This report comprises the results of an investigation into thestructure of the electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chain. Thestructure of the EV battery supply chain has undergone a rapidtransformation, and continues to evolve even now amid a shiftingindustrial landscape that reflects the effects of both the pandemic-induced supply chain crisis as well as the ongoing Fourth IndustrialRevolution (4IR).

In the first chapter we describe the scope of the 피망 슬롯 andsummarize the backdrop against which the content of the study shouldbe understood. In the second chapter, we provide a conceptualdefinition of 4IR and summarize the impact of the COVID-19pandemic on domestic (Korean) production sites.

In the conduct of this study, we realized that, despite high levels ofinterest in 4IR among academics, government, business, and thegeneral public, the overall level of understanding of the phenomenonwas quite low. With this in mind, in Chapter 2 we explain in detail thebasic data and analytical methods used in the 피망 슬롯.

For this study, our core analysis is a tear-down (TD) analysis of eachstage and every process of battery manufacturing. As part of this, weconstruct a database of: every battery model used in EVs, criticaltechnologies in each stage of the production process, interfirmtransaction data, and major corporate shareholders. The analysisfocuses on production stage interfirm transaction data.

In Chapter 3, we describe the main objectives of the paper andconduct a supply chain analysis. We also in this chapter survey in somedetail the overall landscape of the automotive sector and discuss keyindustrial trends in the EV and battery markets.

We also ascertain the characteristics of the industry’s supply chain inthree distinct periods. The first is the pre-4IR period that runs up to2016. The second is the pre-pandemic period from 2016-2019. Thelast is the post-pandemic era that runs up to the present. We presented the results of this analysis as a Sankey flow diagram. The diagramdepicts movements of goods for each production stage in each of thethree periods describe above.

We then visualize the transaction structure for each stage ofproduction (and each period) based on network theory.

The EV market has grown rapidly since the introduction of massmarket, battery-electric automobiles in 2010. Real growth in EVproduction and consumption did not get underway until 2016,however, and the explosion of EV popularity did not occur until theoutbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019. Note that the firstgrowth period coincides with the start of early 4IR discussions.

We see this phenomenon as owing to three key factors: ① saturationin the internal combustion engine (ICE) - based vehicle market, ② theeconomic complexity of the automotive industry the effects ofinterindustry linkages, and ③ the ways in which the industry attemptedto deal with supply chain disruptions wrought by the COVID pandemic.

However, the enormous role played by China in the EV batteryindustry must be noted. In terms of both scale and complexity, theinfluence of China here outweighs both the second and third factorsdescribed above, and for this reason firms involved in the batterysupply chain face significant barriers to exist. That is, it is extremelydifficult for any player in the EV battery industry to bypass or otherwiseavoid China.

We also found evidence of a regionalization phenomenon in theindustry, in which production of certain goods becomes concentratedin groups of countries. We also noted differences in the distribution ofproduction stages among countries.

The rapid growth of the EV market also raises a number of concerns.Looking at the macro ecosystem in which EVs are being adopted, wesee fossil fuel plants being used to produce the electricity that powersthese cars and major problems in recycling EV batteries.

In Chapter 4, we identify ten major issues in the EV battery sector.Our supplementary analysis of these issues is informed by the results ofthe main analysis in Chapter 3