Both, of course.

there’s no abundance of it, especially not enough for everyone to switch to EV.

That’s not true at all. There are 1.4 billion cars in the world now, while the lithium ores that are readily available for mining (22 million tons) were estimated to be enough for 2.8 billion cars a year ago. Twice the amount of cars existing today.

But since then, there was already another massive stockpile discovered in the US, that alone is bigger than that (20-40 million tons), so enough for another 3-5 billion cars. But there will surely be discovered new sites, now that we are actually, intensely looking for it. We have been looking for oil for more than a century now and are still discovering new reserves. Lithium will be the same.

Nokia was way more dominant in the phone market than Toyota in the automotive industry. Yet, when it was time to jump on the new technology that everyone else was jumping on (android), they fell into the sunk cost fallacy and stood by their own, outdated tech (symbian). That promptly got them bankrupt. Toyota may still change its course, but if they wait too long, they are going to end up just like Nokia did.

Samantha Carter, SG1

Who would have thunk?

The EU expanding to the Eastern countries was an extremely beneficial thing for Western countries to do. Since Eastern Europe became part of the single market and westerners don’t have to pay tariffs for stuff produced there, EEu has become the China of Europe. They have become the cheap, efficient factories for Europe, without which the Eu would be incomparably less competitive globally against Asia and the US. European industry and economy is having difficulties, as it is. Without EEu, it would be dead.

But is it causing immobilism in turn, like you stated? No. The real cause of immobilism is the archaic laws and systems of the EU itself. It is impossible to control/gouvern such a large and diverse society, with hundreds of millions of people and dozens of countries, while needing UNANIMUOUS decisionmaking. By giving every country veto power, the EU is begging for itself to be immobilised on any major issue. Yes, a few EEuropean leaders are baught and paid for by Putin or just straight up fascists (the previous Polish gouvernment, now Fico in SK, Orban in Hungary), and they have the power to block EU actions. But among this many people, nations and countries, there are always going to be renitents going against the tide. The point is: the EU needs to reform its structures and decision making processes if it wants to keep functioning and being able to hold its own against the competition and straight up attacks (economical, military or otherwise) from Asia or even the US.