Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Electric Vehicles

0:00Transcript

0:00Amazing. Thanks so much, Hans-Peter. And yeah, it's so fantastic to have you today on our 14th session. And maybe you could just start a bit also with your perception, right? Like we spoke about this in the past as well. Like how did it all start with like mobility and why, you know, what happened since? Where we might be. Yeah. So I'm not a technician at all. I'm not an engineer. And I'm not really interested in those topics because I was never good in math and never good in physics and all that stuff. But when I did some research, I was very astonished that like at the turn of the last century, not now at the 90s, but really of the 18th to the 19th century, when the car was invented. And, you know, all know about the story about Marta-Benz and everything. So the percentage of electric battery driven vehicles was above 60%. And that really flashed me because it was a kind of, let's say, for the beginning, it was clear that might be the more sustainable, the more intelligent, the more effective, meaning bringing the energy derived better to the wheels.

1:11And this changed. And I really didn't never find out why it was a lot to do with convenience, because it was much easier with a combustion engine and everything which is around it, which is a big system. So it was more convenient. It was some other geopolitical ideas. I do not want to comment on that one. But it took another hundred years to find out that there are good alternatives to our combustion engines. And that was, you know, one of the points that really flashed me to deep dive into that topic. And during the 90s, there was, let's say, the next big wave with Chevrolet and other cars, which really produced cars which were for the mass market, which were functioning. And I missed out one story, which I like to tell during my keynote. I'm a Bavarian. I was also living in Texas. So let's say best of both worlds. And in Bavarian Munich, we hosted the 1972 Olympic Games. And there was like the marathon, which was, you know, the distance 42 kilometers and some meters.

2:29I don't know the miles, but probably something like 35 miles. And there was a car, let's say, heading up the crowd. And this car was a battery driven zero emission car. It was a beautiful BMW 1502. And so during that time, you know, we already had a range above 35 miles. Then we had the 90s, you know, and then to finish the story off in 2012, I did the market launch of the Audi A3 e-tron. And it had a range of hybrid, a range of, I think, 38 kilometers. But it was really, if you look back, it was frustrating how no development in technological sense really took place. And how much, how many decades it needed now to, let's say, to realize that it's a low alternative. I wouldn't even say it's 100% a better alternative. But it's another path how to move our transport vehicles from A to B. That's great. Thanks. Thanks for sharing this. Yeah. And I'm just wondering also a bit, you know, you know, you mentioned it's like different drivers as well, right?

3:53Kind of for this development. And also convenience has been a big aspect, which has really, you know, supported ICEs. But I think also now, you know, it's quite a clear drive now, right, that we have to go electric. And I think there's a big consensus on this. But there's still some, you know, some are more hesitant than others. I would just be curious to maybe, like, you know, if you have some insights, right, for what are, like, the different drivers right now for, like, you know, people blocking, people advancing it. Because I know you have been looking at all kinds of different automotive players and also mobility players in general. So just be curious to get your thoughts on this. Yeah. So for me, one of the highlights in this whole development was when we launched in 2007. Oh, this all sounds like a history lesson. Sorry for that. But by 2007, at MINI Germany, we had the task to build 500 cars which were carbon-free to meet the Californian standards set by, I think, even by Arnold Schwarzenberg, that were allowing us to sell cars if we have a certain percentage of emission-free cars.

4:57So we built 250 cars for the European market, mainly for Germany, and 250 for the American market. And we built them really like an old fire station in the production plant in Munich. So it was really this startup feeling and this doing it manually with batteries derived from computers. And we had these beautiful cars. They were designed nicely. They had a very, let's say, nice caps, mirror caps, and a nice ceiling. And we had 250 drivers. And I was one of the first ones really to test it. And it was so much fun. Because, you know, all this bullshit about that it's, let's say, it's not as much fun. It's, I don't know the English word, like you have to do compromise. No, not at all. So electric was never a real compromise. In some aspects, I will talk about it. But it was, look at the driving, the main purpose, it was the greatest fun I had. You know, acceleration, speed, it was directly there.

6:04It was easy. I really enjoyed very much to drive that car. We did the world premiere. We did it at the LA Motor Show. And it was a big success. And we had 250 test drivers. A lot of them wanted to buy it. You know, and they gave us like a Blanco, Scheck. Like Herbert Grünemeyer. It's one of the famous German singers. He loved the car. And he would give us nearly any amount. But we had to destroy all of them. Because, you know, they were not officially homologated cars. And we had like this idea during a G7 summit in northern Germany. We gave some of the politicians a car, you know. And they loved it. And we were in all journals. And we had a big press hype. And we were always thrilled to say Mini is the right brand. You know, creative use of space. How to move with a minimum amount of space, weight, and material from A to B. And we were very, very excited.

7:02But the story ended like this. That sent, well, the BMW, the other models. And only last year was the world premiere of the real electric Mini. And during that time, I learned about electric transmission. And I realized it's no compromise. It's fun. And it's a good alternative. And it was a bit frustrating that it took so long to have really enough cars on the street. And to reach the tipping point, which we think we have reached probably during the last couple of months. Thank you so much. And, yeah, also maybe if maybe also Catherine has some questions or also the audience. But I just have two last things maybe related to that as well. Because one is, you know, I mean, because I've always been quite curious, right? I'm looking at the margins. We had a really nice lecture on this in the BatteryMBA from someone from Oliver and Wyman. And, you know, as far as I know, the margins are worse, right? For OEMs from electric cars.

8:03And that's one of the big, you know, stoppers essentially, right? For them to adopt it widely. Or have been, like, you know, at least been quite resistant. And just kind of curious from your thoughts, you know, how can this be overcome? And then the second question would also be, you know, looking at your photo as well. And you're involved with Mr. Michaelino car. Just kind of getting a bit of your perspective on new kind of players entering the market. And also, like, new kind of concepts like Michaelino and others. Yeah. First of all, the first question, you know, having been part of the automotive industry. And I was always on the customer side in the market, you know, doing with dealers. And trying to help them to earn money and to sell cars with a profit. But my first statement is that the current business model, and I would just refer to the German car industry, is bankrupt, is rotten, is broken, is bullshit. And the main statement is that the margin, the profit that is derived, comes between 60 to 75 percent out of the after-sales business.

