Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The transition toward battery electric vehicles is essential to achieving the goals of the European Green Deal Industrial Plan and Portugal's Roadmap for Carbon Neutrality 2050. This transition relies on lithium-ion batteries whose global supply chains remain highly concentrated and exposed to geopolitical risks. These compromise the resilience of Europe's clean mobility sector, particularly in smaller markets such as Portugal, which depend heavily on the import of batteries, BEVs and critical raw materials. There is a growing body of literature assessing BEVs and batteries supply chains vulner- abilities, namely at European Union (EU) level by European Commission, but there are no studies made for Portugal. This study analyzes the structure and vulnerability of Portugal's BEV and lithium-ion bat- tery supply chains for 2015-2024 within the EU context. International trade data were obtained from National Statistics Office INE and complemented with information from ACAP Portuguese Automobile Association. Concentration and dependency were evaluated using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). Results indicate that more than half of Portugal's lithium-ion battery imports come from China, revealing a high level of concentration across the entire battery supply chain. BEV imports are mainly intra-European, originating from Germany and France, showing lower direct risk but continued dependence on extra-EU raw material supply. These findings highlight the need for stronger national and EU strategies promoting recycling, domestic processing, and traceability of critical raw materials to enhance long-term supply chain resilience and industrial sovereignty.
Author: Shabanifar, Soraya
Language: English
Subfield: Metals and Alloys
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7163096669