“Automakers racing against time to make more electric vehicles face a headache: climate change catching up with the industry,” the agency writes, noting that drought in China and in Germany provides insight into the threats that global warming poses to industry.
In Germany, for example, Volkswagen said last week that one of its factories in the region was affected by a power shortage and that it expected a slight delay in order deliveries, the report said. .
Also in China, authorities in Sichuan province, which supplies nearly 1/5 of national lithium production, have extended power cuts to some industrial users amid the most intense heat wave in more than 60 years has depleted reservoirs used for hydroelectricity, Bloomberg said, adding that Tesla and China’s SAIC Motor have informed Shanghai authorities that they may experience difficulty in maintaining production if the electricity crisis continues to impact suppliers. Faced with the same problems, Toyota and the battery manufacturer CATL decided to temporarily close their factories.
Also in the German states of Brandenburg and Saxony, where Tesla and BMW have car factories, the authorities have requested the help of the army to contain several forest fires this summer.
According to the US agency, many automakers consider climate change a business risk factor. Tesla, for example, warns that if weather-related disasters occur, its headquarters and production facilities “could be severely damaged, or we may have to stop or delay production and shipment of our products.”
Although manufacturers clearly realize that climate change can affect their production networks, their actions do not always match the severity of the threats, Bloomberg notes, however, adding that companies continue to locate water-hungry manufacturing sites in regions where supplies are increasingly scarce.