9:09So you talk about oil service, you talk about repairs, you talk about inspection, you talk about, let's say, different themes you have to do after you have bought the car or you lease the car. You know, and we don't look very much on the total cost of ownership. But the real money is derived after you buy the car or you rent the car. And with the battery-driven cars, it's much less complex. So on a very broad basis, you are the experts, but like a combustion engine has about 1,200 to 1,400 parts, single parts. And the battery-driven car has about 200 to 250 parts. I know that the complexity I learned from a battery-driven car is very high, you know, and I don't want to make it too simple. But simply the amount and the value chain you need to build those cars, and very important to maintain them, is dramatically lower. And that means that in the business model, it now destroys, it is destroyed by the battery-driven car.

10:26And I know one number, like if you look at brakes, and brakes need to be replaced at a certain point of kilometers, depending on how you drive the car. And I know one figure from the second biggest leader in the world market, who just sell brakes and replacement of brakes. And the first numbers on the BMW iDrive were, that they need around 30 to 40% less of those brake pads. You sell for a very high price, a very high labor. And so really, it's all about the existing business model. I would even compare it to the printer. You all know you buy a printer from the package, maybe for 49 bucks, and then you need a whole lot of money to maintain it, you know. And that's, let's say, one of the big reasons. And the problem is even more on the wholesale, not on the wholesale, on the production side of the OEMs, but on the dealer side. Because they, you know, buy the cars in Germany, like 90% are free entrepreneurs, and their model is destroyed, you know.

11:42And also the margin model between the OEM and the dealer. And so I think we need a completely reset and look at different models of earning money, different business models. That was one of the reasons why it took so long that the traditional OEMs, which are built on, let's say, combustion engine cars, are having a hard time to adopt. And why other companies like Tesla or NIO, really from the beginning, built up a new business model, which is based on very different factors. And the second question about Micorino, one moment. That's some water. Is, yeah. Now we sit, let's say, 24 years in the industry and having been highly influenced by me, you know, I've worked like 10 years, was this brand and learned a lot about the history, how it was invented in the 60s, to be precise, in 1995. It was a car born in an economic world crisis, where it was very important to use space and energy and material very efficiently.

12:53And the original idea was a creative use of space. So you need more space, excuse me, no, less space in a more intelligent way, less weight, less everything to move from A to B. So it was very much in the discussion we have now about circular economy, to look at the whole thing. And MINI was really the definition of it. You know, then it became a hype, motorsport and all these things. And I strongly believe that the whole trend about our sports utility vehicles, which are fun to drive, which are very safe, which are very convenient and state or whatever. So I don't doubt it. But they are just a totally wrong direction. Like you call it on the Autobahn, those Geisterfahrer. I don't know the English word for it. But it's really a big, big wrong direction because all the, let's say, the technological developments we achieved during the last decades are destroyed by the amount of more weight, more horsepower, more everything. So they are nearly destroyed.

14:12And so I strongly believe that the original idea of micromobility, which means for me, you use the amount of space and energy and weight and horsepower or battery power to move from A to B, which is necessary. And like market research shows that 95% of the distance from A to B for people who live in towns or outside of towns like myself can be very easily done in small cars, you know, which maybe two seats are enough and which just use less space. And Microlino, I met at the Geneva Motor Show. I think eight years ago, I saw it and I really fell in love with it. The design, the whole package, everything. And I had the luck to meet the founder. It's a guy from the Netherlands. His name is Wim. And he invented in 1996 the micro scooters, the foldable scooters. And he made good business with it. And he began to think what more changes we have with micromobility. And then he found the patents of the Isetta from the 50s.

15:29And he really invented this Microlino with his two sons, Oliver and Merlin. So it's a really cool family business. They put it on the motor show and they had like 15,000 people who wanted to order the car directly and buy it. Then they did have some tumours with some partners, let's say, with whom they had to went to court and they lost about three years with court discussions, which they won. and now they are on the way to bring the car to the market. And it's just for two people. It's enough. It's fun to drive. And the weight of the Microlino, including the battery, including Simon, the two of us, and let's say some luggage is equivalent to the weight of the battery of the Audi e-tron. And that's a discussion I think we should lead. And also like if you took the parking space you need, three Microlinos fit in one parking space of a sports utility vehicle. You can take the Renault Twizy.

16:36You mentioned, Simon, that the tier is going into that space. You know, we have in Japan, we have a whole movement of microcars. So it's nothing new, but I think it's really the future and it helps us to push the mobility revolution and also with electric transmission it's going to be easier for new market entrance members to enter the market. And so I think we are really at the point of the mobility revolution which we need, which is more than just talking about electric or not, is really taking up speed. And I'm very happy to support as an advisor. Together with Jochen, you know, Jochen worked 10 years for Tesla for Elon, I worked 10 years for Mini. And so we have a lot of, yeah, excitement to support this micro-mobility movement. Thanks for that, Hans, Peter. I'm really personally interested in the topic of micro-mobility because we have touched on that I think a couple of weeks ago about vehicles carrying capacity as well.

17:48And I'm just curious what are some of the market drivers? I mean, here in Asia, it's pretty clear that our roads and our road parking is extremely expensive. Even if you had to buy a parking lot in cities, you know, just to park your cars. And if you're not using it, what do you do with the parking lot? You have to rent it and all that kind of stuff. It makes owning a vehicle very expensive, which is why a lot of people are looking at vehicle sharing, micro-mobility. There are clear drivers for that. I'm curious as to what are some of the drivers. I don't want to take up too much of your time because I see Michael has just joined us on stage as well. So I want to give up some time for him. But if you could just help me answer that very quickly, that would be great. I mean, what are the drivers for micro-mobility in general? Yeah, like some of the market drivers that you see in Europe, you know, what are some of the push for consumers to basically adopt this vehicle?

