Most tip-offs that land in TCAP’s inbox do not get published. Some are too vague, too messy, too obviously loaded, or too light on receipts. After TCAP’s previous EVE Energy coverage, though, a group calling itself Protest Alliance got in touch with more material from the Indonesian nickel chain. TCAP looked carefully, checked what could be checked, binned what could not be stood up, and found enough to proceed.
EVE Energy is back.
That is not because TCAP needed a trilogy for the sake of it. Nor is it because a random email arrived and TCAP decided to publish somebody else’s allegations without doing the work. Most tip-offs do not make it past the inbox. Some are smoke with no fire. Others are fire with no safe way of proving who lit it. A few are grudges looking for a platform.
This one was different.
After TCAP’s earlier EVE Energy coverage, Protest Alliance contacted TCAP about Indonesian nickel, Weda Bay, Huafei, Huayou, flooding, fire, tailings, protest criminalisation and the dirty machinery sitting behind the clean battery story. They asked TCAP to cover it. So TCAP looked, checked the source trail, and obliged.
There is another reason this matters. TCAP previously sought comment from Jennifer Rumsey, Cummins’ Chair and CEO, on EVE Energy and the issues raised in earlier coverage. Melinda Koski, Cummins’ Director of External Communications, also sits on the public-facing end of that silence machine. She was also contacted. Cummins did not meaningfully engage. Or engage at all, in fact. No proper explanation or useful comment. No adult statement about why the company’s clean-tech partner should not concern anybody.
Fine.
While Cummins’ big wigs were pretending the problem did not exist, Protest Alliance was apparently watching from closer to the ground. Now the question comes back with more smoke, more names, more documents and more filth clinging to the supposed clean-energy chain.
EVE Energy Again, Because The Stain Did Not Wash Out
EVE Energy was not supposed to become a recurring TCAP character. Cummins helped make it one.
Through Accelera, Cummins tied itself to EVE Energy in the battery-cell joint venture with Daimler Truck and PACCAR. The clean version sounds lovely: battery cells, electrification, localisation, zero-emissions technology, commercial vehicles, American manufacturing and the usual polished transition bullshit. EVE Energy was named as the technology partner, given a 10 percent stake, and presented as the cell-design and manufacturing know-how inside the joint venture.
That gave Cummins a nice clean-tech paragraph. However, partners come with histories. Suppliers come with supply chains. Battery companies come with material footprints. When those footprints start walking through Indonesian nickel, coal power, tailings risk, labour exploitation, flooding and community conflict, the shiny Cummins paragraph starts smelling less like progress and more like someone sprayed air freshener in a morgue.
TCAP is not saying Cummins personally dug nickel out of Weda Bay. It is also not saying every battery cell in the Cummins-linked joint venture contains Indonesian nickel. Cummins’ own battery-cell story is built around LFP, and LFP chemistry is not the same as nickel-rich battery chemistry.
Nevertheless, that does not get Cummins off the fucking hook.
This is a partner credibility issue. It is a due-diligence issue. Above all, it is a “who exactly did you climb into bed with?” issue. Cummins picked EVE Energy as a clean-tech partner, TCAP asked questions, and Cummins stayed silent.
Now EVE Energy is back on the table.
Protest Alliance Sent The Smoke Signal
The Protest Alliance email was not polished. It opened by calling TCAP “the Cummins Team”, which is either careless, badly translated or accidentally hilarious.
Underneath the messy phrasing, though, was something serious. Local civil organisations in Indonesia, according to Protest Alliance, were continuing to track the situation around Weda Bay and Central Halmahera, where Huafei sits inside the wider Huayou-linked battery-nickel ecosystem. Their message pointed to deforestation, flooding, household damage, safety non-compliance, a reported Huafei fire in February 2026, tailings risks, protest criminalisation and the role of police or security forces around contested mining activity.
That is a lot to claim. Therefore, it is also not something TCAP would publish blind.
The useful parts survived checking. The sloppy parts did not. That matters because TCAP is angry, not careless. Rage is not an excuse to print shit that cannot be stood up. If the evidence is there, it gets used. If it is not there, it gets binned, parked or caveated.
In this case, the email gave TCAP the prompt, the documents gave TCAP the spine, and Cummins’ silence gave TCAP the target.
The EVE Energy Trail Runs Through Huafei
The key attachment was not some anonymous rant. It was Clean Cars, Dirty Nickel, a report by Arianto Sangadji, Linda Dewi Rahayu and Pradnya Paramarini, published by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung with the support of PowerShift, and connected to AEER.
