Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Steve LeVine

0:00Transcript

0:01Thank you so much, Catherine. Yeah, it's always a true joy to have these sessions. And as Catherine mentioned, you know, we met on Clubhouse and it's been really a lot of fun since then. And we have been covering all kinds of topics from, you know, recycling and some electric vehicles from scooters to electric cars, electric planes and things like that. So we have been really covering lots of interesting topics. And also I think today going to be an exciting session. Maybe just really quick about myself. I'm Simon with a background in batteries. I have my PhD on batteries in Cambridge in the UK and started an organization in a company called Battery Associates, where we're running educational programs like the BatteryMBA and other things. So if you're interested in that, feel free to also check out my profile. And the same as Catherine and I, we're always happy to also connect on LinkedIn. And yeah, also really check out the Battery Dan. It's going to be lots of fun.

0:51We have some really amazing startups and really cool investors and just lots of really exciting people joining us. So feel free to also join us again next week for that session, as Catherine mentioned. And now I would quickly like to come to our today's fire starter and conversation starter, Steve Levine, editor at large at Medium. I know him from his great writing at The Mobilist, which is a really exciting, you know, blog or kind of like, you know, nice. I think blog is probably the right word at Medium. He's writing on the future of batteries, electric cars and driverless vehicles, which I very much enjoy. And I'm very grateful that you can join us today, especially I think it's your first time on Clubhouse. So really excited for that. And you're actually joining with your wife's account. So that's why if you're confused about the name, that's the reason for that. Because as Catherine mentioned, it's not on Android yet. And yeah, before I go, maybe I think Catherine, sorry, Steve, you're probably the best person to introduce yourself because you have a really impressive bio.

1:46Maybe you can just start a bit by introducing yourself and then also The Mobilist and some of your thinking. And then we can go from there. Sure. Thanks. Thanks, Simon. Thanks, Catherine. So glad to be here at Battery Revolution. Thank you. Thank you. It's really happening. The affordable electric car is happening. The $100 per kilowatt hour battery is here. So in November at Medium, this was noticed. And so the bosses ordered up, actually ordered me, said, you know, we're going to start a blog on batteries. You're going to write it. It starts next week. So that's how all this went. And it's been crazy over the last, so it's, you know, four or five months since then. And we have so many other people getting into this game, you know, really at the same time. And I think people really notice this is the new big thing. So just a couple things I wanted to notice. Just from this week, I wanted to make notice of.

4:00One was an announcement a couple of days ago from Honda that it's going to have a solid-state battery in one or more of its vehicles at mid-decade. So that's yet another player who says, one, that we're going to have, you know, affordable electric cars at mid-decade. That's the convergence point for everyone. That's the big collision, 2025. And the other thing about that is who is going to supply all these solid-state batteries? These are, they're still not commercially with us. We have Honda, Toyota, BMW, Toyota, Ford, and GM, at least those, all of whom say they're going to have solid-state batteries in their, electric cars at mid-decade. The other thing I wanted to throw out just on a, and it's very, very important in the battery space. Catherine, you're in Taiwan. And something I'm really focused on is Taiwan being the biggest player of all in semiconductors. Who is going to be the Taiwan of batteries? And there's a big fight, a big struggle going on right now between China and Europe.

5:39And now the United States is attempting to get into the game. But that's very, very important. One, for geopolitics, you know, whose way is going to rule? Who's going to make the most money out of this? And that means taking control of a whole supply chain. And so that's the other thing that I'm watching right now. Amazing. Thanks so much for this overview. And I think that's something also really exciting, you know, also looking at your book, The Powerhouse, and, you know, I think your policy background and also security strategy and risk background, also from academic side. I'm just really curious also, like, how are you seeing this to develop? Because when I think back, like, you know, five or ten years ago, so, I mean, and still now, like, China is a really dominating player. And has been, you know, the dominating player. And now we have, you know, as you mentioned, Europe and the US and all these kind of players moving into that.

