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Earlier this year, the electric-vehicle maker decided that it would stop using China-based suppliers for Tesla cars that are made in the U.S., according to people familiar with the situation. Tesla and its suppliers have already replaced some China-made components with parts made elsewhere. Tesla is aiming to switch all other components to those made outside of China in the next year or two, some of the people said.

Tesla has been trying to reduce its dependence on China-made components for its U.S. cars since the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the flow of goods from China, encouraging its China-based suppliers to make components elsewhere including in Mexico. But this year, after President Trump imposed stiff tariffs on Chinese imports, the company accelerated the strategy to cut out Chinese parts, the people said.

China is a major producer and exporter of auto parts—including chips and batteries—and materials that go inside cars. Many of them are cheaper due to China’s huge production scale, lower costs and weak currency.

Tesla executives have been grappling with the uncertainty brought by fluctuating tariff levels in the U.S.-China trade battle, which has made it difficult for the carmaker to formulate a coherent pricing strategy, some of the people said.

The geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing and the fallout on the global auto supply chain have only intensified Tesla’s urgency in pursuing the China-free strategy. In recent weeks, fresh disruptions in the supply of automotive chips stemming from a spat between China and the Netherlands have triggered discussions at Tesla about the need to accelerate diversification, some of the people said.

Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Tesla’s strategy is the latest example of how trade and geopolitical tensions are driving a decoupling of the world’s two largest economies and increasingly redrawing global supply chains. Many American companies are seeking to exclude China-made components or manufacture outside of China when it comes to products for the U.S. market. In turn, Chinese technology companies are erasing American components and technology from their supply chains.

The auto industry has been hit particularly hard by China-U.S. friction because of the global nature of its supply chains and business. This spring, automakers were rattled after China imposed export restrictions on certain rare earths and magnets that are widely used in cars and their production. More recently, carmakers have struggled to secure chips after China blocked the export of semiconductors made by a firm called Nexperia that are used in car lights and electronics.

Nexperia is a Dutch company whose chips are largely manufactured in Europe but ultimately are exported to the world from China, where processing and packaging take place. China blocked the export of the chips after the Dutch government seized control of Nexperia from its Chinese parent, which is on a U.S. trade blacklist.

The Dutch and Chinese governments are still fighting over the issue, even though Beijing has allowed Nexperia chips to be shipped out to some overseas customers following a summit last month between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The U.S. is Tesla’s biggest market, and Tesla vehicles running on American roads are produced at the carmaker’s factories in the U.S. In China, Tesla produces cars at its Shanghai plant using mostly locally produced components. The Shanghai-made cars are shipped both within China and overseas, mostly to Asia and Europe, but not to the U.S.

Over the years, Chinese suppliers that Tesla has been working with in China have increasingly been shipping parts globally for the carmaker’s factories elsewhere. A China-based executive said earlier this year that the Shanghai factory had some 400 direct Chinese suppliers, more than 60 of which had supplied Tesla’s global production.

Tesla has been pursuing a strategy of cutting back on made-in-China components for its U.S. cars since Trump’s first administration. As a part of this approach, Tesla has worked with its Chinese suppliers—including those making seat covers and metal casings—to set up factories and warehouses in Mexico and Southeast Asia in recent years, people familiar with the project said.

One Chinese-made component that Tesla is struggling to substitute is the lithium-iron phosphate battery. China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology, or CATL, has been a major supplier to Tesla for the battery, known as LFP.

Until last year, Tesla was selling cars in the U.S. with Chinese-produced LFP batteries, but since then it stopped doing so, because they became ineligible for EV-related tax credits and also due to U.S. tariffs.

Tesla is working to build LFP batteries for energy-storage products in the U.S. In October, the company said it expected its facility in Nevada making such battery products to start running in the first quarter of 2026.

Tesla Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said in April that the company was working on manufacturing LFP cells in the U.S., and on “securing additional supply chain from non-China-based suppliers.”

“But it will take time,” he said.

