would be Europe’s worst nightmare we in Europe we are really

Free Traders but we also want to be fair Traders if it’s fair uh there is nothing to worry about if it’s not fair we have to just simply use our uh trade defense mechanisms because we we shouldn’t kind of repeat the photovoltaic panel hisory I think we paid very high price

The Innovation was coming from Europe but we again kind of let our Market to be captured by subsidized production the same for wind turbines at the moment now we therefore we have very intense discussions with the with the wind industry we never thought that we would need to use them but the geoeconomics

Has changed so much over the last three years that I mean there is no other choice we have one more challenge for the senior vice president of valmet Automotive can can he produce an EV of less than €25,000 with made in Europe batteries and Motors a vehicle that is cost

Competitive with those arriving per ship from China NGO transport and energy they are producing a vodcast about the possibility to produce in Europe a car that costs less than 25,000 do you think that is a realistic Target at the moment as we speak is as realistic as any Target service provider

Like like us with established infrastructure we can we can meet the challenge we can start meeting that challenge I don’t say that the Finland is the cheapest country to produce something that’s not the case but in comp comparison within the Europe we are also not the most expensive

Ones so transport and energy should contact you to develop this 25k car yeah they should they should contact that we are here I will give your phone number yeah that’s good we are always ready to talk yes early we as a manufacturer we can step

In first of all we can bring in the knowledge is that product manufacturable and second of all we can bring our competence into the product engineering to get that €25,000 so you also have an impact in the product engineering itself okay yes and when the product is mature and we have been part

Of that process already in the beginning I think we can do it within a within a 12 15 months easily so 2025 we can produce in this Factory you give me the you give me the product 5K car you give me the product and I will give you then the okay speed

Brilliant so we end this story on a positive note an affordable electric vehicle for the people fully made in Europe is Within Reach in the near future so let’s go for it slowly Europe is waking up what we really need is an industrial strategy where decarbonization does not go hand inand with

De-industrialization so let’s go for made in Europe clean Technologies and the Nordic countries lead by example Okay good you recorded it yes yeah okay because because my son is studying film making and he was making the it was his project uh like you know half an hour interview and then they realized that they didn’t press the So