6:47Are there, like, any, like, you know, key time or, like, you know, key events which happened for, you know, this to happen that now suddenly this race started? Yeah. We're just curious to get your perspectives on that. One key moment is the financial crash. 2009. That's the first moment at which the big countries, you know, being put flat on their back by the crash of financial markets, started looking around for how are we going to recover from this? What industry can we attach ourselves to that can pull us out of this funk? And batteries and electric cars was that thing. And that's China did this. The United States with Obama put $2.4 billion into this game. And smaller countries did, too. Japan did and Israel and France. Of course, that didn't work out. It didn't work out because batteries weren't there yet. The cost of the battery at that stage was around $1,200 per kilowatt hour, nowhere near what you needed. And so you had, you know, toes in the water by a GM, Nissan.

8:17And but you had Elon Musk, which with Tesla, who was, you know, absolutely determined he was going to make electric cars work. The next pretty important moment was, let me backtrack for a second there. In China, China also decides. You have two players at that moment that decide they're going to stay in the game. It's China and Elon Musk. The next big thing is dieselgate. Right. The VW decides, you know, in the in the 2000s that it's going that its new thing is the diesel driven car. But it has to meet stringent environmental standards in the United States, in Europe. It can't get there with its technology. And so it creates a device to fool to fool emissions technology and gets caught in in the middle of the last decade. And that that almost destroys the company. And it decides how we're going to survive. And over the next few years, it was already playing, but it took a few a few years for this to become a public thing.

9:55It decides the way we're going to save the company. We're going to rebrand ourselves as an electric company. And so so so so you have VW going, you know, feet, body, arms, legs, everything, whole whole body into the electric electric car race. And then and then the third thing that happens is is just that, you know, time, you know, over over 10 years, the price of the of the lithium-ion battery just year by year tinkering with the battery. The South Koreans, the Chinese, especially, you know, year by year knocking off seven, eight percent from from the cost of the battery. By the time you reach the end of the last decade, they're knocking on the door of one hundred dollars per kilowatt hour. And and and then you get the Model 3, you know, just this blockbuster EV that everyone wakes up and who wakes up all the other car companies. And there is utter terror that that you're going to turn into Kodak or Nokia, meaning you're going to be made obsolete by by this upstart technology.

11:23And so one by one, they all started jumping in. And until today, you know, the you know, you've you've got the cheap, affordable, let's say affordable lithium-ion battery and becoming more and more affordable each year. And you've got breakthroughs, these unexpected breakthroughs on the anode side of the battery with with silicon and with solid-state. And, you know, those those those give you the give you the pathway on the other side of the decade in the second half of the decade to really knock off cost from these from these electric cars. And what does that mean? It means you move from from cars being sold only to the first movers or people who are trying to make a public statement and environmental statement or status statement from that into the mass market. It's really great. Thank you for sharing that. And the thing is interesting to think about these different events, you know, which are playing a role, not just from a technology standpoint, because I think technology also, you know, I think at least in some of the discussion we had, right, I think we're quite convinced that, you know, improvement is good, but it's not like, you know, what's what's like, you know, the most crucial factor right now.

12:44It's also about implementation and scaling and investment and policies and things like that. So I think it's interesting to see them all play together. Yeah. Let me interrupt you just if you don't mind. So I because we we can unpack or talk that through. I do. I do. I do. Of course, policy is, you know, that that's what put China on the map. And and it's and it's put Europe on the map. But once you get to the mid decade and and and the average costs of the batteries drop well below $100 and and both VW and Tesla are talking about getting, you know, to around $60 per kilowatt hour. It's it's it's a it's it turns into a game of competition. Yet, yes, there, you know, there there is the thing, you know, can the Europeans can Northvolt in in Norway and Freire also in Norway. Can they scale up? And neither of them has actually made a battery. They're pouring tens of billions of dollars into these plants.

