Lithium carbonate fell 5% this week. The China ESS cell price barely moved. The system price didn't move at all. We kept coming back to that gap. One Chinese cathode processor raised fees into a falling lithium market, which is the clearest sign the floor isn't about lithium anymore. Processing costs, a new safety standard, a shrinking export rebate: these don't soften when lithium does. If your procurement model assumes upstream relief flows downstream on a predictable lag, this issue maps where the pass-through actually breaks, and why the timeline is longer than the spot chart suggests.