Industry
Electric vehicles: batteries, materials, powertrain and autonomy
An electric vehicle is a battery, a motor, a power converter and a computer. Each of those rests on a materials chain whose refining steps are concentrated far from where vehicles are assembled — which is why this branch spends as much space on lithium and graphite as it does on the vehicle.
The battery is the vehicle. It is the largest cost, the largest mass, the determinant of range and charging speed, and the component whose supply chain reaches furthest back into mining and chemical refining. Everything else in an electric vehicle is comparatively well understood engineering.
That is why this branch goes deepest inside the cell. Almost every claim made about batteries — cheaper, safer, faster charging, longer range — is a claim about one of four materials, and the trade-offs between them are set by chemistry rather than by effort. Understanding the cathode, the anode, the electrolyte and the separator is understanding what is and is not possible.
Beside the cell sits the materials chain, kept separate because it behaves differently. Lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite are traded commodities with their own geography, and the constraint in each is refining rather than mining — a distinction that explains most of the policy activity around battery supply.
The remaining segments cover what turns stored energy into motion, how energy gets into the vehicle, and the sensing and computing behind automation. The dependency links from here run into semiconductors, for the silicon carbide in every inverter, and into the energy branch, where the same cells are deployed at grid scale.
How this breaks down
Split by subsystem — and inside the battery, by the materials that actually set the trade-offs.
- Electric vehiclesthis page
- Battery cellsWhat is inside a cell, what shape it comes in, and how hundreds of them become a working pack.Breaks down into: Cell chemistry · Cell manufacturing equipment · Battery management · Cell formats · Packs and thermal · Solid-state batteries18 pages belowChokepoint
- Battery materialsLithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite — and why refining location matters more than mining location.Breaks down into: Cathode materials · Lithium · Nickel and cobalt · Graphite · Recycling · Current collector foils8 pages belowChokepoint
- PowertrainWhat converts stored energy into motion, and the material and semiconductor dependencies underneath it.Breaks down into: High-voltage interconnect · Traction motors · Rare-earth magnets · Silicon carbide electronics · On-board chargers · High-voltage architecture8 pages belowChokepoint
- ChargingHome and workplace units, fast chargers, the connector standards fight, and what happens when vehicles push power back.Breaks down into: AC charging · DC fast charging · Charging standards · Vehicle to grid7 pages belowChokepoint
- AutonomyWhat the vehicle perceives with, what processes it, and the long-running argument about prior maps.Breaks down into: Automotive image sensors · Perception sensors · Autonomy compute · Maps and localisation7 pages below
What this depends on
1 of these is marked as a chokepoint: a handful of qualified suppliers, a multi-year lead time, or a single geography.
- Supply chainChokepoint
Rare-earth magnets
Most traction motors depend on magnets whose separation and manufacture are highly concentrated.
Rare-earth magnets - Supply chain
Power semiconductors
Silicon carbide devices in the inverter depend on a substrate supply chain shared with industrial and grid power electronics.
Compound semiconductors - Supply chain
Charging grid capacity
Fast-charging sites are large peaky loads competing for the same connection capacity as every other new demand.
Interconnection queues
Companies across Electric vehicles
Every company named on a step below this page, ordered by how many of those steps it appears at. Compiled from the pages themselves rather than written separately, so the two cannot disagree. Not a ranking and not a recommendation.
LFP cathodes · Cell manufacturing equipment · Cell formats · Packs and thermal · Pack structure · Graphite · Recycling · Traction motors · On-board chargers · AC charging · DC fast charging · Station hardware · Network operations · Charging standards · Vehicle to grid · Autonomy compute · Maps and localisation
- ValeoParis5 steps
Packs and thermal · Battery thermal · Perception sensors · Camera modules · Automotive lidar
- ContinentalFrankfurt4 steps
Perception sensors · Camera modules · Automotive radar · Automotive lidar
203 more companies appear at a single step each; they are named on the pages for those steps.
How these pages are written
Each page explains one technology in plain language, states what it depends on, and names companies by what they supply at that step. Company roles are described qualitatively and deliberately carry no market shares, revenue figures or rankings — those change faster than an explainer can, and a stale number is worse than none. Ticker links point at company pages on this site and are provided for reference only.
Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or a forecast. A company named on a page about a technology is not thereby a good investment, and the chokepoints described are structural facts about supply chains rather than predictions about prices. Technology moves; where a page describes something as unresolved or in development, that was true when it was written.
Plutux is not an investment adviser. Market data and AI-generated analysis are for information and education only, not investment advice. Disclaimer