The US transition to electric vehicles is about to hit another speed bump, courtesy of new restrictions from China.

On Oct. 20, the Chinese government implemented new export controls on graphite, a key material for EV batteries.

China supplies about one-third of US graphite imports, according to the US Geological Survey, and it’s the world’s leading graphite producer. In 2021, it produced about 79% of the world’s graphite. Meanwhile, North America produced only 1.2% of the global supply—though that’s likely to increase with graphite mining projects in the works in Alabama and Alaska.

It’s too soon to say to what extent China will use the new rules to crack down on exports and how the new restrictions will ultimately affect battery costs, but in the short term, some experts expect graphite prices to rise. The timing is less than ideal for the burgeoning US EV industry, as companies race to open new battery factories representing billions of dollars in investments.

“It’s really the last thing that anybody wants to see, as they’re ramping up production of batteries and EVs,” Sam Abuelsamid, principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights, told Tech Brew. “Affordability is one of the primary barriers to EV adoption. And if all of a sudden, battery prices go up because there’s some spike in the price of graphite, that just makes it harder to sell EVs again.”

Keep reading here.—JG

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A Verizon unit has agreed to pay nearly $20 million in penalties to settle an investigation into allegations that it may have violated two federal connectivity programs, one aimed at low-income customers and one that lowered costs during the pandemic.

Verizon disclosed the potential program violations after it acquired TracFone in 2021, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced Wednesday, resulting in a $23.5 million settlement, including $17.5 million in fines, for “certain instances” related to the low-income Lifeline subsidy program and the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program.

TracFone’s systems counted users outside of the FCC’s qualifications, inflating subscriber metrics, the agency said. In some cases, TracFone’s systems allowed inactive customers to remain enrolled in both Lifeline and the EBB. Under program rules, carriers are supposed to begin closing subsidized accounts that are unused after 30 days.

TracFone additionally agreed to pay $6 million to resolve allegations that some of its associates inflated subscriber rolls for the Lifeline program and enrolled ineligible or fake customers in Texas, while also “manipulating data to create fake accounts” in Florida. Aside from the settlement, the FCC said TracFone has already paid back some $39 million.

The agency noted that robust checks and balances are “critical for ensuring public funds are not subsidizing unused connections.”

Keep reading here.—KG

Coworking is a weekly segment where we spotlight Tech Brew readers who work with emerging technologies. Click here if you’d like a chance to be featured.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in tech?

I use computers and genomic technologies to work toward developing safer and more effective treatments for human disease. We’re at the stage in human health where there’s an awesome convergence of a lot of biological data with artificial intelligence. I’m part of a team trying to use that data to figure out how to not only create new medicines, but also deliver them to where they need to go in the body to be effective and safe, and manufacture them at an efficient scale that makes them materially more affordable to patients. For context, gene therapies can currently cost millions of dollars for a single treatment, so making progress on accessibility is important.

What’s the most compelling tech project you’ve worked on, and why?

I had the privilege of being part of developing the CAR-T cell therapies Abecma and Breyanzi to treat multiple myeloma and lymphoma, respectively. CAR T-cell therapy is a new approach to treat cancer by genetically modifying a patient’s own T-cells to target and kill cancer cells. These therapies are an exciting advancement in personalized cancer treatment, and we and others are using machine learning on clinical trial data to continually make these therapies even more effective.

Keep reading here.

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