Happy Friday, and welcome to Critical Materials, your source for the biggest stories shaping the future of the auto industry.

Every Friday, we break down the week’s biggest EV news, keep you up to speed on the cars we’re testing, and recap must-read stories from around the web on driverless cars, batteries, charging, and more.

– Today’s email was written by Rob Stumpf and Tim Levin.

The political battle over China’s car industry is heating up, and Ford just got caught in the crossfire. 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a scathing letter to Ford CEO Jim Farley this Tuesday, urging him to cut ties with Chinese companies. Duffy expressed “profound concern” at Ford’s strategic direction, and said he was “deeply alarmed” by the automaker’s licensing deal with CATL to make lithium iron phosphate batteries in Michigan. 

“When a company intentionally chooses to deepen operational dependencies on strategic competitors, it fails to act as the reliable partner the American public and this DOT require,” the letter reads. Brutal stuff. 

Clearly, even American companies aren’t safe from the growing backlash to China’s auto industry. But the Ford spat also exposes just how scattered America’s China-car policy is becoming. Washington seems certain that it wants to disentangle the U.S. auto industry from China—and less sure what that actually means. 

It’s not obvious why Ford, of all the Detroit automakers, got singled out. General Motors uses Chinese batteries in the Chevy Bolt. Stellantis (which is only part American, but still) owns part of Leapmotor and distributes that company’s cars abroad. Slate (small potatoes, to be sure) is using LFP batteries produced in the U.S. by China’s Gotion. 

Notably, Duffy doesn’t accuse Ford of breaking any laws, so it’s even less clear why the administration is lashing out at it specifically.

Ford seemed completely blindsided by this, and it clapped back hard. The company slammed Duffy’s letter as a “wrongheaded attempt to capture headlines” and posted a lengthy response on its website. Farley gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal to correct the record. 

On the one hand, it has seemed like “we don’t want Chinese cars” is a rallying cry both sides of the aisle can get behind—a rarity these days. The U.S. already has 100% tariffs on Chinese vehicles and a ban on certain Chinese tech. Both were established in the Biden years. A Senate committee recently advanced an even stricter bill that would bar auto companies that have more than 15% Chinese ownership from selling in America. Another proposal would keep Chinese cars from crossing the Mexican or Canadian borders into America, even if they were sold legally in those countries. 

At the same time, the anti-China effort at the federal level comes off as increasingly unpredictable. Just days ago, the White House praised the very same battery plant in Michigan that Duffy’s letter blasted. After this controversy blew up this week, the White House’s rapid response X account posted that Ford “is a GREAT American company and has done a tremendous job on increasing investments domestically and shoring production back to the U.S.” So which is it? 

Likewise, Geely-controlled Polestar was kicked out of the U.S. market this year due to its Chinese tech, while Geely-controlled Volvo managed to stick around. (The Volvo EX90 and Polestar 3 even share a platform and are built at the same facility in South Carolina.) Polestar still has no idea what happened. On top of it all, Senator Elissa Slotkin posted on X this week that she heard a rumor that President Trump plans to open the U.S. to Chinese cars within weeks. 

It’s not even clear that prohibiting U.S. automakers from dealing with China is the right move. There’s a solid argument that it isn’t. After all, China’s auto companies learned from American and European ones through joint ventures, then leapfrogged the world. Now Chinese manufacturers set the bar in terms of development speed, in-vehicle technology, and battery production.

Duffy says the goal is to “out-innovate competitors.” But based on how far ahead China is right now, that may not be possible on American gumption alone. 

-Tim Levin

Mack recently had the opportunity to drive the all-electric Jeep Recon in some seriously tough terrain. It may share some of its core underpinnings with other members of the Jeep lineup, but it's a beast of its own. Check out our first drive here.

For more on that, check out this week’s Plugged-In Podcast, where we discuss Mack’s Jeep drive, the Tesla Cybercab’s first rides, the Ford controversy, and more.

China has already exported more cars abroad than it did in all of 2025. Exports are increasingly crucial for Chinese automakers facing a price war and sluggish sales at home, Kevin Williams writes. The companies can also sell cars for higher prices abroad and pad their margins.

Geely has launched its new TT electric sedan in China. It starts at just $19,000 with both an 800-volt battery architecture and lidar as standard equipment. Not sold yet? That entry-level trim is also rated for 400 miles of range.

Nissan has introduced a new and cheaper version of the Leaf for Canada. Buyers can now scoop up the electric crossover for just over $24,000 ($33,500 CAD) after government incentives.

Dead: the Volvo EX40. The automaker's first mass-market EV is going the way of the dodo, but only in the U.S. In other parts of the world, an updated version of the EX40 will live on.

The best-selling car in China is the Geely EX2. But just because it's placed as an economy car, don't mistake it for not being fun. Geely recently showed off the tiny hatchback doing some pretty sick skids as a dedicated track toy that might satisfy even the most dedicated purist.

It turns out that Tesla's new Cybercab can't charge via a regular ol' AC-powered Level 2 charger today. Instead, it has to be plugged into one of Tesla's Superchargers. Tesla is looking to revamp that experience, though, by building out dedicated Cybercab Supercharging stations with wireless charging.

EVgo plans to build 400 stalls at Regency shopping centers. The company also just opened LA’s largest non-Tesla station.

Tesla is also finally enabling a long-awaited feature that turns the Cybertruck into a giant power bank. The truck can now pair with Tesla's current-generation Powerwall systems to power a home during an outage. Tesla says that it provides the storage equivalent of an additional 9 Powerwalls.

Solid-state batteries are here. ProLogium, a Mercedes-backed Taiwanese battery company, says that is has put solid-state batteries into mass production and plans to double its capacity by 2030.

LG’s experimental lithium manganese rich batteries managed to retain 92% capacity after 883 cycles. The chemistry, which GM is betting on, could be another relatively cheap alternative to LFP.

China now has an official roadmap for self-driving. The country's industry ministry says that it is targeting large-scale deployment of autonomous cars by 2030. It plans to use this to push multiple Chinese automakers into the top-10 global car companies by sales volume.

Have a Tesla and bringing it in for service? Tesla may soon offer you a robotaxi ride instead of a loaner.

Volkswagen's ID.Buzz (and a handful of other models) is finally getting some much-needed update to VW's driver assistance suite. The EV will soon get assisted lane change and pedestrian detection as part of the automaker's new tech.

Waymo is now available on the Lyft app in Nashville. Lyft's leadership says that this rollout could serve as the blueprint for how Lyft serves up autonomous cars in other markets. Waymo and Uber's partnership has been described as "shaky" in recent months.

Verne, a robotaxi outfit created by Rimac, started Europe’s first driverless taxi rides for passengers. It’s invitation-only right now, but the company and its partner Pony.ai, say they’re on a path to full-scale driverless commercial rides.

Tesla is using a new method of manufacturing for the Cybercab that it calls the "unboxed" process. Ford is trying something similar with the upcoming Fathom pickup, which will be assembled in three sections simultaneously. This week, Tesla gave us our best look yet at what the process looks like. Read more here.

Thanks for reading Critical Materials. See you next week!

-Tim Levin, Senior Editor