14:04But but the game changes at that at that point. The electric cars will not be reliant on subsidies at that point. Absolutely. But I think also here it's interesting, right? I think a lot of the cost reduction is due to scale. But if you look at the learning curve, you know, I mean, you can see it's quite linear, you know, reduction of cost is the volume of batteries you produce. Right. Similar to solar. And I think I mean, I think that's also maybe interesting for you. I would be curious to your thoughts, because I know you're covering solid-state also quite a lot, you know, and I think some people are very, you know, pushing it and saying it's kind of what's needed for really making a transition work. I personally, I'm not super sure about this, at least at this point right now. Right. Because I think the cost reduction can also be achieved without. And of course, there's some advantages to it. But I think either way, I think we have a technology we have technologies available also today to get us, you know, to the scale we need to.

15:02I would just be curious to also get your thoughts on this. We're on the same page. So that's that's that's the thing that they're absolutely amazing breakthroughs or apparent breakthroughs in in in solid-state. And it is the it technology. This is what everyone's talking about. And, you know, on the stock market, you know, the companies that are that are talking about that have solid-state, they're there. They're on fire, you know, on on the stock market. But lithium-ion, just a good old lithium-ion without solid-state will will will get us there. Just just as you're as you're talking about. But what but what I'm hearing is that once you get to the middle of the decade, those those those price improvements that Musk talked about on battery day in September, that was all lithium-ion. He's talking about, OK, I'm going to put I'm going to get silicon, more silicon into into the anode. I think that that as of now, he's the only EV maker who currently has silicon in in his anode.

16:23But but putting more in that he gets to fifty six dollars per kilowatt hour. So. So, yes, we're we're on exactly the same page. We do not need solid-state. It's it's it's one of those things that if you get it, that's terrific. But the the the the the arc, the arc of the industry, the new industry that we're talking about, EVs happens without can happen without solid-state. Thank you so much. I'm very happy we are on the same page, but also excited about other people's views. Right. If any other people disagree. Always, you know, it's a nice platform as well to to have these discussions. And William, I think, also raising his hand. And I think this is now a good time to just quickly reset the room to say, you know, we do our weekly sessions. Catherine and I, we host them every Saturday related to battery topics with the battery revolution club. As you can see, it's the 15th session. And today we actually very fortunate to have Steve Levine with us.

17:25He's using his wife account. That's why you might not see his name there. But I put his name and also his blog, The Mobile List, in my bio. So if you click on my profile, you see his name and his blog then. And you can also find him on LinkedIn, et cetera. Maybe now's a good time also to go to you, Megan William, because I thought you also have some thoughts. Maggie, do you want to start? Sure. Thank you. Thanks for having me as well. A big fan of Steve since the powerhouse and Axios as well. And anyone in the audience who hasn't read the powerhouse needs to. And then help me beg Steve to write a follow up. With that, you know, I'm always the pessimist coming from a battery manufacturing background. And I get tired of hearing every new breakthrough with no data. So my question to Steve is, you know, if you were a betting man, let's say this is a horse race.

18:13Who do you think has the edge? And is it going to be a solid-state or is it going to be, you know, the silicon anode? Knowing that a lot of these announcements are coming from handmade bench cells. You know, personally, I'd say the edge goes to someone who can manufacture it. Who do you think is going to be the front runner in the solid-state and or silicon anode and or the next best state? That's too complicated of a question. I need another cup of coffee. Oh. Hi, Maggie. Thanks for what you said about the powerhouse. That's a very tricky question. I don't think I think that it would be foolish to try to figure out, you know, to try to say who's going to be it. So many factors play in. Quantenscape, SES, Solid Power, Cyber, others. They all talk the great game like you just said that we don't see much data from any of them. And when they give data, they depict them in a way that is absolute definitive proof that they've got, you know, all of the problems figured out.

