EVs Are Driving Cleaner Automotive Supply Chains — Here’s How

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By Alexia Melendez Martineau, Senior Policy Manager, Plug In America

Thinking about buying an EV? Here’s one more reason to go electric.

A new ranking of the world’s biggest automakers reveals that EVs aren’t just saving drivers money on gas and maintenance; they’re better products, built in a fundamentally different way. Already more sustainable than their gas-powered counterparts, EVs are now pushing the entire industry toward cleaner, more transparent supply chains in ways combustion-engine cars simply never could.

The latest Lead the Charge Auto Supply Chain Leaderboard makes this clear. Because EVs require different materials and are designed differently from the ground up, they’ve unlocked a new frontier for supply chain sustainability, one that wasn’t pursued, or even possible, with gas vehicles. Unlike gasoline, which is continuously pumped, refined, and burned, traction batteries used to power EVs are recyclable, enabling substantial progress in reuse, refurbishment, and recycling.

According to the Leaderboard, automakers are now improving how batteries are recycled and repurposed, turning to low-carbon steel and aluminium to manufacture their EVs, and making real progress on the responsible sourcing of battery minerals – activity that is all specific to EV supply chains. EV supply chains are also becoming more transparent, meaning we can actually see where minerals come from, the state of labor conditions, and what happens to batteries at end of life.

The progress is real. In the last year, more than half of the 18 companies evaluated advanced in battery recycling and repurposing. Tesla has set a new industry benchmark by publishing detailed information on where emissions from its battery supply chain are concentrated and what’s being done to reduce them. Mercedes, Ford, and Volkswagen have tightened requirements for battery minerals, holding suppliers to higher standards on responsible mining. This supports responsible material and mineral sourcing and a circular supply chain, enabling materials to be used over and over in new batteries and vehicles. Remember: liquid fuel can only be burned once, so this level of reuse and recycling was not achievable with combustion engine cars.

Are EV supply chains perfect? Not yet. Coal-powered steel, worker issues, and destructive mining haven’t disappeared. But the baseline is already higher than it ever was for gas cars, and it’s rising.

Two additional dynamics make EV manufacturing starkly different from the combustion engine era, and both put real power in the hands of buyers.

The first is regulation. Pioneering rules specific to EV manufacturing are raising the bar in ways never applied to combustion engine cars. The EU Batteries Regulation, for example, requires carmakers to map their supply chains, source battery minerals responsibly, and recycle batteries. These obligations simply didn’t exist before, and the nature of combustion engine cars made them largely impossible or irrelevant.

The second dynamic is consumer demand. Research from Plug In America shows that EV drivers genuinely care about these issues. “Clean air and environmental protection” has ranked as the top purchase consideration in our annual EV Driver Survey every year and was chosen by nearly 40% of respondents in 2025. Cleaner EV supply chains aren’t just the right thing to do; they’re good business.

Automakers are tapping into these dynamics as they increasingly see clean, sustainable supply chains as a competitive advantage. Mercedes and Volvo have already started promoting the reduced pollution footprints of their latest models, the CLA and ES90, publishing exact figures on the low-carbon steel and aluminium used in each. Consumers can now compare EVs not just on range and charging speed, but on the environmental cost of the materials used to build them. That kind of comparison was never on the table for gas cars.

That transparency puts the future of the industry firmly in consumers’ hands. As it becomes easier to compare the real-world impact of individual vehicles, buyers can direct their purchasing power toward the automakers making the most progress. And that competition will push the whole industry further, faster.

The ripple effects extend well beyond cars. Automakers are the world’s largest consumers of aluminium and among the biggest buyers of steel — two industries that together account for roughly 13% of global pollution. Growing demand for low-carbon materials from EV makers could play a decisive role in cleaning up both sectors, effectively multiplying the impact of the EV transition.

The shift to EVs has the potential to be a genuine game changer, not just in the vehicles themselves, but in how an entire industrial ecosystem operates. EVs have already raised the bar for what a car can be. Now they’re raising the bar for how one is made. Some manufacturers are already leading the way. As for the rest? We’ll see who else rises to the top.

About the Author: Alexia is Senior Policy Manager at Plug In America, which advocates for the transition to affordable EVs, where she has worked since 2022. Prior to that she worked at Climate Group, which works with government and businesses on net zero emissions.