An investigation by the Guardian, Voxeurop, and European media partners has mapped the physical supply chain connecting deforested indigenous woodlands in Sulawesi, Indonesia, to batteries installed in vehicles made by Volkswagen, Ford, Tesla, BMW, Stellantis, Hyundai, Volvo, General Motors, and Mercedes-Benz. The chain runs through two specific mining concessions — Cahaya and Hengjaya — operated in lands inhabited by the Tolaki people, through a Huayou Cobalt smelter in Morowali, to cathode factories in China, to CATL battery cells, and finally to European and American assembly lines. The numbers are damning. In 2024, $606 million worth of mixed hydroxide precipitate shipped from the Morowali smelter to China, followed by $470 million more in 2025. Sulawesi Cahaya Mineral delivered 11 million tonnes of limonite ore to Huayou's smelter in 2024 and nearly 12.5 million tonnes in 2025 — while clearing an additional 330 hectares of forest that same year. The company received two administrative sanctions for illegally clearing more than 450 hectares beyond its permitted boundaries. Nickel mining may account for two-thirds of all forest loss recorded since 2001 within the Cahaya concession area, and over half within the Hengjaya concession. The corporate architecture is designed to diffuse responsibility. SCM, which operates the Cahaya mine, is a subsidiary of Merdeka Battery Materials, whose shareholders include both Huayou and CATL — the same companies that buy the ore downstream. Huayou confirmed group-level supplies to CATL in a 2024 Shanghai Stock Exchange regulatory inquiry. Its downstream subsidiary Chengdu B&M confirmed supplying "large quantities" to CATL. Trade data from Volza shows a specific shipment: 24 tonnes of cell modules worth approximately $390,000 delivered to Volkswagen's Braunschweig facility in October 2024. Every major carmaker named responded with some version of "we take this seriously" and "we require suppliers to comply with responsible sourcing standards." None shared the results of on-site audits. Volkswagen — which powered one-quarter of its vehicles with CATL systems in 2024 — said it "could not rule out" that the implicated companies fall within its supply chain. CATL, Huayou, SCM, Tesla, and Tsingshan (main shareholder of the Hengjaya mine operator) did not respond at all. The environmental math is brutal. A Nature Communications study found that the carbon footprint of nickel from the worst Indonesian mines may be up to 500 times greater than previously reported, once deforestation is accounted for. Global nickel demand is projected to double to 5.5 million tonnes by 2040, mostly mined in Indonesia and refined in China. The forests being cleared are primary rainforest in a globally recognized wildlife hotspot, designated as "production forest" intended for forestry — not industrial mining. Successive Indonesian governments weakened the safeguards. The investigation surfaces a structural contradiction at the heart of the green transition: the vehicles sold as climate solutions depend on supply chains that destroy carbon sinks and displace indigenous communities. As Wadimula, a Tolaki elder living on the edge of the 21,000-hectare Cahaya concession, put it: "Destroying it means destroying our own life." A 2023 report found that US lithium demand alone could be cut 18% to 66% through better public transport, smaller vehicles, and more cycling — and up to 92% with improved recycling. The industry is not pursuing these paths because they sell fewer SUVs. The supply chain is not unknowable — this investigation proved that. What is missing is enforcement: mandatory traceability with public audit results, not corporate self-certification behind confidentiality clauses. The EU's deforestation regulation and due diligence directives are the policy instruments that could change this, but only if they survive industry lobbying to water them down. The alternative is a green transition built on the same extractive logic it claims to replace.