19:41And they're on a sure pathway in 2024, 2025, 2026 to be in a vehicle. And they've all got big auto companies behind them. V, V, VW especially. So I think, like, if you had to bet, I guess I would put my chips on all those players and just see who, if anyone gets there first, right? None of them may get there. And you remember from the powerhouse, GM put its chips on Envia. Yeah, right. Right. And the U.S. government believed Envia was going to get there. GM believed it. It announced a car that was going to use that. And then we found out that it didn't have what it said. And so I think, like, the smart thing to do is keep marching lithium-ion down that cost path, which is what Tesla is doing. And hope. So it's, yeah, yeah, one of those things. Hope for the best. Plan for the worst. So well said. Thank you. And echoes my feelings as well. Thank you very much, Maggie, for this question and the thoughts.

21:14William, would you like to go next? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Catherine and Simon. Good morning, Nuri. I know Steve pretty well. So it's good to meet you as well. It's a little inside joke. Sorry. Hi, Steve. Thank you. So I just had a question because as someone who is interested in sustainability, electric vehicles are obviously, have always been interesting ever since they appeared on the scene on the horizon. And then recently I heard a conversation with a mutual friend of ours, Peter Littlewood, talking about, so let's say we do achieve the goal and there is, you know, electric vehicles are the norm. And then you have lots of batteries. And he pointed out that, of course, it's obviously true they're not, it's not yet a closed-loop system for the creation and production of batteries. And he brought up the idea of hydrogen. I'm not going to take us to the idea of hydrogen on this call because we're focused on EVs. But is there anything on the horizon that you've seen that points to a closed-loop production system on EVs on the battery side?

22:33Thank you. Hey, William. Nice to see you. Likewise. Yeah. And for those who don't know, Peter Littlewood, Peter Littlewood is a former Bell Labs superstar and then went on to Argonne and now is with the Faraday Institution in the UK. William, I think that we are going to have a closed-loop system. The EU is insisting on that. And recycling companies are coming up that are going to, that are, and are going to, you know, take care of the disposal and recycling of batteries. And in the U.S. we've got redwood materials and lifecycle and others. This is, it's an industry, it's not, this is not a do-gooder industry. These are folks who want to make money doing it. And the second thing is they're seeing that you can make all of the forecasts that you want about lithium-ion prices, battery prices, and sticker prices for the vehicles, but they're reliant on the price of the commodities that go into the batteries. The lithium, aluminum, today it's cobalt, but all of the metals and the elements going in.

24:19And so part of the economic calculus is to recycle and to avail of that other supply chain, the supply chain that will be supplied by the recycling industry. Well, that's great news. That would be great to have a closed-loop system on batteries. So thanks for the insight. This is a great room and a great topic. So glad that Catherine and Simon, you're putting this on. Thanks for that, William. I'd also like to introduce Bavia onto the stage. Bavia, by the way, a short introduction of her. She's also doing batteryinsiders.com, which is a podcast that these sessions go on to with Simon. So yeah, great to have you, Bavia. Thanks, Catherine. Hi, Steve. Bavia here, also fellow Hoya community members of Hoya FAQSA. So one thing we talk about a lot in this room is battery standardization. Given your background and expertise in journalism, do you think media has a role in contributing to standardization efforts? I'm always curious about batteries in relation to other things like media and academia.

25:41So we'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks, Bavia. What, I can ask that, but I'm interested, what do you have in mind? Well, I think, like, one thing I've started thinking more about, you know, we talk a lot about, like, what's going on in the battery world. But ultimately, lithium-ion batteries and, like, for example, electric vehicles, which is what I mostly work on, they are very, I mean, I think change can be consumer-driven. And educating the consumer on, you know, what's going on, what the technicalities are, what safety concerns or hazards there are do play a role. And I've seen some of that pop up in the media, but not so much. And so I'm wondering if you have thoughts on, like, what media should be covering when it comes to batteries. Yeah. Well, okay, well, one thing, I think a big thing. So I'm going to now get in trouble with my colleagues. So I use that as a cough first. But I think that journalism has failed in this space, in the clean energy space.