18:51I think some of the drivers are now existent, as you mentioned, in Asia. Like I know about Singapore, Shanghai, I don't know about Taipei, but, you know, the number of cars is limited and, as you mentioned, you have to have a lottery for licenses and the parking space you need to show is very, very high, you know, so you have natural limits. We don't have this in Europe. Like you pay the whole year for a parking space which is quite big, Munich downtown. You pay something like, I think, 47 euros, which is ridiculous. So it's not yet this discussion about public space and how is it priced. And we will have the discussion it's picking up and we also will have regulations like with electric vehicles if you enter London downtown, you know, have this tall road pricing. So I think a lot of movements will now help to push a movement which, and I just call it more intelligent, sorry for that, but more intelligent cars which move us more effectively and more sustainable from A to B and those two of the drivers.

20:05The other one is legislation and we are fighting now in Germany. You have a lot of subsidies for electric driven battery cars. So you get like up to 9,000 euro and so it's really a big, big game and the class of the lightweight vehicles how it is called is exempted. You don't get one euro and also if you look at the CO2 emissions which is as you all know part of Elon Musk's business model that he earns I think more than 2.3 billion US dollar just from trading CO2 emission certificates and this car class is all up to now is not profiting from it. So I think we have some homework to do our politicians our regulations and then the ground will be better also for micromobility and I also will say as soon as we move into autonomous vehicles or maybe semi-autonomous we will have certain areas and lanes or certain let's say all the two-wheelers whatever will be allowed in cities and others others not so I think if we look at a new picture of our towns micromobility can help to keep us mobile and let's say to find a new game of transport modes and a new choice and variety.

