The US Department of Energy (DoE) announced $500 million in grants for battery materials, manufacturing and recycling towards the end of August 2026. The grants went to a range of battery minerals and materials including next-generation anodes, direct lithium extraction (DLE), cobalt, electrolyte, and recycling. These are the third round of grants from the DoE’s “Battery Manufacturing and Recycling” and “Battery Materials Processing” programmes, which each have $3 billion in funding available. Previous rounds were announced in 2022 and 2024 under the Biden Administration. These grants follow a recent announcement of $2 billion in investment for critical supply chain projects.

A White House Executive Order (EO), published on 26 August, has declared a national emergency, citing national security risks relating to hardware and software in the US power system made overseas. This new measure, EO 14420 is the second attempt to put such a measure into place after the previous Trump administration’s EO 13920 in 2020. The new order is broader in scope, including software as well as hardware, and sets a 120-day deadline for the Department of Energy to set implementation guidelines. Benchmark senior BESS research analyst Pete Tillotson said the order could be “highly disruptive to the US grid should it be implemented to its fullest extent”.

CATL became the largest shareholder in Qiyuan Green Power, China’s largest heavy-duty truck battery swapping network operator. CATL bought the entirety of the 24.87% stake held by China Power, a subsidiary of the State Power Investment Corporation for RMB2.6 billion (USD380 million). This raised CATL’s total stake to around 30%. The move helps CATL to secure Qiyuan’s battery swapping infrastructure. Qiyuan currently leads the market with over 1,800 stations nationwide, giving it a market share of over 70% across various heavy-truck settings, including mining zones. Combined with CATL’s own QIJI Energy battery swapping network, this move makes the company China’s largest heavy-duty battery swapping operator.