Restricted rare earth imports from China [ADMIN WARNING: NO POLITICS]

[Leesonw]

I am curious if those of you in the know feel that China threatening to restrict rare earth imports to the US is likely to affect Rivian production or upend the R2 time line?

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[thrill]

RJ talks about them wargaming various scenarios, so I suspect this is one of them. However, the historically easiest place to source them from now unavailable will certainly affect supply chain costs and probably delivery schedules. Many other Asian countries have the materials but less of the refinement capability, so it’s not a full stop scenario.

EDIT: This reminded me of a crusade an old friend has been on for probably 20 years. Jim Kennedy https://threeconsulting.com/jim-kennedy/ is someone I met long ago when he helped mentor me when I was busy traveling internationally gathering evidence to put a corrupt CEO in federal prison for financial crimes for several years - but that’s another story. Anyway, around y2000 Jim, who was running a smallish VC operation, acquired (inherited? - I don’t remember) an old gold mine that was pretty much known to be mined out. However, he found a lot of various rare earths in it, which he knew nothing about. We talked about this occasionally, as I would occasionally give him my own engineering-oriented thoughts on various investment opportunities, and he immersed himself in self-education. Since then he’s been tirelessly pounding on Congress‘ door trying to put sanity back into allowing so much of the dependencies the US has in manufacturing to at least legislatiively be made on “on-shoreable” (i.e., find ways to at least *be able* to do things ourselves, just in case, whether we do them or not), with, frankly, little success despite becoming a known expert in the field and getting some (“too little, too late”) legislation passed. Sorry for the slightly political diversion, but ignoring this concern has long been a bipartisan and bicameral wilfully ignored threat.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

It will affect everyone not just Rivian. And RJ have already said numerous times that they have made adjustments and remain confident of their targets. Whether that is true or not, moot to worry. Nothing you can do to affect outcome.

 

[COdogman]

This has been brewing for a while now. We just gave them an easy reason to do it.

We currently recycle less than 1% of the rare earths from spent devices, vehicles. Between recycling and mining our own we should be able to reduce our dependence on China by quite a bit. It’s just not happening.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

This has been brewing for a while now. We just gave them an easy reason to do it.

We currently recycle less than 1% of the rare earths from spent devices, vehicles. Between recycling and mining our own we should be able to reduce our dependence on China by quite a bit. It’s just not happening.

And just not a gap any nation can fill in short order. Plenty of industry experts and economists have said: it could take decades.

 

[captainjp]

It’s not about the availability of rare earths as it is the ability to process and refine them for use. That’s what china gots.

 

[Mark_AZR1T]

And just not a gap any nation can fill in short order. Plenty of industry experts and economists have said: it could take decades.

This is the real challenge. I lived in China in 1989–1990 while working on a tech joint venture, and part of our focus was rare-earth magnetic materials, specifically developing production-ready NdFeB magnets for the semiconductor industry. Even back then, China was advancing at a breakneck pace, using rudimentary machinery but moving with absolute determination.

The U.S. halted most high-energy rare-earth magnet production years ago and shut down nearly all its mines, leaving only a couple open for defense and aerospace purposes. There’s no quick recovery path for rare-earth materials, and China knows it.

Their export restrictions aren’t aimed at the U.S. alone but at the global market. China’s EV and tech sectors are already consuming much of their own supply, pushing production capacity to the limit. Rivian might have contingency plans, but they’re far down the priority list compared to major tech and auto players.

It’s going to be very interesting to watch how this unfolds, but it may amount to nothing, who knows?

 

[captainjp]

Rivian might have contingency plans, but they’re far down the priority list compared to major tech and auto players.

Like, say major tech and auto players named VWAG? Hmmm…

 

[Dohmar]

Plenty of rare earth minerals here in Australia but we stupidly have not invested in the purification/refinement part. I'm hoping that we get some sort of traction on this topic since we dig so much out of the ground only to send it overseas and buy it back...

 

[ndmiller]

They were already restricted but added 5 new elements holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium - and related material will be added from November 8. So I'd say no this will not change R2 plans or strategy for Rivian.

 

[lefkonj]

The tariff chicken game is also going to impact them. This horrific plan just isn't working but I doubt our leader will understand that.

 

[Bongorivian]

The tariff chicken game is also going to impact them. This horrific plan just isn't working but I doubt our leader will understand that.

This is fascinating one way or the other. It shows the long game China has been playing all along vs. the focus on quarter to quarter results long favored by Wall Street

 

[mkhuffman]

The tariff chicken game is also going to impact them. This horrific plan just isn't working but I doubt our leader will understand that.

I don't think you understand the problem. The problem is one country controls most of the supply of materials we need, and that country is not our friend. Never has been. It should have been addressed years ago, but nobody did. Trying to fix it now is painful, for sure, but doing nothing is worse.

Personally I am optimistic this will not impact R2 production. I really hope so, anyway.

 

[iansriv]

I don't think you understand the problem. The problem is one country controls most of the supply of materials we need, and that country is not our friend. Never has been. It should have been addressed years ago, but nobody did. Trying to fix it now is painful, for sure, but doing nothing is worse.

Personally I am optimistic this will not impact R2 production. I really hope so, anyway.

with all the collective intelligence the west has, I suppose we didn't see this one coming. Did we ever stop to think that most of the products we buy are from an unfriendly country, yet we continue to send them our money. This has been about 30 years in the making. We should diversify geographical manufacturing locations and increase rare-earth agreements with countries like Ukraine. In-the-mean-time, don't upgrade your phones every year and try to buy made in the USA as much as possible.

 

[mkg3]

As noted already, the processing the rare earth material is the issue and not necessarily finding them.

The processing uses hazardous chemicals and can have radioactive waste products. Since it's toxic, most of the western countries have chosen to let China take the risk; hence they process over 90% of all rare earth materials.

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