21:38Thank you so much for that. Michael you have any thoughts to add to this? yes first of all if it's a bit windy it's because I'm outside but first of all Hans Peter I must say we're kindred spirits in terms of micromobility and maximizing or rather minimizing the resources across energy space and materials to get mobility and I'm really interested with what you've been saying one thing I think you mentioned about parking and my take on that is that parking up a car is just the worst possible thing you could possibly do because it's like parking up an airliner you've got all that resource which you're not using 100% of the time or as close to as possible and that's very much in line with the project I'm working on which is about maximizing the usage of vehicles because a vehicle that's used as close to 100% as possible means another vehicle that doesn't need to be manufactured and put on the road so I guess one question I had for you is is that research that BMW did into attitudes towards mobility is that in the public domain because if it is I would love to see it and would you be happy for me to connect with you on LinkedIn at some later stage so we could maybe communicate Michael I'm sure I'm sure I'm happy to connect so where are you based I couldn't see your profile sorry I know I know I've been terrible with putting my profile I'm kind of a bit in stealth mode but I am based in London London is a city which has a massive problem with space being you know space is one of the most valuable resources in a tiny organic city like London so London is a perfect place for your mission and I'm working very close together he's one of my lecturers with Philip Road he's at LSE cities working on that topic so I think it's a good place for your topic and to your question that research was is publicly available yes but again it's for 1995 you know but the wild thing is you know in my keynotes I will show a picture and I did some headlines of newspapers globally and if you look at them 1995 and compare them to 2000 or 25 years later they are nearly the same they are now more globally let's say more brutal and so I think that the essence is still quite valid so I'm happy to share it's I think we have an English summary I'm more than happy to share about it and the interesting thing was during that time it was very much about finding out what the status of car what does it mean for us on really on a psychological basis for me like mobility it's like personal autonomy it gives me freedom it gives me freedom of choice to move when and where and how I want to move and to find out you know what for English people the Netherlands in Sweden in Italy and in Switzerland and it was very interesting how different the attitude and the role of the car is and it helped to understand which are the countries which are let's say more modern more advanced or looking let's say in sustainability and to pick up those trends and to see who influences those trends but to be very frank you know after I finished it I did not really follow up you know I was in the car business I did sell cars so I was in sales so I always tried to bring some ideas to the table and to business and to the business but it felt like for 20 years we didn't have this discussion and so it was quite frustrating but now I think the time has arrived also with the Paris climate agreement and so on and so on and so I'm quite happy that some of the work I did I can now work on and it hasn't been for the dustbin like a lot of the academic work and Michael it would be interesting to just elaborate maybe if it's okay Simon and Catherine on your idea on how to use more efficient parking space I just don't know two numbers I also you like to use the one is that the average let's say amount of people are traveling in one car in Germany it's below 1.2 persons so most of the time we travel alone and the average usage of our cars per day is between 92 to 96 percent they're not used they're in parking spaces and if you compare this to other industries you mentioned airplanes or let's say other modes of economic efficiency it's a totally disaster and there are some estimates that if you have an intelligent way to maximize the use of existing vehicles maybe not probably 100% is quite difficult but something between 70 and 80% you can probably diminish the number of cars and by 50% you know so I think that's a discussion we need to lead and encourage people to use existing transport vehicles more efficiently and this can be done quite quite easy and in the near future all other aspects if you talk about public transport autonomous driving infrastructure they're all let's say you talk in years and decades and so I think that's a very interesting and important topic and I'd love to hear maybe some more about it I'm done no that's that's that's fantastic it's really interesting and I mean you're you know the truth is you know my take on this is that I mean we give a huge amount of space and resources to cars and you know as you said most cars spend most of their life just sitting unused and another another of the people on on this on this group a few weeks ago made the point that you know the fiscally responsible thing is that you buy an appreciating asset and you never buy a depreciating asset you rent one and yet here we are all buying these depreciating assets which we call cars which are basically and then for the most part they just sit unused taking up space as we normally need to pay for at least in cities whether it's on street parking and you need a bigger house or you need your front drive which needs to be dedicated to a car or on street parking where you need to buy that parking space and so it's completely bonkers but I look at it from another perspective which is one of the things we forget to talk about when it comes to mobility and the impact on the environment and that is that we use a humongous amount of energy and materials to process all of the materials that go into making cars and if those cars spend 90 plus percent of their 15 year lives sitting around doing nothing that's a huge amount of material and energy that we've wasted mining processing assembling finishing and transporting those vehicles all around the world not to mention another bugbear of mine is the fact that we build on average the average size car in the western world is 4,000 pounds so that's just under two tons and yet for the most part it's moving as you said the average journey across the western world is about 1.2 passengers per journey if you're on the side of caution and give 100 kilos per person in order to move 120 kilos of payload we're moving 2,000 kilos of car which to me is just completely bonkers it's an utter waste of energy especially in a city where a large amount of the energy goes into start stopping rather than on the motor way where at least once you've gotten up to speed the difference between a lighter car and a heavier car is less about weight and more about the coefficient of drag and the air so air resistance but in a city it comes down to that start stopping and although electric vehicles at least can recover some of that energy because of the nature of batteries there's just no way we can pump electrons back into batteries as fast as they're collected off the motors when they're running generator mode and so we're still wasting even Tesla is not able to reuse a large amount of that energy that it's collecting back during regenerative breaking so these are some of the things that really bother me now I'm working on a solution which can without requiring autonomous driving can allow for a vehicle to be shared between multiple people who don't know each other and I think it's something that's exciting me hugely but there are questions about I've in terms of what I understand mobility to be I've sort of tried to come from a perspective of first principles reasoning but it's interesting that it's not just about reasoning it's also about attitudes and so I'm trying to take those into account but attitudes are not rational they're emotional and so it would be really interesting to see what this research has said about different cultural more about that I'm looking forward to follow up and I would like to include Catherine you know as I know you're based in Taiwan Taipei and Simon you lived part of your time in California and Great Britain and I think the discussion we have in Germany is quite strange our attitude our relationship to our cars we sometimes compare it to the guns in the United States so it's really I think it's very special and what's your perception about when Michael and myself talk about European perspective and these crazy numbers and if you listen to them carefully and I loved your equation with weight or whatever so what is your side on it about this discussion maybe Catherine from your Asian point of view I think in Asia the uptick of two wheelers three wheelers has always been a demand and the use cases of a vehicle of a four wheeler compared to two wheeler and three wheelers is quite different and the I'm pretty sure people who have been to cities in Asia would realize this but the roads are usually packed with a lot two wheelers swimming and just going in between all the cars and parking is always a problem so there is a definite attraction towards micro mobility I guess the issue is if we're looking at electric micro mobility and given that the pricing of battery packs have already dropped to below 100 per kilowatt hour is there something else apart from vehicle capacity that needs to change the business model that business model of the OEMs and these companies probably need to change in order to fully maximize the vehicle usage so if we're looking at car sharing if we're looking at the ability for autonomous vehicles to go all over the city to pick up people if we're looking at less about car use car branding you know the fact that we own cars and some sort of superior status attached to certain brands or etc is there something to do more with that I'm just going to throw in some ideas out there as well and I see that we have Karima and Milo so feel free to chime in here and just feel free to unmute your mic if you have any thoughts to add to this hello hello my name is Karima I'm living in Germany thank you for the room I just arrived and so to me I'm engineer I'm working for Volkswagen BW and in development for e-mobility especially for ID.4 and we have I'm responsible also for a project in China and in other in South Korea and also other countries all worldwide and I have only one question about the infrastructure of charging and what's about the infrastructure especially in big cities and I try to understand if there is some other policy or other lawyer for that it's different than Germany and so it will be very helpful if you have an answer to me and thank you very much Hans-Peter would you like to chime in and maybe you can also I know you love the topic of battery swapping etc so maybe I guess Kestr is the better experts but I just put my take on it I think the whole situation of infrastructure and how we charge our batteries is a very open topic and I'm very curious you know like with big mingers that this will be solved in the future and I just think the way I do it now with my electric box at home and it's always charged it's easy you know but I live in the outback so for me it's easy but if you have a flat in town I think it's quite hard and so I think we haven't thought it to the end how it can be consumer friendly and I know that Miles and other experts will be critical but my dream would be from a customer is battery swapping where I know that in India and China with micro mobility but above and with NIO at the forefront they just introduced the second generation of the swapping stations and I hope that they will bring one of those stations to the II mobility here in Munich in September that's one of the ideas I really like very much and it's old I know about all Israel and shy whatever but from a very simple customer perspective that makes very much sense and the other one is inductive charging so I don't think that the future will be with cables and different standards and different payments and different whatever and so I think the discussion is on and we need this infrastructure now to build up and let's say to do the transition to a time where it's more convenient and more easy but again this is a very customer point of view and I'm not an expert in this I'm just looking at it and it's not very customer orientated and friendly the whole process not only the infrastructure Thanks maybe I can quickly chime in as well because it's related to a discussion I had yesterday which was about why are the limits right now for fast charging and especially fast charging at scale stations I personally think the batteries are the biggest hindrance here it's more like infrastructure and cost of these super fast charging stations so I'm just curious if Karima or Catherine has any thoughts on this do we need better batteries right now are the packs not good enough or is more about a question of cost and infrastructure from the charging standpoint any thoughts Catherine yeah !

39:46I pretty much good enough for the EVs and I was reading an article earlier today about why the whole hyper QuantumScape and why people are or the public are kind of thinking twice about investing in Quantenscape. And it's ultimately a good company from a battery perspective. From the experts, from people in the space, we know that Quantenscape is doing something amazing in solid-state. But is there something that's really needed in EVs? Or to what extent can this technology be commercialized? When can it actually be commercialized and put in the market? Have we validated the mass production of that, et cetera? So I think to the question about whether a better battery is needed, I think it's kind of like a drive or the industry's trend to kind of look for something that's better, look for something that's cooler so that people can pump money into it and invest in the technology. But where it is right now and with the increase and uptake of EVs, we are not looking at cars that can eventually just...