The report maps the Indonesia-China-Germany nickel supply chain for EV batteries. Crucially, it focuses on nickel mining and smelting companies belonging or related to Huayou Cobalt in Indonesia, then follows links to battery manufacturers and automakers. That is where the EVE Energy problem starts tightening.
According to the report, Huayou officially reports delivering ternary precursors to major battery companies including EVE Energy. It also maps Huayou’s nickel supplier and customer chain, naming EVE Energy among the battery-maker customers. The corridor is not subtle: Indonesia, Huayou, Huafei, battery-grade nickel, battery materials, EVE Energy, and then a separate but reputationally connected Cummins clean-tech partnership.
That is not a neat courtroom chain where TCAP follows one molecule from one Indonesian tailings pond into one Cummins-linked battery cell. TCAP is not pretending that. The truth is uglier and more corporate.
The problem is the partner ecosystem. Due diligence. The problem is Cummins happily standing beside EVE Energy when the press release smells clean, then going mute when the wider supply-chain shit starts rising through the floorboards. And now we fucking know why.
Huafei Is Not A Footnote
EVE Energy’s own corporate material has linked EVE Asia to PT Huafei Nickel Cobalt. Huafei is based in Indonesia’s Weda Bay industrial complex and sits inside the battery-grade nickel processing story.
That matters because Huafei is not decorative. The AEER report describes PT Huafei Nickel Cobalt as an HPAL producer inside the Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park. It identifies Huafei as producing mixed hydroxide precipitate, or MHP, a battery-grade nickel intermediate transported to Huayou production lines in China for conversion into nickel and cobalt chemicals for EV batteries.
So this is not “EVE once stood near someone at a conference”. EVE has been tied to Huafei. Huafei sits in Weda Bay. Weda Bay sits inside the Indonesian nickel chain. That chain, according to the report, carries environmental damage and human-rights risks that no clean-tech press release can launder.
Meanwhile, Cummins chose EVE Energy as a clean-tech battery partner, then stonewalled TCAP when asked about the issues.
That is the shape of the problem. It is not abstract. It has paperwork.
Weda Bay Is Where The Brochure Starts Bleeding
The Indonesian nickel chain is not a clean-tech fairy tale. The AEER report describes battery-grade nickel production in Indonesia as coming with high environmental costs, including deforestation and air and water pollution. It also identifies human-rights violations, including land theft, displacement of Indigenous peoples and intense labour exploitation.
That is the back room of the battery economy.
In Weda Bay and around Halmahera, nickel is not just a material in a sustainability deck. It is open-pit extraction. Forest loss. It is muddy floodwater. It is contaminated fishing grounds. Coal-fired power feeds “clean” battery ingredients, while tailings, workers, police and displaced communities sit outside the frame.
Corporate language starts to rot at that point.
“Energy transition” sounds clean until the river changes colour. “Responsible sourcing” sounds impressive until the forest goes missing. “Battery ecosystem” sounds sophisticated until communities are told to move, wait, accept, shut up or get processed.
That is not an ecosystem.
It is an industrial throat.
Floods Do Not Read ESG Reports
Protest Alliance pointed to flooding and household damage around Weda Bay and Central Halmahera. That concern is supported by the wider evidence, with one important caveat: TCAP is not claiming one company alone caused every flood. Environmental damage, rainfall, land-use change, mining, industrial expansion and poor governance can all sit in the same ugly bowl.
However, the pattern is there.
The AEER report says villages around Weda Bay have suffered major floods in recent years. It describes a severe July 2024 flood affecting Woejerana, Woekob, Lelilef Waibulan and Lukolamo, paralysing the activities of thousands of residents and forcing many into shelters.
That is what battery-grade nickel looks like when the brochure drains away. Not a clean white factory. Not a green arrow pointing to net zero. Instead, mud, water, damage and people moved out of their homes while the global battery chain moves on.
Somewhere far away, an executive says “responsible innovation”. In Central Halmahera, people deal with the runoff.
The Huafei Fire Was Not A Ghost Story
Protest Alliance also pointed TCAP toward a reported Huafei fire in February 2026. That checked out.
Reports described a fire at PT Huafei Nickel Cobalt inside the Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park in February 2026. Later, company-linked clarification framed it as a quicklime warehouse incident triggered by rainwater, causing an exothermic reaction that ignited packaging bags. The company said there were no casualties, minimal damage and normal operations.
