2025-06-05
26 分钟Hello and welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
I'm David Harper and in just a few moments we're hearing from the car makers facing production line shutdowns as China's restrictions on rare earth materials bite.
It's a very serious situation.
It's very tough actually getting the necessary approvals and first line shutdowns we already see.
And also coming up, there's Nintendo launched their brand new Switch 2.
We'll ask what the future holds for gaming consoles.
And we've waited so long for sci-fi style deliveries from autonomous drones.
Is it finally becoming a reality?
First though, rare earth materials,
a small number of minerals mined in a small number of areas,
have become increasingly critical to today's industries.
Now,
key voices in the automotive industry say that their manufacturing is being threatened by disruptions to supplies,
particularly supplies from the leading source for rare earth materials,
China, which has been increasing restrictions on exports.
David Merriman is research director at Project Blue,
a consultancy specializing in critical minerals.
The restrictions that have been brought in by the Chinese government at the start of April of targeted these rare earth elements and scan them and they impact a wide range of markets not just the automotive industry
as you
as you mentioned so manufacturers of robotics products of electronics materials generators for renewable energy or being impacted by these restrictions.