Globalisation works great. Until China keeps the magnets.

Electric vehicles are powered by lithium batteriesThe KenIndia’s Rs 18,000 crore battery plan is stuck at Rs 24 crore. But to actually move, they need magnets. Not just any magnets—rare-earth permanent magnets made from things like neodymium and praseodymium. They sit inside motors and quietly make everything spin. Smoothly, silently, efficiently. They are also not coming to India.

Which is a bit of a problem, because India doesn’t really make these magnets. It imports them, mostly from China. And since April, not a single shipment has arrived.

The result is that India’s EV makers are discovering the fine print of globalisation: you can outsource your supply chain, but you can’t outsource geopolitics.

First, the symptoms. Maruti Suzuki has responded in the classic auto-industry way: cut production. A 70% cutAutocar ProfessionalMaruti Suzuki Cuts e-Vitara EV Production by Two-Thirds Amid Rare Earth Supply Disruption: Reuters, to be precise, in the output of its electric SUV e-Vitara. TVS and Bajaj are still running their machines, but they’ve circled mid-July on the calendar. After that, their motors may run dry.

Others, like Mahindra & Mahindra and Omega Seiki Mobility—a New Delhi-based EV maker—are in slightly better shape. They were already working around rare earth minerals long before China slammed the window shut. Mahindra has been flying in pre-assembled motors through its French partner, Valeo. Omega Seiki went one step further—it redesigned its motors to skip rare earth minerals altogether. 

But the rest of the industry is now staring at a summer, or monsoon, of shrinkage. So, they are looking at Plan B. A few are dusting off local supply-chain plans long deemed unviable. A few are rewriting component sourcing contracts—swapping out raw materials for pre-assembled parts.

Behind all of this is one humble component: the rare-earth permanent magnet. It’s the invisible hero of modern mobility—sitting inside motors, power steering systems, infotainment units, even automatic window mechanisms. Basically anything that makes EVs feel like tomorrow’s tech instead of just today’s transport.

And the shortage isn’t some random hiccup in global trade.