Car lithium batteries.https://euperspectives.eu/2025/12/too-expensive-manufacturers-fined/Commission has fined three automotive battery manufacturers who operate in Europe a total of €33 million for participating in a long-running cartel concerning battery pricing. This cartel restricted competition and may have led to higher prices for the manufacturing of cars and trucks in Europe. The companies secretly coordinated to introduce ’surcharges’ as an industry-wide standard. Companies Exide, FET (including its predecessor Elettra) and Rombat, plus the trade association BATMAN (short for Battery Manager) together with Gladios were found to have breached the EU antitrust rules. The above mentioned companies have been concluding anticompetitive agreements for more than twelve years and engaged in concerted practices related to the sale of automotive starter batteries to automotive original equipment manufacturers.A surcharge is a legitimate tool suppliers use to reflect changes in raw material costs in product prices, allowing them to transfer this cost risk to the customers. However, it is clearly illegal for suppliers to secretly coordinate to introduce and use such a surcharge as an industry-wide standard. To be suitable for use in batteries, metal must be as pure as possible and have certain additives. Manufacturers pay a premium to their metal suppliers for the procurement of pure metals. It's easier to obtain purity of 90% from China or whatever, but those are useless for batteries. (still usable for some other applications). Purity needs to be close to 99%. A lot of electricity is needed in the process of purifying non-noble metals, unlike silver which can be purified even at a home lab.
>>523903752>€33 millionI see €72 million.So, they were colluding in an oligopoly? Isn't that the norm? The perverse incentive is too great.
if that means EVs are going to get cheaper I hate to disappoint but I still won‘t buy one
>>523903752Ok now do Open AI, Nvidia, RAM companies, and Oracle.