26:56And here's how. The tone in what you read is a movement tone. It's an activist tone. So many of the, I will say, much of the journalism I read is, treats the green, the coverage of the green industry as a movement in which they are a player, in which they are on the street with the signs shouting. And the articles are written in this way that, you know, we're all in this march to, you know, to mitigate climate change, to put EVs on all the, EVs on roads around the world, and so on. And you can embrace the science of climate change, but not be a movement player in climate change. And the journalism lacks a distance, a skepticism to, you know, ask the tough questions of climate scientists, of battery scientists, of EV designers and manufacturers and players. And so, you know, we're not, we're not boosters of journalists, right? Should not be boosters of batteries, of EVs, and of, you know, government intervention and so on.

29:01So, you know, we're there to inform, as you, as you pointed out, but also to poke holes, right? To, okay, do you really, do you really have what you say you have? You know, where's your data? You know, what is the specific energy density? What, you know, what is your cost per kilowatt hour and so on? And I think these things are not, they're not asked. They're not part of the story. The outlook that I've spelled out here of, you know, the march of the cost down the price curve and solid-state and what's going to happen in the second half. That's not aspirational. That's, you know, conclusions that I've reached after speaking, you know, to many, many people. And it's also, it's based on not of the aspirations of public policy, which is fickle. Anyone who's watched American politics the last four years, right, you can have one kind of administration, one term, and completely the opposite the next. Now we've got Biden, you know, with this huge climate change, $174 billion he wants to pour into EEVs.

30:35But it's an eight-year plan. What is the next president? Is he going to be the next president? We don't know. So, therefore, the metrics to watch are what are battery researchers, battery makers, EV makers, what are they doing for real costs? That's the metric we need. And not just costs. Are they making vehicles? Are they planning vehicles? Are they making vehicles that people are really going to want to buy? So you can't just stick a battery into any car and expect mass market buyers to want it. So the automakers have to do their job. I haven't seen that they have. Yes, you know, we see a ton of vehicles that cost $200,000, $100,000 that are very, very cool. What about the cool $30,000 car, the cool $25,000 car? That's what we haven't seen yet. That's what we need. And just looping back to your original question, what role, you know, what role, if I haven't made it clear yet, what role do journalists have is staying dispassionate, be interested, but play a corrective role, keep people honest role in the space.

32:08Thank you so much. I really appreciate your perspective on that. Thank you, Bavia. Yes, thank you. And thank you for inviting me on the stage. And I also wanted to say thank you for having this kind of room here every Saturday. I have been, I think this is my third time and it's very interesting. But regarding my question, what I wanted to raise, when we are today talking about the future of EVs, and we were talking about, yeah, about batteries in general and how the cost is declining. But maybe we should also talk about the charging system. And is this a barrier for the uptake? Because as we see, for example, here in Europe, there's quite a lot of discussion about that. So, yeah, maybe what are the ideas about that? I'm going to go ahead and talk about that. But I also wanted to throw out there that, you know, this is a conversation. So I hope that as I'm talking and, you know, that others throw in their own take on this.

34:04So this is a big debate. Establishing a charging network is one of the key things that has to happen to make EVs work. So, again, I get in trouble with this on this aspect of EVs. But here's how I see it. So I think that when we're moving from first movers to the mass market, then who is the mass market? It's, you know, millions and millions of people around the world who have grown up with a certain system. And that's the gas station system. And that means that, you know, you can wake up in the, oh, no, I'm 10 minutes late to get to my meeting, get into the car, the car's empty. Shoot. And, but no problem because one mile down the road there's a gas station and I can put a few gallons or a few liters into the car and be on my way. That's the system that people have grown up with. And what you hear when I talk about this is I get tons of reader mail and many of them say the same thing, which is, no, Steve, you don't understand.