41:21I think we're still looking at cars that can move at the current speed and at the current range that we have. And we're not looking at extreme performance costs. So with regards to better batteries, I guess the question is, how do we fully utilize the resources to be able to increase the uptake of EVs at a faster pace? And I think there's a lot of different also viewpoints as to where the charging is better, fast charging is better than battery swapping. NIO has gone on to a completely different angle of battery swapping. And we talk about this in our early sessions as well, that battery swapping may only take place when it's a large enough standardized battery packs. So if we have, you know, we can say, for example, swap between NIO EVs and also other types of vehicles, that would be really a real trend for battery swapping to take off. But I think it's so interesting because if NIO EV is really the key driver or becomes the main, you know, automotive maker in China, would that mean that there's a lot of...

42:42Would that mean that the other companies may take on to say, hey, I need these battery swapping stations because it seems that you're doing a great job? So why don't we look at using similar battery pack designs? It's very difficult from the battery pack manufacturer's perspective, to be honest, because being in this space, I know how difficult it is to convince other people to use this standardized battery pack design. So I was pretty... I was a little bit skeptical about battery swapping at the beginning, but seeing how NIO EV can take it off in their own... using their own vehicles and their brand, I'm curious to see whether that can translate into other car manufacturers. Can that... Can their design actually be, you know, placed in other vehicles? Or will it drive the OEM makers in China to cooperate with NIO EVs to see how they can use these battery swapping stations for their vehicles? Because I think battery swapping is a great idea to actually also take off the ownership of batteries from the consumers.

43:55And, you know, we've been talking about Second Life as well. And these batteries, if they're ultimately owned by the car manufacturers, by the OEMs, the data of how these batteries have been used would be very beneficial for recycling of batteries. So, sorry, I rambled on a little bit. But, yeah, these are just some of my thoughts on the topic. But I've also seen that Milo's and Aurela and Karima are interested in this, so I will give the floor to them. Yeah, hi. Hi, thanks, Catherine, Simon, and Hans, and everyone, this has been a really fantastic discussion. So my name's Karima, and I work primarily in the new energy space, hydrogen as a fuel, hydrogen fuel cells. I do come from a traditional fossil fuel background. I've worked in capital markets, and I've seen over time that energy diversification and new methods of electrification and just new fuels in general is really what's going to drive our future in terms of profitability and just economic stability.

45:06And so I think, for me, what I'm trying to understand, and batteries are not my area of expertise, but I'm trying to understand how, in this era of sustainability that we're in, how we can source more sustainable supply chains for batteries, number one. And then the second thing is, I think the point you made, Catherine, about the ownership of batteries not being put onto the consumer, I think that is a very good point because we don't own gas stations, fuel stations. So then, you know, why should we also sort of own charging infrastructure and own, you know, our power source as well in terms of electrification? So I would be keen to hear your thoughts on both, one, sustainable supply chains, and then two, new ownership models for batteries as a class. I'm happy to chime in for a bit. Maybe Hans-Peter and others also have some thoughts. So, Catherine, I think, first of all, I would say, you know, that let's start with the first one.

46:10Hydrogen, of course, is an exciting technology, and people know me. I started with hydrogen before I went into batteries and I was very, you know, excited about it. But I think quite now it's quite clear that we want to electrify everything, what we can, and then use hydrogen for the rest, which we cannot electrify, essentially. And the clear, you know, reason for that is efficiency because if you think about, you know, we want to use renewable energies, which, of course, is the plan, and we go the hydrogen route, we need about three times as much renewable energies compared to batteries. And that really means, you know, that the infrastructure is not really available right now, and that's not something we can support. And I think, you know, the big risk right now is hydrogen is that we go to gray hydrogen, which I think is about 98 or so percent right now, which is, you know, from fossil fuels just transformed into hydrogen, and that doesn't really make sense from a, you know, COT standpoint.

46:59And I think we're all very clear the reason why we want to go to electrification. I mean, one is, you know, what you mentioned, Hans-Peter, that it's a nice experience. But, of course, overall, you know, the real driver also from a policy standpoint is to decarbonize mobility. So I think hydrogen is going to have a quite tricky play in some way, especially, I think, you know, personal mobility, I don't really see it have a real place there. So I'm very curious to see if anyone is brave enough to do that in the long term. And another one, I mean, I had a really interesting call this morning with another speaker for a future session of these who's very bullish about not having, you know, only having battery-driven trucks. And he's quite a big heavyweight in investing. And, yeah, we'd be really curious to get his numbers on this as well. And, yeah, so there are going to be session on this in the future as well.

47:44And if you look at companies like Scania and others, who are going to go on now the battery route because they tried hydrogen, didn't really make sense, or Tesla, of course, and others. Yeah, I think that's still not decided. But, of course, also interesting to get your thoughts on this as well. And then the thing also you mentioned about supply chains, definitely it's something also you spoke about before, Milo's and others also, I'm sure can talk about this too. But essentially, we're going to get better. I think the clear thing at the moment, though, just to highlight as well, is, you know, electric cars are better than fossil fuel cars right now, pretty much everywhere around the world from a CO2 standpoint. And I'm very much with you. We have to improve supply chains. Yeah, nothing. I forgot probably the other thing, but Hans-Peter, you might want to jump in as well. I just would like to end, not technician. I was part of the project in 2003 from BMW.

48:31It was called Clean Energy. And we were building 25 BMW 7 series, so the big cars, and they worked well. And nothing happened till then. And I know, you know, all the facts, and thank you very much. I learned a lot from you, also from Milo's, about, you know, efficiency and where we are. But I still hope, you know, if we now really focus on the evolution and research and development of hydrogen and battery, you know, and if you look what happened, Cassie mentioned it, we had big, big milestones during the last, let's say, three to five years, you know. And maybe there's more potential, and so I'm quite positive that we will have maybe even more sustainable ways of moving from A to B. And Simon, I learned from you yesterday, and it also is interesting for discussion of Karima. It's about raw material, yes, and there will be, let's say, better material, more available and renewable. But I learned from you that the battery, batteries are, have a longer life than everybody expected.

