Battery Insiders Reflection - Electric Vehicles

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights and the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. Hey Bavia, how are you doing today? Hey Simon, how are you? Doing well over here. Very well. Yes, in Munich in Germany, it's a bit of a, it can't decide yet if it's going to be winter or summer, but I guess we're somewhere in the middle. How about yourself? Well, I'm back in Memphis, so the warm weather is definitely here. We still have some cold days, but it's all warmer than when we first started this Battery Insiders, so I'll take that as a good sign. Absolutely. Yeah, and we had a really interesting session as well today about mobility and really talking about, you know, all kinds of, you know, around electric mobility from, you know, where it all started. Kind of like, you know, what I often always be fascinating that there have been electric vehicles, you know, before really ICEs and there have been, they had quite a big market share. It was over 60% as our conversation starter Hans-Peter was mentioning. But what are some of the things maybe you took from today's session?

1:15Well, I think first off, Hans-Peter's interests and work are fascinating. With each session, more and more, I learn more about what, about the areas of this world that I don't know. So it's always great to talk to people and learn from others who, you know, are investing in other aspects of batteries. There was a lot of talk of like tiered mobility and charging. Yeah, these, you know, in the, as we think about batteries, I always worked on electric vehicles and specifically passenger cars. So for me, it's personally interesting to start to hear more about, you know, what, where is the directions in which Uber is going or, you know, some of the more single base riders, single base, single rider based modes of transportation. So I thought the, the talk of tiered mobility that came up a couple of times throughout the conversation was interesting. Absolutely. I think it's, it's a really exciting space, which really allows now, you know, new players. And of course, it's still going to be, you know, interesting to see who makes it. I think there's also lots of players, you know, which, which probably won't make it, but I think it's really interesting to get this diversity. And also what I quite find interesting always like, you know, understanding like the system, like why are things happening and why are changing? Why haven't they been changing before? What are like, you know, the, the, the movements against it. And I think some of the things we touched on today also, you know, through Hans Peter's really great expertise on these topics is, you know, from why automotives kind of, you know, like why it's like, you know, why there's an industry, which is quite concerned with electromobility, which is really about, you know, the aftermarket, right.

2:57Which is like a lot of the costs, I think was over 6% or so. I wrote it down somewhere. And if you listen to the entire session, you can hear all the numbers Hans Peter was mentioning, but I'm hearing right. Like how the market essentially is driven from the suppliers, right. Come be at like, you know, the breaking pads where I think he said, you know, you need 40% less through like the electric cars and things like that. So I think it's interesting to understand who is making money currently and how do some of these business models really have to change, which is kind of opportunity for new players like Tesla and others, but also, you know, how can we transition to existing, you know, big mobility and players to transition to electric vehicles. And as you were speaking, one thing I thought about was he kind of hit that hit the nail on the head at the very end when he was talking about standardization. And you just mentioned or reiterated the point that, you know, market, what's driving change in market is the suppliers.

3:52And so as someone from the policy side, it makes me wonder, where do you, where do, where do you drive change best in this industry? Is it, you know, on working on the inside, working with the suppliers, can, what role can regulations and policies actually play to bring change or rather to kind of streamline standardization? Because that is still a huge effort that is a big work in progress in the industry. And yeah, I'm, I'm not sure I really was able to walk away with, ah, here's, you know, it must be the suppliers because maybe, you know, they find themselves handcuffed sometimes by how policies or regulations are in certain jurisdictions. But I think it begs an interesting question of, okay, if they're the ones driving change or drive, even just driving market, is that the avenue through which we drive change as well and, um, bring standardization? Absolutely. Yeah. And I think it's, yeah, I mean, like, we know what are like the best levers, right, for, for all of us for, um, for making the change happen. And I think, you know, I mean, you know, the easy answer is always like, we need all of the different stakeholders, right, to work together effectively. But I'm with you, I think it's interesting to understand also why are things happening, right? I mean, I think right now, if you look at a lot of the programs, right, automotive players would transition because they have the policy, you know, guidelines or like, um, um, from, you know, player like the EU, right, where they have to, um, reduce their emissions. And I think there was a really interesting, um, talk, a TED talk actually I saw, which was about what policies worked in the past and which didn't. There was an example on, I think one was on emissions from houses in California. Essentially the, the policy was said that, um, they have to like improve every year or something. When you build a new house, they've always get, have to kind of get better. But then there was another standard in the U S actually found quite fascinating, um, for missions of cars. And, uh, emission was kind of set. You have to half your emissions by this date or so. And, um, it was like, you have to get more efficient. I think it was like, you know, I really don't know the numbers, let's say from, so from some number of per gallon, you know, gallon per, um, per mile to, you know, to another one kind of double the efficiency or so.