35:41And I own an EV or I've owned an EV for five years or 10 years or I own three EVs. And I charge them up in my garage. And I've never, I haven't been in a gas station in, you know, in several years. And they're smelly and all of these things and they're going to go away. But what these people who say that don't, I think, don't understand is that they are first movers. They are equivalent to those, to those people 30 years ago who, who would, uh, at the, at the dawn of the consumer, uh, computer age, who would go around, you know, to five electronic stores, buy parts and come home and, and assemble their own computer. That, that, that, that, that's not most people. Most people want to buy a computer that's already all put together. That's in a box. And, and, and the same thing, if you're, uh, with electric cars, that, uh, the mass market, most of the mass market is simply not going to buy unless they have already seen in their neighborhood and elsewhere, uh, charging stations, uh, that, that they feel they, you know, that, that they're not going to get into a, uh, into a crisis.

37:09If they're late for a meeting, they can get, they can get it. And, and, and these char, what are these charging stations that they also want to be in and out? So there should be back charging stations. And, you know, I've got my own, uh, shorthand for what I mean. And, and, and, and I, I think people will be accustomed to 15 minutes, 15 minutes. And, you know, at the, at the outer edge, 20 minutes. If, if you feel that you can get, you know, um, up to 80% in 80% charge in 15 minutes, uh, uh, that'll be okay. You know, you'll probably buy the, the car. The other thing is when you're driving by that station, it can't be, uh, crammed with people trying to get their, uh, their cars charged up. Or there can't be some guy who has parked his combustion, uh, uh, car in the space, uh, or, uh, you know, trash everywhere. Like they, they, they have to figure out a, uh, a system where, where you can actually see it's convenient to, I can get in.

38:17I can see that there are usually, uh, free spaces. And, and, and three, it's not used as a, as a parking lot, uh, for, uh, for, uh, uh, uh, oblivious people who are, who are just leaving their cars parked there. So the, so the, the, uh, I think this psychology is underestimated, uh, by, by, by car owners. Um, I'm not positive that it's underestimated by the industry. Um, I, I wonder if it is, but, but, um, you know, you're bringing up this point. It's absolutely crucial that there be, uh, ubiquitous charging and ubiquitous fast charging. Um, thanks so much, um, Steve. And I really appreciate Annalie's, um, question on this as well. Um, personally, I'm very passionate about, about this because I think we spoke about it last week, uh, with regards to, you know, is it, is it, is it, is it better, is it better or is, uh, fast charging, um, better. So I think, um, if I could, I would like to give, um, some response time to that as well.

39:28I think Maggie and William, you may have raised your hand to response. And, um, I think Stephanie may have something to add to that too. Uh, sure. So Steve, as you're speaking, I was thinking of, you know, the other hurdle to, to mass market adoption is the fact that here, at least in the United States, we love our ICEs. We're holding onto them much longer. I think the average car park age in the U.S. is over 11 years. I could be off by 0.2 or 0.3. Um, but people are holding onto their, their internal combustion engines longer because I think the last time I saw it was 98% of the car park is, is ICEs with a mild adoption of EVs there. So, um, aside from just seeing charging, we have a, here in the U.S., a population that, that holds onto, they do, they're DYIers. They do their own work with the aftermarket. Um, and if you kind of take a look at the aftermarket, um, parts, uh, sales for ICEs, they're continuing to rise.

40:32So aside from technological challenges, there's, there's a mindset here that we like our, our gas-skrassling cars. Um, so I just wanted to supplement what you were saying with that, um, from the mindset, you know, of people with EVs versus people who won't and will stay with their ICEs, I guess. Um, so no question there, just a comment to supplement what you were saying. William, did you add another thought on this as well? Thanks. See, the, the, the, the charging, I can see that as an issue. And I wonder if it's, um, partly my hope would be that if the infrastructure is in place, like I'm in New York City, uh, City, uh, Bank did this idea of, of having a bike-sharing program. So now, you know, over the course of, well, within a year, we had, uh, uh, bikes that you could use, um, spread across these stations that you can rent them from or take them from for the day, spread out across the city.

