World News for Students of English

23-03-2023 07:00

Volkswagen, the biggest carmaker in Europe, plans to invest in mines to make batteries for electric cars.

Carmakers don’t want to rely on third parties which supply energy and raw materials. They want to become more independent and get better control over the supply chain. Carmakers also need to meet EU targets for electrification, but raw materials which they need for batteries are rare and mines have limited capacity.

The biggest carmakers like Tesla and Volkswagen are looking for ways how to make electric cars cheaper, and investing in mines seems like a good way how to do it.

Difficult words: mine (a place where people get coal or other minerals from the ground), supply chain (all the people and companies who make a specific product and get it to customers), rare (unusual or special), limited capacity (how much a worker, machine or organization can produce).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.