The Charged

China sold 1.643 million NEVs in August 2026, up 17.8% YoY and 5.3% MoM. BEV sales reached 1.161 million, up 27.8% YoY, while PHEVs slipped 0.9% YoY to 482,000. The bigger strategic signal is exports: China shipped 526,000 NEVs, up 130% YoY, while domestic China-built NEV sales fell 4.6% YoY to 1.118 million. Cumulative NEV exports reached 3.44 million units in January–August, up 124% YoY.

Global EV demand increased for a sixth consecutive month in August, with Europe emerging as the main growth engine, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence data reported by Reuters. European demand is benefiting from government subsidies, while the US continues to feel the impact of the expiration of federal EV tax credits in September 2025. The regional divergence is pushing Chinese manufacturers to depend increasingly on export markets for growth.

The UK registered 28,063 BEVs in August, up 27.7% YoY, giving battery-electric cars a 29.8% share of new registrations. Across the first eight months of 2026, BEV share reached 25.6%, still below the 33% headline mandate target. Electric vans also set a record: registrations increased 25.9% to 2,395 units, representing 16.3% of August van registrations, although year-to-date share remained only 11%, versus a 24% 2026 ZEV mandate target.

Ola Electric launched the S1Z, its first electric scooter using internally developed and manufactured 46-series LFP cells. The scooter comes with 3.1 kWh and 5.1 kWh batteries; claimed range is 179 km and 301 km, respectively. Introductory prices are ₹79,999 (~US$834) and ₹99,999 (~US$1,043), with deliveries planned for December 2026 and March 2027. The cells were developed in Bengaluru and are manufactured at Ola’s Krishnagiri Gigafactory, making the launch an important localization signal for India's two-wheeler battery value chain.

Taiwan's ProLogium started series production of its Generation 3.5 lithium-ceramic solid-state battery, with TÜV Rheinland testing indicating 381 Wh/kg gravimetric and 903 Wh/L volumetric energy density in a 185.4 Ah large-format cell. Its existing Taiwan facility has 3 GWh of capacity. ProLogium's Dunkirk factory in France is planned to begin with 0.8 GWh in 2028, scale to 4 GWh by 2030, and ultimately reach 12 GWh by 2032.

Germany's Fraunhofer ISE developed a battery-cell architecture that increases energy density by an estimated 10–15% at the same weight. Researchers increased electrode coating thickness from a conventional 100–200 micrometres to as much as 800 micrometres, reducing the number of current collectors and allowing more active material. The work is not yet ready for series production but could ultimately apply to both stationary storage and EV traction batteries.

R3 Lithium began producing lithium carbonate from recycled battery material at its Covington, Georgia facility. The plant can process 30,000 tonnes of material annually and produce 2,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate per year, with space for a second equivalent production line. R3 plans to invest US$15 million from its Series A financing to move the facility into continuous commercial operation and says it has signed offtake agreements worth approximately US$1 billion.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urged Ford to reconsider relationships with Chinese companies, with particular attention on its CATL battery technology arrangement. Ford's BlueOval Battery Park Michigan is designed to manufacture LFP cells in the US using CATL-licensed technology, while remaining Ford-owned and operated. The dispute highlights how battery localization is moving beyond physical manufacturing toward questions of technology ownership, licensing and supply-chain dependence.

Volkswagen Group and Škoda are evaluating a strategic partnership with India's JSW Group as they expand their Indian operations and prepare an EV platform for the market. VW and Škoda together increased Indian sales 36% to 117,000 vehicles in 2025, while Škoda itself doubled sales. The potential partnership could help finance the planned India Main Platform (IMP) EV architecture, adapted for Indian regulation, suppliers and higher localization, with VW/Škoda EV entry targeted for 2028.

NITI Aayog's e-FAST India launched the Platform for Aggregating Clean Transport (PACT) to accelerate deployment of zero-emission freight. The platform is designed to aggregate demand from shippers and logistics service providers and connect it with OEMs, financiers and charge-point operators across identified freight corridors. The model tackles one of the key barriers to electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles: fragmented demand that makes vehicle deployment and charging investment difficult to underwrite.

DPD UK ordered 341 Mercedes-Benz eSprinter vans, with deployment beginning in September and the full order expected in service by the end of October. The addition will take DPD's UK electric delivery fleet to more than 4,000 vehicles, operating across more than 7,300 postal-code areas. The order demonstrates electric vans moving beyond limited city-centre applications toward longer commercial routes.

EVgo and Regency Centers expanded their US charging partnership with plans for more than 400 additional fast-charging stalls at retail properties. EVgo already operates 150+ stalls at Regency locations. New sites may contain as many as 24 high-powered chargers, expanding charging around grocery-anchored retail locations across states including Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.

Lidl GB plans to invest another £10 million (~US$13.47 million) in EV charging during the current financial year, including approximately 100 new rapid chargers at existing stores. It also reduced its Lidl Plus rapid-charging rate from £0.62/kWh (~US$0.84/kWh) to £0.59/kWh (~US$0.80/kWh). Lidl estimates the new tariff could save a regular user roughly £529 (~US$713) annually versus the market average.

Wisconsin secured US$25 million in federal NEVI grants to support 42 new fast-charging locations across the state. Individual awards range from approximately US$397,000 to US$930,000. The new funding takes total Wisconsin NEVI awards to roughly US$62 million supporting 120 charging projects, of which 25 stations are operational.

Pennsylvania announced US$11 million for EV charging infrastructure across 26 counties in central Pennsylvania under its NEVI Community Charging program. The state says 50 NEVI-funded charging hubs are already open, with another 41 in planning or construction. Since Pennsylvania's first NEVI station opened in December 2023, federally funded chargers have supported more than 146,000 charging sessions and an estimated 3,700+ tonnes of avoided CO₂ emissions.

The European Commission proposed procurement reforms that would make it easier for public authorities to apply a “European preference” and potentially exclude third-country suppliers from public tenders. Electric buses, municipal EV fleets and charging infrastructure could all be affected. The proposal remains a draft requiring approval by the European Parliament and member states, but it could make public procurement another major instrument of European EV industrial policy alongside tariffs and localization requirements.

China, already the world's dominant battery manufacturing base, reportedly temporarily suspended approvals for new battery-storage manufacturing factories. While the report concerns stationary storage rather than EV batteries specifically, the development matters to the wider lithium-ion ecosystem because cell manufacturing capacity, upstream materials and manufacturing economics overlap substantially across EV and energy-storage supply chains.

India has approximately 67,000 EV charging points, but an estimated 1.3 million could be required to support the country's electrification ambitions. The gap is particularly significant for long-distance passenger EVs and heavy freight, while operators in Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets can simultaneously face low utilization. This highlights that India's challenge is increasingly not simply charger deployment but matching location, vehicle segment, power requirements and utilization economics.