General Motors

China Found Something Better Than Oil

Sep 11, 2026 · 27:26

This episode explains how China built a 94% monopoly on magnet rare earths—99% on samarium—deliberately rather than by geology, tracing the 1995 sale of General Motors' Magnequench division to firms tied to Deng Xiaoping's son-in-laws. It covers how the 1983 neodymium magnet from GM and Hitachi Metals shrank motors in AirPods, EVs, and Tomahawk missiles, and how the Mountain Pass mine shut down after thorium spills made US refining unviable. It lays out China's four-step playbook: cheap state loans, export caps that quadrupled world prices, extracting know-how from foreign firms, then flooding markets to kill new mines. It ends with the April 4, 2025 samarium export ban and the Pentagon's countermove—take-or-pay deals guaranteeing $110 per kilogram for 10 years while Mountain Pass reopens with a Texas processing facility.

Train Manufacturers Are About to Make A Ton of Money

Jul 12, 2024 · 9:39

California's 2030 ban on locomotives over 23 years old and its 2035 zero-emission mandate will force railroads to replace 15,000 engines at $7.5 million apiece — a $112 billion windfall Wabtec, the market leader since buying GE's railroad division in 2018, is best positioned to capture. Rival Progress Rail, a Caterpillar company, sued Wabtec as a monopoly in 2023 as both race to build replacement technologies. Battery locomotives are capped at 800 miles per charge and cost up to $10 million, while hydrogen trains, proven in Germany, aren't expected at freight scale for 5 to 10 years. California's Clean Air Act exemption lets it set national emissions standards, and one locomotive's batteries equal 120 Tesla Model 3s, straining grids and tight copper and lithium supply chains.