The greater deployment of drones is having a profound impact on the modern battlefield and has put the geopolitics of the battery supply chain into a new spotlight. In 2025, drones accounted for 39.2% of defence demand for batteries, according to Benchmark. This is up from just 20% in 2020. Soldier power and bases are the two next largest drivers of defence demand for batteries. "Drones have clearly risen to be the most influential aspect of modern military battery demand,” said Will Roberts, Benchmark’s automotive research lead.  “Major militaries are still just getting started in their strategic investments relating to them which is about to set off a flurry of activity to domesticate supply chains, something which is getting significant attention from major battery manufacturers and new entrants alike."

Much of the attention on South & Central America’s transition to electric vehicles (EVs) focuses on Mexico and Brazil owing to their large total vehicle markets and automakers establishing EV production capacity in both.  However, it is Uruguay that has quietly risen to lead EV adoption in the region. It achieved a penetration rate of 40% over the first seven months of the year, surpassing numerous European countries, including France, Germany and the UK.  "Uruguay is a testament to how tax policy can be a really effective tool to create quick change regarding EV adoption in a relatively short period of time under the right market and economic conditions,” said Benchmark EV analyst George Whitcombe. 

NdPr oxide prices have fallen below a key psychological and structural benchmark, dropping to $95,000/tonne CIF Europe and North America, beneath the $110/kg price floor established under MP Materials' agreement with the US Department of Defense. The decline, down 7.3% over the assessment period, highlights a widening gap between where the spot market is trading and the mechanisms designed to underpin domestic production economics, a divergence that carries different implications depending on where one sits in the supply chain. For producers benefiting from the floor price, the mechanism provides a guaranteed minimum return regardless of spot conditions, insulating them from the current downturn. For downstream buyers, however, the falling ex-China spot price represents a genuine cost benefit, offering access to NdPr oxide at levels meaningfully below the policy-supported floor.

Global battery energy stationary storage (BESS) industry witnessed explosive growth in H1 2026, with both cell and system-level shipments nearly doubling compared to H1 2025. This has been driven by both booming global grid-scale and growing residential storage demand.  "Beyond the robust headline growth, the market is undergoing profound structural differentiation," said Benchmark BESS analyst Calvin Xu. "This includes diverging concentration trends between cell manufacturing and system integration, reshuffled enterprise rankings, and intensified mid-tier competition, marking a critical shift from scale expansion to stratified competition across the industrial chain."