49:39So they last about 15 to 20 years, that we have a second life. And I think we really need to have more discussion about this circular economy and also look, you know, how long we can use this stuff. And it's much maximal sense if we use, like, battery-driven cars, not only maybe in average 12 years, but maybe 18 years. And those are discussions we need, you know, not so much technology-driven, but that really kicked me. And I have a lot of hope in all researchers that there's much more potential than we can see now. Yeah, Hans-Peter, yeah, I agree with you. On the past, it was not the focus on e-mobility, but now I'm talking just from VW side. There are many potential and also some research in this area to have better technology when we consider e-mobility still quite new, compared with the hybrid cars. And the experience is at the beginning and there are big potential and the focus of the OEM is to have more new generation of battery and also from charging side.

51:14And it will be for next year's a big, big step in this direction. Karima, can I answer you a little bit your question about the supply value chain? Yes, sir. I think we have huge opportunity here because we are not cleaning existing supply value chain. Basically, we are in the beginning of the building new industry and new, whole new supply value chain. So we have the chance to build it green, basically. We are able to build the huge new supply value chain, very complex. So only we will take batteries. We need to build battery giga plants. Right now, we have 201 of them. We need to build the downstream process, downstream, using those batteries to battery packs and things like that. And especially, we need to build battery mines for materials. We need to build, so we can, we have the chance to build fire-free or carbon-free mines. We need to build the processing plants. We need, we have the chance to build carbon-free processing plants and so on.

52:38And everybody needs to be involved and everybody is already involved because it affects the countries. It's geopolitical issue. It means that whoever will, is building better batteries, battery supply value chain, he will, he will win the economy so this country will be prosperous and, and will be the leader. So, basically, we need to build a whole new supply value chain. Yeah, absolutely, Milos. And I think that's, that's where I'm coming from here because what I'm seeing, especially in the United States now with Biden's commitment to sourcing local supply chains, again, it's from a geopolitical, strength point of view. But the issue we're seeing now is that a lot of the supply chains, they're not actually, you know, when you measure them in an ESG risking criteria, they're not actually sustainable. So, they don't actually fit into these, you know, green funds that have mandates to do ESG investing. So, what we're seeing is we have sources of minerals, we have companies who, you know, are mining, whether it's lithium or cobalt or what have you, but they're struggling to find money because they actually don't fit into this ESG investing scenario.

53:57And so, I agree with you. I think it's a very complex problem and I'd be keen to see how we can all collectively solve it. And just one point until I go here, but Simon, I agree with you. I think hydrogen, it has its place and my focus on hydrogen is to use it in the hard to abate sectors with respect to carbon dioxide. So, mostly the industrial sectors. I don't necessarily work with it as a, you know, a fuel as yet, but, you know, to me, I think because it's energy dense by mass, I think in the industrial sectors it's probably more appropriate there. Thank you. I'm done speaking. Thanks very much. I agree. I'll jump in about Karima's question about battery swap and I have another two thoughts around that. Yes, please. Yeah, Karima, if you look at battery swap, there was some tests, I think Tesla did five, six, seven years ago and they didn't follow that route anymore. The same as Renault Zoe, they did this battery swap or battery, not the car owner owns a battery but the company and it's only leased and they all also get rid of that.

55:14So I think in the private sector if you privately own a car, you want to have the total car, you take care about that, you take care about the battery and you don't want to have a part of the car swapped and you don't get what you get back if it's swapped out. So I think for private owners battery swap won't work and it showed actually nobody in the Western world is following that. EU is doing that in China, correct? You can do it I think in dense areas where we have a lot of cars and high usage of that but if the company owns these batteries and want to do battery swaps they also need additional batteries so it's a higher investment. You need I think 10 or 20% more batteries as cars that are out because you have to store them in your battery swap station, charge them up and exchange them afterwards. So I'm very cautious about that idea and the final point is about as you said you need a standardization.

56:13You have standardization between different car manufacturers of the size of the batteries of the bolts and all this stuff and interconnectors and battery management systems and in the meantime we still have very fast development of battery technologies so I fear the next two, three years it's not real growing. And last point about Tesla they are integrating this battery now in a structural pack that means that the battery pack in total also has structural influence on the car or transmitting forces and so on and that's even complexing the situation so I would be very cautious in the private car sector maybe for trucks or something that might be usable but you have fewer suppliers in this area but for private cars it's not going in the next years that's my point of view. Yes, you are right Ingo whoever will build a competitive electrical vehicle needs to build the cheapest best quality and best quality vehicle it means that right now in the near future it's going to be battery built in the structural part of the vehicle because whoever will not do it will not be able to compete by the price but the quality of the vehicle with the so water is for each market and not mainstream.