Fine. Take their words at their highest: no casualties, minimal damage, normal operations.
Still a fire.
And still Huafei.
Still inside the same Indonesian nickel chain the battery industry wants investors and customers to understand only as “materials”, “capacity”, “supply security” and “energy transition”.
That is the trick. When something catches fire, it becomes an incident. When the material leaves the island, it becomes clean tech. TCAP is simply refusing to forget the first half.
Tailings Risk Is Where The Green Paint Cracks
The tailings lane is even worse.
The AEER report says Huayue and Huafei use filtered tailings to manage HPAL waste and warns that this method raises concerns in wet climates. It points to runoff risk, contaminated-water risk and vulnerability to seismic activity in places like North Maluku and Morowali.
That is already nasty enough. Then the wider record gives the warning label a body.
PT Huayue Nickel Cobalt, another Huayou-linked HPAL project, has been tied to a tailings-facility breach in Indonesia. Earthworks reported that a PT Huayue tailings storage facility was breached in March 2025 and that liquefied tailings flowed into the Bahadopi River. It also reported another tailings facility breach inside IMIP involving QMB New Energy Materials, with workers feared dead.
TCAP is not claiming Huafei’s own tailings facility collapsed. That distinction matters.
Even so, Huafei sits inside the same Huayou HPAL universe where filtered-tailings risk, wet-climate risk, seismic risk and actual failure history now belong in the same conversation.
This is how supply-chain harm hides. One company name here, another company name there, then a joint venture, a subsidiary, a supplier, a battery maker, a customer and finally a clean-tech partner. By the time the whole thing reaches the glossy surface, the sludge has been renamed six times.
TCAP is naming it backwards.
Protesters, Workers And The Police Line
The Wana Kencana Mineral strand is another serious part of this.
The AEER report says PT Wana Kencana Mineral is the second-largest nickel concession on Halmahera Island. It also says Huayou has a 35 percent stake through Huacai, and that Huayou-linked processing facilities in IWIP source nickel from Wana Kencana.
Then come the people.
The report describes villagers taking direct action at Wana Kencana’s field office. It says armed troops blocked access and that seven villagers were criminalised after police filed charges connected to alleged obstruction of company operations.
That is what the clean battery chain looks like after the lighting crew leaves: a mine concession, a field office, a protest, a police line, a court file and, much further up the chain, a battery company with a sustainability page.
The worker lane is no cleaner. The report also describes a dispute involving PT Five Star Indonesia, a mining contractor of Wana Kencana Mineral. Workers protested against labour practices, police arrested four workers, and an Indonesian court later sentenced them to prison.
Again, TCAP is not saying EVE personally sent police to anyone’s door. The point is colder than that.
EVE is tied to Huafei. Huafei is tied into the Huayou battery-grade nickel machine. Huayou-linked operations are tied into a wider Indonesian nickel chain where community and labour resistance can end up facing police, charges and prison.
That is the ecosystem Cummins chose to stand near and not flinch when questioned.
Accelera Branding Is Not Bleach
Accelera is useful branding for Cummins. It lets the company talk about batteries, zero emissions, electrification, transition and the future without forcing everyone to stare too long at diesel reality.
But branding is not bleach.
The moment Cummins picked EVE Energy as a battery-cell partner, EVE became part of the Cummins clean-tech credibility story. Therefore, EVE’s wider corporate footprint matters. Its Huafei exposure matters, and Huayou-linked nickel exposure matters. Its Indonesian battery-materials ecosystem matters.
Cummins can say the joint venture is LFP. Fine. Then say it clearly.
The company can also say the specific battery cells in the joint venture do not use nickel. Again, fine. Then explain why EVE’s wider nickel exposure is irrelevant to partner due diligence.
If Cummins reviewed the risk, it can say that too. It can produce the adult answer, explain the process and put a grown-up statement on the record.
Instead, TCAP got silence.
That silence is not just rude. On grave supplier-chain issues involving flooding, fire, tailings, labour conflict, community resistance and Indonesian nickel, silence starts to look less like strategy and more like hiding under the desk.
Rumsey And Koski Were Asked
TCAP previously contacted Jennifer Rumsey for comment on EVE Energy. That matters because Rumsey is not some passing name in the boilerplate. She is Cummins’ Chair and CEO. She leads the company that wants investors, customers and the public to believe its energy-transition bullshit.