41:42Um, and, um, I wonder if there is a model there. Places like Singapore are obviously heavily investing in EV charging station infrastructure. And then it becomes a mindset issue, just like charging your phone. I charge my phone at night. You could charge your car at night. So there's, there's probably partly a, um, a, a mindset issue, a piece to this component. Yeah, absolutely. I think, um, I think there is, it's, it's definitely a mindset issue with regards to how consumers think about, um, battery charging or battery swapping for the matter, given that, um, Neo EV has done it quite successfully in, in China. Um, I just really like to hear what other people think about, you know, uh, is charging, uh, or, or should battery swapping or battery charge is better with shopping or better charging. Um, you know, which one would be better in the celebrating adoption of EVs and, um, how would that push for the best market in general? I think I would love to hear Stephanie.

42:47I would, I would, I would, I would hear as well. Okay. Thank you, Catherine. Um, so Steve, first I'd like to say it would be great to hear your thoughts. And then, uh, I'd like to add my thoughts specific on charging. And then, uh, if there's time, I'd definitely like to pop into questions about batteries. I'd like to hear your input. But specific to charging, uh, and Steve, I'm so happy that you, you've really nailed the point about convenience. Um, and William, Catherine, you also talked about the mindset. And so that convenience factor is, is such a, it's a big point. And it's not a mindset issue. Say, you know, thinking that charging has to be as seamless as possible. It's more of a positive point or as a perk. So for myself, I'm an EV driver. And I love the fact that for me, the idea of refueling is just, it's so seamless. It just happens kind of on its own. So I charge overnight.

43:43So obviously, you know, my, my car is just parked. I don't have to go out of my way to go to a gas station. It gets charged. And then wherever I go, whether it's a city or, or going to a park, more and more, there's a lot of these, um, public charging points. And on top of it right now, a lot of them are free. So again, you know, I'm going to that destination anyway. It just takes another second for me to just take the plug and plug it into my car. So, you know, the fact that this is seamless compared to refueling a vehicle is, is, you know, just great. Um, and then to talk about, you know, load charging better or battery swapping or fast charging. I think this ideal is just a mix of both. You know, when we're looking at the full adoption of EVs in the future, and there's so many different applications. There's so many different use cases. There's so many different places where charging can happen.

44:37So I don't think it's a matter, you know, is this better or is that better. It's really going to be a mix of both. And, um, and first to give a little background of myself. So I'm in, uh, I deal with, uh, charging worldwide. I have a company called ABD. Um, so I'm looking at different applications worldwide. And in the beginning, I came into the charging world, uh, in 2015. And in the beginning, especially when people were really starting off, uh, in Canada, based in Canada, and they were looking at installing chargers. And they would ask me, well, what's, what's the best type of charger to install? And of course the answer is, well, well, it depends. And the first thing is always to look at what is, what is your use case or how, if you're establishing a company, how long are people staying at your company, um, at your coffee shop, at your mall? But more importantly also, how, you know, in the future, what's going to go, what's going to happen in the future?

45:29And how long do you want people to stay there? And so, um, that's that one's your question. So if you, people are, before you get a stay there for about five, ten minutes, then look at a very, very high power charger, um, or even, you know, it just wants a stop-up. Um, and then there's just, again, so many different types of charging applications that can happen. And I think what's really helping is in this age of, you know, data. We have so much data available. Um, and just giving the example, I'm in Montreal, and in both cities now, like in Montreal, there's parking meters, and there are electronic parking meters. So it's no longer, you put your coins into a coin meter. It's all of them, you know, I do it with an app. And that's such valuable data because, and I don't, I don't know if the city is doing this or not, but if they should have thought about it today. But, you know, with parking meters, this data that the city can get of how long, what's the average time that people are staying in this parking spot, uh, in this region.