57:51Good morning and good afternoon everyone and I just want to say thank you to all of you for your really insightful thoughts on this topic I'm not working directly within the industry but I have quite an interest in kind of the micromobility space and particularly we're seeing the emergence of some exciting startups such as Tier Mobility and Lime and others such as Arrival as well and there has been communications about kind of building that network of battery charge stations which some of you have already touched on and I just kind of value your thoughts a bit more on the battery life cycle I know Hans PTE mentioned that batteries could be have a life cycle of about 15 to 20 years but I just more in the mid to long term what are the implications of kind of such marginal developments in batteries and charging stations and perhaps those then being fragmented across kind of the cities but then as the development progresses quite quickly we need to they need to be replaced with kind of new models so I was just wondering kind of the longer term implications of if you have any thoughts on that That's a great question maybe also just one thought to add to this one right because it's very true what Hans PTE said about EV batteries lasting very long but I think there's also we have to distinguish between different batteries not just different batteries but also different battery sizes because of course I think the reason why many people were worried about the lifetime of the electric vehicle battery is because we're used to our phones or laptops and especially phones that wouldn't last as long or you would all experience the drainage of the battery the reason is that in a phone you may have to make it simple one battery and so you charge your battery completely you discharge completely and batteries are actually not really happy if they're completely discharged or completely discharged there's critical state and also temperature control is very bad because it's in your pocket or outside or in the sun or wherever so there's not really much control you have thermal control or charging balancing control but if you then go into a bigger size like a vehicle and let's say you have about 70,000 batteries or so if you go with the small 8650s you actually can really balance your cells you can distribute the charge across all the cells through battery management system this really allows the battery to last much longer because there's much less strain on the battery if you now go let's say in the micro-mobility space you go again a bit like smaller batteries let's say like a kilowatt hour or like a scooter like TIA etc and here again you still have more batteries than the phones you can do more balancing on the other hand it's also more straining so actually these more smaller batteries wouldn't last as long as an AV battery if you use it constantly and if you would use it high power acceleration things like that so I think this is just important to realize that essentially the bigger battery you go the more you oversize the battery the less strains on the battery that's one of the reasons why the Tesla batteries would last super long as well because they're massive now of course we also have other players doing really big batteries but I think Tesla was the company pushing the boundary in the beginning of really big oversized batteries and it would last a very long time because of the reason on the other end of course when we look at resources we want not to oversize too much but I think it's always a trade-off so I just thought I thought it's into the room to clarify this on lifetimes of batteries of different sizes against that Simon wouldn't you say that it's true that a smaller battery may end up operating at a higher power level and so drawing current at a higher C value but then it gives you the opportunity to charge at a lower C value than you might otherwise have to do in order to charge up a large battery like a Tesla's battery where you're charging at maybe 5C or something really straining on the battery and don't you think that that then works against the lifespan of the battery yeah like super high C rates are a challenge right that's why super charging can be challenging for battery you know if you go like to a range right like we do like I think the Volkswagen mentioned they want to get 12 minutes I think that's also connected to solid-state but also otherwise right people want to go to 15 minutes it can be quite a strain and then of course Catherine you know from a total management standpoint I mean she's actually on this one sure she can you know speak much more knowledgeable about this one but you know thermal control is a big one as well so kind of you know you don't want to overheat your batteries and yeah and there's a lot of smart tricks you can do with a battery mentoring system and cooling system but maybe Catherine has some thoughts on this as well yes I'm going to jump in really quickly here so with the smaller batteries and they're going to discharge at higher C rates for example 2C that's high enough for the two wheel two wheel applications thermal management systems thermal management is always an issue because a lot of them don't want to opt for liquid cooling or forced air cooling for example some of our clients they do they don't really have much option for active cooling systems which means you either run through water through it or you run forced air through it so with that they are very much limited as to either they have to cap their power the discharge rates or the charging rates to be able to manage the thermal aspect of it and anything that's to do with thermal has direct relation to the lifetime of the batteries and also the operating capacity in terms of power how much can they use etc so with the larger batteries and the larger battery packs it's very easy to build liquid cooling systems that's very efficient in packs like that and they do have size constraints but not as much as the smaller pack designs so the smaller pack designs it's always about how do I with the limited space I have pack as much cells as I can in that dimension and then also a couple with some thermal measurement that allows my battery to charge under high C rates so I think it's back to the question of if we're looking at really having a battery that lasts super long is that a thing that's necessary or is it more about how do we fully utilize the resources of these batteries if they're mostly owned by the companies that manufacture the vehicles etc they will be able to think about second life or third life because then it becomes in their interest as a company to be able to use the same product over and over again so just some food for thought I'm quite conscious of the time because we have 15 minutes left and it's always the case where we're towards the end of the session and there's a lot of ideas going on a very exciting discussion and I think Edwin has also joined us on stage but I want to give some time to him to share more about his thoughts about topic so Edwin please take it yeah thank you Katrina I wanted to give you a little bit my view on that battery swapping services in fact in at Schiphol airport that's the main airport of the Netherlands every taxi has to be fully electric otherwise they cannot take customers from Schiphol airport but they have tested that service a couple of years ago but after nine months it was abandoned because it's just not practical but there's another thing I think as more and more cars get electrified as we get more EVs on our roads we need level two charging or street charging combined with fast charging and the reason for that is that we can cope with the additional electricity we need but we cannot cope with the peaks if we had only fast charging because for that we would need upgrading the grids and the grids for example in most European countries they are just owned by the public so it's taxpayers money and I think if you really look into that it will cost billions of euros to upgrade the grid only to cope by the fast charging of all electric vehicles because to give you an example we have in the Netherlands about 9 million electric cars and we drive around 120 billion kilometers a year and we need only 20% extra electricity if we electrify every kilometer so we surely can cope with that with the additional electricity but like I said we cannot cope with the peak demand would be created to the grid if we would only have fast charging and even if we had battery charging battery swapping then probably the battery swapping would need a sort of a fast charging too because the battery services they want to charge their batteries as fast as possible and you take also away an important factor is that you need in the end an incentive on the price for the moment of charging so that's something we don't see at this moment but that will be introduced in the years to come it's already a little bit around smart charging that you that you incentivize the moment of charging and you will also and therefore you need a price effect that there should be a different price for fast charging than for slow charging and you also want to make use of the excessive electricity generated because there are more and more moments as we add more wind of more sustainable generated energy so more wind and more solar there are more and more moments and you already see that in Europe that the electricity is basically for free and you want to use that electricity to charge your cars and that's also a very important thing well this is a little bit my opinion and maybe somebody can elaborate on that thank you Hans-Peter did you have some thoughts on this one or no I really think there are better experts on this expertise so I leave the floor to the other guys so I mean I happy to say a few words maybe or someone else wants to jump in I'm with you I think it's not really decided yet you know battery swapping gonna be the thing but I think it could have some applications you know similar to hydrogen where hydrogen you know can I think you know there are spaces for it like you know what Karima mentioned about you know industry I think like you know green steel and things like that I think it could definitely have a place there for battery swapping you know I think you mentioned that we need fast charging for battery swapping I mean you know like Ample like a company I'm aware of also have been participating in these sessions before they don't really do much you know fast charging at each individual cell because they just let them charge slowly you know another thing is charging it to 100% is I think the big argument right people take with battery swapping because as we people who use electric vehicles usually you charge about 80% quite fast and then it's quite slow you know the last bit and the idea is you know that you can do the slow you know charging all the way to 100% which has some advantages but of course infrastructure costs and things can be tricky one thing though to not underestimate is the cost of fast charging stations so I was quite blown away when I heard you know how much it costs to get like a 300 kilowatt hour or even 200 kilowatt hour or sorry kilowatt or 350 kilowatt charging station it's not cheap so and to like you know get the grid ready for it etc it can be quite demanding so yeah so I think there are challenges but I personally I think you know battery swapping for me personally made the most sense for anything related to fleets right like what they're doing right now in the US and San Cisco is Uber in other taxis but if everyone going to do battery swapping I'm not really sure yet especially with self driving but maybe you have ideas Hans-Peters on this I just would like to add and Ingo you are 100% right in your analysis and you were talking about maybe the next 3 to 5 years if we look what happened between 1995 and now and what is possible in the future you know I think swapping might be an idea in the next 15 to 20 to 25 years because we will need standardization and I think there's a chance with our pressure on let's say sustainability and our climate goals that we will be forced to do things like standardization which a lot of us are no topic you know no discussion topic but we might get into a situation where we need to make decisions on road pricing on standards to really reach our goals you know and I think that could be one path which shows the ground and Simon you mentioned fleets you know maybe fleets will play a bigger role in the distant future maybe micromobility which is quite apt for swapping if you look at the e-bikes and all those things I think it's just an alternative for me running around with my let's say a charging stick and finding a box and might be an overall system approach also if you look about the rapid development of new battery technology and also in the end you know the weight is still a big big limitation on efficiency and if we can help to use less heavy batteries and swap them more often that could also be another driver but in the end the headline is I think sustainability goals will force us brutally into solutions which now for us are unthinkable I'm done certainly and I think also there's as well as the regulatory changes there's going to be the corporations who are going to be offering their staff the options for leasing cars with electric vehicles for example our company has mentioned that is something to come in the foreseeable future so I envisage that might be a big driver as well I think the battery swap swapping battery could work in some niche market but in the mainstream market for the passenger electrical vehicles it will not work because the trend is the trend is the structural battery pack which is in the Tesla case in the Model Y the negative weight gain of the 35 kilograms per car it means that if you have much lighter car you can go much more miles per car with this vehicle you are using much less brakes and so on and so on so basically the future is structural battery pack for the electrical vehicles brilliant yeah just also looking at the time we're getting really close to the official ending time of half past yeah maybe also kind of like you know to I think before we wrap it up I would also first of all really thank Hans Peter and I think that's a good time to you know give him a follow maybe if you're interested in what he does I think he does really interesting sessions !