Melinda Koski matters too, because external communications is where companies put the people who speak when speaking is useful and disappear when speaking is dangerous.
On EVE Energy, Cummins had choices. It could have answered, corrected, distinguished, explained or denied. A statement could have said TCAP had misunderstood the supply-chain issue. Cummins could have explained that the Accelera/EVE partnership was limited to LFP and did not touch Indonesian nickel. It could have outlined its due-diligence process or said why EVE’s wider Huafei/Huayou exposure did not concern the company.
Instead, Cummins chose silence.
That is its right.
It is also TCAP’s right to notice, document and keep asking the ugly question.
This Is A PR Disaster Of A Partnership
The problem for Cummins is not that every flood, fire, tailings risk, worker sentence, police line or forest loss automatically lands at Cummins’ door as a proven operational fact. That would be too easy, and too sloppy.
The real problem is that EVE Energy is close enough to the Indonesian battery-materials machine for the questions to be unavoidable, while Cummins chose EVE as a partner in the clean-tech story it wants investors, customers and the public to admire.
That makes this a PR disaster of a partnership.
Not because every allegation has to be pinned to Cummins with a courtroom nail. Rather, because the entire point of Destination Zero is credibility.
Credibility is not just what you sell. It is who you stand beside, which partners you choose, what you check before you sign and which questions you answer when supply-chain smoke starts coming through the floorboards.
Cummins wanted the EVE glow.
Now it gets the EVE questions.
The Battery Saints Have A Nickel Basement
This is the part Cummins and EVE would rather keep abstract.
The clean-energy economy loves distance. It loves the journey from mine to material, material to chemical, chemical to cell, cell to module, module to vehicle and vehicle to press release, because every step lets the blood and mud thin out a little more.
By the time the story reaches the executive quote, the forest is gone. The water is somebody else’s problem. Tailings belong to another facility, while the protest becomes a local legal matter. The worker is somebody else’s contractor, the fire is somebody else’s clarification, and the partnership is suddenly clean.
No.
That is not how accountability works.
If Cummins wants to sell itself as a serious player in the transition, it has to own the seriousness of its partner choices. It cannot use EVE Energy when EVE is useful, then pretend EVE’s wider corporate shadow belongs in another room.
That is not due diligence.
It is moral laundering with better lighting.
Who Takes Responsibility At Cummins?
So who at Cummins takes responsibility for this?
Does Jennifer Rumsey own the supplier-risk question, given that her company tied Accelera to EVE Energy? Does Melinda Koski’s external communications function have any appetite for answering serious questions when the subject is ugly rather than polished? Do Accelera leadership, procurement, legal or the board want to explain how they assess partner risk around EVE, Huafei, Huayou and Indonesian nickel?
Anyone?
Of course not.
Nobody.
That is the answer.
Nobody takes responsibility because responsibility would require Cummins to admit there is a question. Once there is a question, the clean-tech bedtime story starts to look like what it is: a battery partnership with smoke in the supply-chain basement.
TCAP welcomes comment from Jennifer Rumsey or Melinda Koski if either of them wishes to finally break Cummins’ silence on EVE Energy, Huafei, Huayou, Indonesian nickel or the due-diligence process behind this partnership.
Until then, the record will do what Cummins will not.
It will speak.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Cummins – Accelera By Cummins, Daimler Truck And PACCAR Form A Joint Venture To Advance Battery Cell Production In The United States
- Daimler Truck North America – Accelera By Cummins, Daimler Truck And PACCAR Complete Battery Joint Venture Transaction To Form Amplify Cell Technologies
- EVE Energy – Announcement On Completion Of Registration Of Indonesian Joint Venture Company
- Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung – Clean Cars, Dirty Nickel
- AEER – Report: Clean Cars, Dirty Nickel
- SMM – Huafei Clarifies Fire Incident: No Casualties, Operations Normal
- Mysteel – Fire At Hydrometallurgical Project In Indonesia’s IWIP Park Causes Minimal Damage
- Earthworks – Multiple Dams Fail At Indonesian Nickel-Mining Facilities
- Business & Human Rights Resource Centre – Multiple Tailings Dams Collapsed In Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park
- TCAP – ICYMI Supplier Series : EVE Energy, Batteries Built On Blood, Bullshit And Broken Promises
- TCAP – Supplier Series : EVE Energy, Batteries Built On Blood, Bullshit And Broken Promises Part 2