MP Materials Corp. (NYSE:MP) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

And so, kind of a bunch of rich people could get them, but then when would it really sort of be mainstream and how much subsidy would have to happen? But actually what’s happened now is that the Chinese have put so much capacity on the table that they have now moved downstream to the point where their OEMs will be displacing Western OEMs in the West. And you see that, you see that really, and I think you’re going to see it in a huge way this summer. And I think it will probably hit fever pitch as we approach the election. And it’ll continue to be an issue because there’s no question that there’s going to be stress and distress across some of the Western OEMs as the competitive landscape completely changes. It’s a great thing for consumers in the sense that there are great products that are cheaper than ice vehicles.

And so this whole issue of demand and — is this, it’s really just a pendulum of, EV, whether, regardless of what people think, the electrified penetration is greater than 50% in China. So it is [Indiscernible], it is happening around the world. And so our expectation is that, and frankly, I think it’s a pretty good bet that for political, but also economic reasons, that as you see this unfold, market pricing or close to market pricing will eventually take hold. It’s going to be very hard for Chinese OEMs to sell a lot of products in the U.S. while losing money upstream in some of these critical commodities, having a strategic advantage relative to other OEMs. So I think that what we have, and certainly there needs to be more of this supply chain, and we’re not the only vertical that this pertains to, but I think as we see this dynamic unfold, the battleground will move from the upstream to the downstream.

And of course, I haven’t even begun, we haven’t talked about robotics and drones and other things that are electrified that have even broader national security applications in the world as we see it. And so, again, that is all speculative on our part, but I think that we’ve sort of been on top of this issue for a few years, and I think that we’ll start to see that change. I don’t expect it to be in the next couple months, but certainly in the next couple of years.

Benjamin Kallo: Thanks, Jim.

Jim Litinsky: Sure. All right. Thank you. Well…

Operator: Go ahead. I’m so sorry.

Jim Litinsky: Okay. Yes, I was just going to conclude and say Domo arigato to everybody. Thank you. And we’ll see you next quarter.

Operator: That concludes today’s call. Thank you for your participation and enjoy the rest of your day.