1:16:20before if you go on his profile you can find his club the first club down at this profile after many amazing achievements he has let me add one thing it's important in this round now we were just doing our classes in our sessions in German because the idea was that we take our lecturers our faculty members and the members of our executive education and do the whole thing with them with the next month we will do it bilingual so we will have one session which is called future mobility how is it formed in London for example so I mentioned Philip Road and Lucas Neckermann so for you guys it will be more interesting for those who don't understand German we will have at least 50% of our sessions in English sorry just to add no this is fantastic news because exactly my thinking as well so I think that's really news so there's even more reason now to follow and to get engaged if you're interested in this topic it has been also interesting things also EAA which I'm also fortunate to be involved with now as well and really great to follow you and great to have you every time if you're also interested in these kind of weekly sessions we are doing free to also follow Catherine or myself and myself and also maybe follow the battery revolution club which is the house on top and yeah before we might want to close it maybe Catherine you want to give a last pitch for the battery den and get more people signing up we had really amazing traction so far so really excited for what's going to happen the 1st of May maybe you want to yeah so just to give a final plug to battery then but before I do that just a really big thank you to Hans Peter for joining us today I think this discussion is great and I really look forward to the English sessions that's really exciting so for me though I'm pretty sure it be super beneficial the session that we are having on the 1st of May and we are super excited to have a great panel joining us as well so we are still in the middle of forming our panel and I know some of you have already reached out to us to introduce yourselves on LinkedIn and also on battery revolution club so I really appreciate that and Simon and myself are looking to build an equal platform for both genders so if there are any ladies out there who are happy to join us as a startup or as a tech expert or just from the VC point perspective please feel free to do that and also I would just really like to add that this session is meant for startups and VCs and tech experts to just really help each other and there no obligations involved if you don't have to invest in these startups after the session so I think the idea is to really help connect people in this space and to help everyone to hear what exciting startup ideas are out there and we also have some surprise startups if we call it that way in Battery Den so we are very excited and really looking forward to that and think part of all of this is or startup founder or investor and we reach out to you or alternatively please feel free to follow or connect with myself or Simon on LinkedIn and we'll reach out to you in the coming week as well so it's on the 1st of May and it will take place at the same time at 3pm CET if you're not a startup or not interested in joining us on the panel as as a panelist don't worry please feel free to participate as well because you'll hear a lot of exciting ideas from all the startups and also from our tech experts as well so yeah with that I will end off the session sorry it's a little bit of a delay but I think Simon would like to share more about our speaker for next week as well exactly I just thought you know because before we have the den which is happening in two weeks which is going to be exciting we also have another great conversation starter for next week his name is Steve Levine he's the editor at medium he writes the mobile list of medium which is a great resource for all topics around batteries but also electrification of transport etc he has a background Atlantic Council and Georgetown and Axios Washington Post I think so he has a really interesting background and has a really nice overview so I think this should also be an exciting session next week related to the mobilist but also all kinds of batteries and especially from the battery angle on the EVs and mobility in general without that and without enough ado I'm looking forward to see you again next week