From Top Electric.

In the autumn of 2025 the assembly lines of Stuttgart, Ingolstadt, Graz and Turin simply stopped. Not because of strikes or blackouts, but because the small, ultra-strong neodymium magnets that give every high-performance electric motor its torque are no longer arriving from China in meaningful quantities. Volkswagen has parked 48,000 unfinished cars, BMW has furloughed 18,000 workers, and Fiat’s Mirafiori plant runs one shift instead of three. Europe’s 90-day strategic stockpiles lasted 51 days once Beijing’s export-license approval rate fell to 23 %.

What looked like smart outsourcing in the 1990s—shutting domestic mines to buy cheaper Chinese magnets—has become a chokehold. The same material powers wind turbines, data-center cooling fans, and military drones. With no scalable alternative or recycling technology ready, and new Western mines a decade away, Europe’s green transition and industrial sovereignty now depend on the goodwill of its biggest strategic rival. This is not a supply-chain glitch; it is the sound of a continent discovering that the future it planned is controlled by someone else.

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