Highlights
- Dr. Peter Tom Jones explores Europe’s strategic race to develop independent rare earth and electric vehicle manufacturing capabilities
- China currently dominates 75% of global battery production, threatening European industrial autonomy and clean energy transitions
- The documentary challenges Europe to build a €25,000 electric car using its own materials and workforce before losing global market position
The full-length documentary “Made in Europe: From Mine to Electric Vehicle (opens in a new tab)“, produced by Journeyman Pictures and led by KU Leuven’s Dr. Peter Tom Jones, (opens in a new tab) delivers a sobering yet inspiring look at Europe’s precarious position in the global race for critical raw materials and clean technology manufacturing.
The film, released in July 2024, follows Dr. Jones—a former green ideologue turned mining realist—on a journey across the Nordic region. He visits cutting-edge mining and battery facilities in Sweden and Finland, probing a pivotal question: Can Europe secure the entire value chain from mine to electric vehicle (EV) before it’s too late? Its subject matter is more timely than ever, given the trade war now unfolding between the USA and China.
The documentary warns of a tsunami of cheap Chinese electric vehicles that threaten to trigger mass deindustrialization across Europe. China, now accounting for over 75% of global battery production and refining capacity, benefits from vertical integration, substantial subsidies, and decades of strategic planning. In contrast, Europe’s mining, processing, and battery sectors remain fragmented, underfunded, and heavily regulated.
Rare Earth Exchanges (REEx) remains the reader that toward our launch in late 2024, we translated strategic Chinese planning, evidencing this as part of a broader geopolitical and economic scheme to ultimately control or at least have oversight over the world’s dominant digital currency, not to mention position itself as the number one economy worldwide.
The plan included four basic phases without firing one shot:
1) monopolize rare earth element processing, refining, and magnet production;
2) leapfrog the West when it comes to downstream innovation (Two Rare Earth Base China);
3) dominate green energy and related product sales (revenue generation, profits = power) and
4) emerge as top economy and manager of top global digital currencies.
Back to this highly relevant film, Dr. Jones argues that Europe must reclaim control of its clean tech supply chains—not only for strategic autonomy, but to meet its own climate targets. He explores flagship projects, such as Sweden’s Per Geijer rare earth mine, (opens in a new tab) Finland’s low-carbon copper smelters, and VTT’s pilot-scale battery recycling and sodium-ion innovation labs. These Nordic efforts demonstrate that responsible mining and sustainable refining are possible—but they require scale, policy, and capital.
The film doesn’t shy away from hard truths. Indigenous Sami communities fear loss of ancestral lands. Environmentalists raise alarms about waste, tailings, and biodiversity. Yet industry leaders and EU officials, including Executive Vice President Maroš Šefčovič, emphasize the urgency: “Decarbonization cannot mean deindustrialization.”
With the Critical Raw Materials Act in motion and gigafactories under construction, Europe may still have a chance to catch up. But the clock is ticking. The film concludes with a challenge: can Europe build a €25,000 electric car, powered by its own materials and workforce, before China secures a dominant position in the global EV market?
For Western policymakers, government officials, investors, and industry leaders, “Made in Europe” is a clarion call. Without an integrated industrial strategy, innovation will again slip away, just as it did with solar panels and wind turbines.
Watch the documentary: Made in Europe – Journeyman Pictures (opens in a new tab). Share your thoughts at the REEx Forum (opens in a new tab).
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