Write to Raffaele Huang at raffaele.huang@wsj.com and Yoko Kubota at yoko.kubota@wsj.com

After the dramatic ousting of the top drug regulator at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) two weeks ago, officials have scrambled to find a replacement in a process that has revealed the agency’s internal cracks and tensions.

It’s troubling news for a regulatory agency that has previously enjoyed a reputation for stability and consistency.

On Tuesday, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the top spot at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) would be filled by a surprising candidate.

Richard Pazdur is a respected oncology expert and longtime FDA employee – that’s not the surprising part. But he reportedly turned down the position when he was approached last week, according to Pink Sheet. That’s when top leaders began searching for other candidates.

“It boggles the mind,” said Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and a former associate commissioner at the FDA. “Reversals upon reversals.”

The news comes after several upheavals at the FDA.

George Tidmarsh, who was only appointed as CDER director in late July, resigned in early November following accusations of retaliation against a former pharmaceutical business partner and reports of strife within the agency. Tidmarsh was accused, in an explosive lawsuit, of using his position to harm his former business partner.

In the days before his ouster, Tidmarsh had opposed a new form of rapid approval, he told Stat News. The new program, called “Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher”, promised the rapid reviews of drugs – but Tidmarsh said he questioned the legality of the plan.

Tidmarsh also reportedly sparred with Vinay Prasad, simultaneously the agency’s chief medical and scientific officer and the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), after Prasad repeatedly bypassed Tidmarsh to ask CDER employees to do work for him.

The HHS did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about power struggles between Tidmarsh and Prasad, but the agency did confirm that Tidmarsh was no longer employed there.

“Secretary Kennedy expects the highest ethical standards from all individuals serving under his leadership and remains committed to full transparency,” said Emily Hilliard, press secretary.

Prasad himself was subject to reversals. He was forced to resign in July, but he returned unexpectedly less than a week later. FDA chief Marty Makary reportedly worked to bring him back.

“Prasad has obviously been very aggressive, and he’s not been softened by the experience of getting fired – if anything he seems to feel that he has the wind at his back because he was restored,” Lurie said. “But none of it speaks well to the kind of relations between the center directors that are necessary to make the place work.”

The degree of discord among top FDA officials is “very unusual”, Lurie said.

Before the job was filled by Pazdur, one CDER employee told the Guardian that “I would never take it” because the position would be a “career killer” in the turnover and tumult at the agency.

“Plus, I’d have Vinay Prasad bitching at me or about me non-stop,” said the employee, who asked for anonymity to protect their job.

After Tidmarsh’s departure, several longtime employees said they were not interested in the position, and Sara Brenner, principal deputy commissioner at the FDA, sent an email on Friday to some CDER employees asking whether any of them wanted to apply.

“The whole process of appointments at FDA in the current administration has been an enormous departure from accepted practices,” Lurie said. “The degree of upheaval at the agency is really difficult to overestimate and leaves people in the agency disconcerted.”

Opening up the position to large numbers of employees “reeks of desperation” and gives the impression that FDA leaders struggled to fill the job, he said. But Pazdur has “the right qualifications”, and choosing an FDA insider might shore up confidence and morale, Lurie added.

“There’s a sense among people who have worked at the agency for a while that they’re under siege by people who have come from the outside with only limited understanding of the way that FDA works and that they would be better served with somebody who actually understands the institution,” he said.

Lurie notes that the pharmaceutical industry values stability at the FDA more than anything. There is a core belief in the industry – and among the public – that FDA review is valuable in order to maintain trust and safety. “Predictability from day to day is really what they want, and otherwise, everything is in upheaval,” Lurie said.

The FDA has developed careful and relatively uncontroversial processes over the decades for evaluating drugs, biologics and medical devices.

“But now, everything is up for grabs,” Lurie said. “Suddenly, we have people who can get their drug reviewed in a one-day meeting.”

In addition to disrupting its regulatory work, the chaos at the FDA may also undermine the credibility of its experts in general, particularly as top officials within the administration continue to attack scientific expertise, Lurie said.

“If the assault on government continues at the pace that it has,” he said, the idea that the government is not to be trusted “could actually become true”.