The European Union has asked China to voluntarily reduce its exports of hybrid electric vehicles into the bloc in a bid to improve the competitiveness of its domestic vehicle market. Chinese electric vehicle (EV) exports have reached new highs in 2026, with consistent monthly records set between March and July this year.

Batteries produced by CATL can be found in 3.4 million Chinese EVs sold so far in 2026, according to data from Benchmark’s EV & Battery Service. Supplier concentration creates both cost and supply-chain risks.

Following the 2011 Fukushima disaster, the uranium market and price environment remained muted, as reactor shutdowns vaporised demand faster than mine supply could adjust. Now, however, the uranium market is entering a structural deficit, as assessed by Benchmark's Uranium Service. The market is already in a marginal deficit for 2026. As nuclear power plays a growing role in the roll-out of data centres and other industries, this deficit is forecast to grow, and will continue to expand unless new supply can be brought online.

Plans to halt approvals for new Chinese cell capacity for 2026 have been confirmed and expanded to include production of cells for EV applications as well as for battery energy stationary storage (BESS) as part of a review of total battery capacity, expected to be completed by year end. 

Copper prices have hit record high after record high in 2026, and are approaching USD 15,000/t as of 10 September. This is despite 2025’s multi-year high surplus and 2026 looking likely to be a broad surplus too.  Part of the reason prices are not reflecting the strong surplus is that huge flows into the US are making the market feel significantly tighter than it is.  In 2025, so much copper went to the US that Benchmark assessed the market as “feeling” 700kt tighter in 2025 than the actual surplus, and Benchmark expects the perceived tightness to be 880kt lower than the actual surplus in 2026. 

China is reported to have temporarily paused approvals for new battery energy stationary storage (BESS) cell production projects. The pause is part of increased measures by China to curb overcapacity and oversupply in the BESS cell market and is likely part of a review of existing and planned projects, but only applies to facilities that are yet to begin construction. This follows on from MOFCOM’s cessation of the lithium ion battery industry’s eleven year tax exemption and the elimination of export tax rebates for battery products. Those tax policies served more to encourage producers to limit output, rather than pause business activities. “If implemented, this new legislation would represent a significant escalation in China’s attempts to control the surge in BESS cell production witnessed across 2025 and 2026,” said Evan Hartley, research manager at Benchmark.

Rising chip prices are forcing portables manufacturers to look at increasing retail prices, reducing specifications or absorbing some of the cost and accept lower margins. This is acting to increase the gap between the prices of premium and budget products. Premium brands such as Apple or Samsung are better positioned to pass through cost increases due to stronger brand power and higher average selling prices, whilst more budget brands are more exposed to demand reduction if they increase prices. “While some stabilisation may occur, chip costs are expected to remain elevated in the near term, favouring companies with strong pricing power, efficient supply chains, and differentiated ecosystems,” said Benchmark battery analyst Anya Sidhu.

Operating lithium supply will need to expand by over three million tonnes LCE to meet expected 2040 base demand, according to analysis in Benchmark’s new Capex Briefing. It is a gap that is forecast to require USD ~$64 billion in capital spending to close, as demand for the mineral continues to expand at 7.3% CAGR under Benchmark’s base demand view. As noted in Benchmark’s recent Lithium Forecast Report, lithium demand is expected to grow on the back of sustained electric vehicles (EV) adoption as well as an increase in deployment of battery energy stationary storage (BESS). While a tightening of the market is expected in the medium term, the long-term trend is one of strong growth; though the market could remain looser in the case of a more challenging economic environment or diminished policy support, the broad direction of demand is expected to remain the same.

Tesla sold just over 6,500 EVs in Europe in July 2026, its lowest monthly level in the region since October 2022. Its sales in the region fell 53% year-on-year, with Germany and the UK, the region’s two largest automotive markets, registering just 367 and 512 Teslas, respectively.  Tesla’s heavy sales decline in July contradicts the strong performance it had in the region across the opening six months of the year, with sales rising 39% compared to the opening six months of 2025. However, following a weak July, its year-to-date growth in the region has dropped to 30%.   "While Tesla’s deliveries in Europe were unusually low in July, it followed a very strong end to Q2 where Tesla will have concentrated its efforts on maximising deliveries before the end of the quarter. Tesla had a strong opening six months of the year in Europe and there as signals that this is expected to persist despite the drop in July," said George Whitcombe, Benchmark's senior EV analyst.

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's Jianxiawo lepidolite mine, China's largest lithium mine by capacity, is back in care and maintenance after a brief and informal restart in July. Any return to production is now gated by an environmental review since the mine’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was revoked. Completing the review could stretch into the fourth quarter or into 2027. Benchmark has almost halved its 2026 mined output forecast for Jianxiawo as a result.

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.

Benchmark has observed no cobalt hydroxide trades over the past 10 days, leading to the daily price assessments to hold steady at $22.00–$23.00/lb. However, Benchmark has noted a widening spread between bids and offers, which are reported between $17.00–$22.00/lb in Benchmark’s weekly cobalt price assessment. Benchmark's daily CIF Asia cobalt hydroxide assessment only accounts for confirmed  transactions rather than indications, sentiment, or levels at which somebody says they would be willing to deal, which means it tracks evidenced trades and nothing else. That design choice is usually invisible to the user, because in a functioning market the distance between a trade and a well-informed indication is small, but in a week like this one it becomes the whole picture. Put those two series side-by-side and the market becomes legible, because the sell-side remains anchored to the level where material last actually changed hands while the buy-side has marked itself down five dollars, or roughly 23% below it. Nothing has traded across that gap, so the bid has not been validated by a single transaction and the offer has not been tested by a single buyer willing to lift it.

In early August, US auto giant General Motors (GM) announced it was relinquishing its 49.9% stake in SynergyCells, a JV with Samsung SDI, and as such its stake in the under-construction cell plant in Indiana, US. It is the third battery cell production plant for which GM has ceded its stake back to the South Korean partner, and follows similar moves by Stellantis and Ford over the past two years that have given South Korean firms a tighter grip on US cell manufacturing.

Africa is a key mining destination for a range of critical minerals across the energy transition supply chain. However, the majority of these minerals are exported for processing outside of the region. Most notably, Africa is the largest source of mined cobalt, where the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the subject of a previous Regional Spotlight, is the world’s leading supplier. The continent also leads global supply of mined manganese ore; it was responsible for three quarters of this in 2025.

Hakainde Hichilema was declared president-elect of Zambia on 18 August. Hichilema was re-elected after securing nearly 3 million votes, more than 1.1 million votes ahead of his opponent, Brian Mundubile of the NRPUP, and comfortably above the 50% threshold required to avoid a run-off. "The result is expected to deliver policy and geopolitical continuity, including the continuation of the beneficiation agenda set out in Zambia's 2024 critical minerals strategy," said Benchmark's lead policy and geopolitical analyst Bryan Bille. Copper is a crucial export for Zambia, accounting for around three-quarters of the total value of the country’s exports. Mined production in 2026 is estimated at 901kt, a healthy growth of 11% over last year, as assessed by Benchmark’s Copper Service. The Zambian government is aiming to increase output to 3Mtpa by 2031.

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."