6:06But what actually happened then is people will just, you know, fulfill it and then not go further, which really kind of like led a plateau. So I think deficiency of cars didn't really like improve when, you know, people build bigger cars because they get more efficient and things like that. And it's interesting, I think for me, really got this thinking about if you do policy in this space, what you need is you need like, you know, always constantly improving. Um, you know, you have, you have to ask for always keep improving it. And I think that's what we can see right now in the EU, right. Where there's always the cars have to always, you know, emit less. And that's really pushing right for, for electric. And because otherwise, you know, um, you have to pay a fine and then, you know, you have all this essentially subs paying subsidies for Tesla and other cars, right. Who, who can like, you know, provide these numbers.

6:50So I think, yeah, I mean, you know way more about this than me, but I was really passionate and really fascinated, fascinated how important, not just policy is, but also that it's done right. And not just like, you know, that you have to think really through it. Interesting. I want to hear this Ted talk. Definitely. Uh, hope you share it. Yeah. I think that pretty much says how, like when you talk about EU versus us, that is a huge difference. I think the EU has taken many steps, um, over time and in a way has like been chipping away at the problem at the root of the problem. Um, I'm not sure that conversation has really gone that far in the U S but, um, it, it, it's also interesting to kind of think about what the customer might, the difference in customer mindset, you know, having, um, experienced a little bit in both places. I can, it doesn't totally surprise me that people, you know, people who are goal oriented meet a goal and then don't take it a step further. And so it really is up to the policymakers to continue to, um, change policy so that people are pushed kind of a friendly nudge towards the ultimate goal of, you know, zero emissions.

8:01Absolutely. And I think it was just also really like today, it was really nice to kind of, um, you know, just also hear for these, like, you know, like a longer term perspective on this topic. Right. Uh, because I think often, you know, we are kind of just thinking about like, well, you know, it's something very new and so it's just happening right now. And I think there have been, you know, movements like this for a long time, you know, and people have been quite passionate about this and I've been believing in it, but now we can really see the adoption of it. And of course, batteries are a big part. Um, you know, I mean, without batteries and especially with the reduction of cost, it would not be realistic. I mean, in the past, right, you would have let asset batteries, which of course from energy density standpoint are not attractive and also from a power output, right? I mean that now you essentially have a greater talk through electric cars and that's suddenly super cars are becoming electric. Um, I think, you know, speaks to the volumes of the change and, uh, the impact, you know, through, through the improvements in batteries, um, which exist.

8:54But, um, yeah, maybe do you have, um, any thoughts kind of like where, you know, where it could kind of go, you know, from, from like a mobility standpoint and, um, like also like maybe of different modes of transport, if any based on today's session, if any new thoughts, I think the goal or the short term goal I think we can enlist is, you know, moving to batteries. But I do think ultimately, especially, you know, looking in the U S there are some very large cities, some with better public transportation than others. Um, I feel like that's maybe one of the most significant day-to-day differences, um, I felt with many of the places I lived in Europe. And I think as we look to become more sustainable, we shouldn't look only to improving individual modes of transportation, but also kind of creating, um, stronger public transportation infrastructure here in the U S that is, you know, run, that is run on batteries or sustainable, um, energy. But I think the, I think the first goal is to minimize the traffic because there's so much of it. And, um, it is both, it both speaks to a lifestyle, but it's also a deterrence really for, it deters us from really meeting, um, any type of renewable energy goal. And admittedly I'll caveat this, right? Like some cities have it down better than others, but I can tell you for a fact that the majority of the places I've been in the U S lend themselves more to individual modes of transportation than, um, offering good public transportation. Absolutely. No, I think that's, that's something I'm, I'm very happy of. And I mean, I think also this, what I thought about today, right. Is, I mean, I never really had a car, you know, and, um, I wouldn't really need it. Right. And it would just, I think for me, it's kind of, as it was mentioned today, you know, it's a depreciating asset and you don't really want to own these kinds of things if you can. And, um, yeah, I just found it really fascinating. I think it will be interesting how it's saying 30 years, you know, people are going to even think about our conversations we have today. And they're maybe just going to shake their head and be like, man, you're like, you know, it's completely different now. We might have only shared mobility or complete new ways of transportation, things like that. So I think if you think about, yeah, um, you know, in the future, it's going to be interesting, um, what's going to happen. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe we can dig more into it in future conversations. That's a perfect segue. Exactly. I thought the same. And next week, yeah, it's going to be interesting session also is the mobile is with Steve. So, you know, I think we're going to get some interesting insights as well. Awesome. Looking forward to it.

11:31Sounds great. Perfect. See you then. Have a good week. Have a good one. Talk soon. Bye. Bye.