46:32And then, because more and more parking spots, if I can sit in Montreal, there's more parking, uh, charging stations that are happening and being installed at the parking spot. And so that's such really crucial information for the city to make a decision. In this parking spot, people stay, you know, because it's a very, either, special area, so parking people stay there for, you know, 9, 10, 12 hours plus. And obviously it's a good decision to put an AC charger, a level 2 charger. But in other areas where it's, you know, of course, coffee shops or places where people are spending less than an hour or less than two hours, then a 25 kilowatt DC charger or 50 kilowatt charger. So I think right now in this age where we have so much data available, it's just going to help us in terms of determining what's the best type of charger rather than installing an asset and then later on realizing, oh, well, you know, that's not really something to actually do.

47:27And then they just switched it. And so the last point I'll add to is when we're looking at the future of EV and, you know, what's happening in the future, we know that battery sizes are increasing. The number of electric vehicles are also increasing. So what we try to do, not just at AUD, but the industry as well, there's a, you know, going into the direction that charging infrastructure today has to take into account the charging realities of the future because the last thing you want to do is have these assets that are no longer future-proof. You know, you really have to have future-proofing in mind. So modularity and flexibility are super important. Flexibility in terms of increasing the number of charging points for that one charger. So as we grow in the fleet, then, you know, just adding another charging dispenser and increasing that would make a lot of sense and is also cost-effective even in the long run. And also flexibility to increase the charging power without simply, again, replacing the entire charger.

48:36So, again, flexibility and modularity are super key for, you know, again, thinking in what's happening in the future and making sure that the realities and the power needs and the energy needs of the future are taken into account in the charging infrastructure today. Thank you so much, Stephanie, for this really nice overview. And I think also there's some really important thoughts as well. Well, maybe also a quick plug, just, you know, in the middle of the time roughly, and that's definitely also going to be part of our battery den next week, which we're excited for as an expert. And, yeah, you can see she has lots of expertise and lots of topics around EVs and charging and things. And very excited to have her as part of this as well. And then I think we had a few new people joining us as well. Michael, Edwin, and Jewel. Maybe Michael, do you want to get started? Hi, thanks, Simon. Yeah, thanks for everything so far, everyone.

49:30I'll just say a couple of quick thoughts about charging infrastructure. And I really took Steve's point about early adopters, and I think we really are still in the early adoption phase of EVs. I mean, they really, even though I see Model 3s everywhere now, they really are still quite normal. And I always want to keep, we need to remember a couple of things. First of all, not everyone has a street parking or garage. I mean, you know, a lot of people, especially cities, live in flats. And so, you know, charging is even more of a complication for that. And the other thing I always try and remind people is that the electricity distribution network was never built to have, like, 10, 20, 30 kilowatt supplies to every street, parking space or house or anything like that. It's designed to supply a couple of kilowatts per every residence, and that's it. So, you know, there's going to be a substantial investment needed to upgrade copper and transistors in the network.

50:36So that's another factor that's going to, you know, has to be taken into account. But I really had a question for Steve and anyone else who's, like, you know, really into the battery space. And that is that, you know, one recently reading Bill Gates' book, How to Avoid the Climate Disaster, one thing he mentioned really, really sort of struck a note in my mind on that is he was talking about how different the Moore's law is in integrated circuits and computing power, and that it's sort of over 30 years had a million-fold increase in power of ICs or processes. But this is like it's an outline. Most other things are not that and don't have that kind of growth. And the thought I had then is that he's perhaps comparing integrated circuits to everything else, but not necessarily what came before integrated circuits, and that was Babs. And the difference was that there were two key developments that allowed even the modern computing revolution to happen.

51:48One was the invention of a completely different way of switching electronic circuits, and that was the transistor. But there was also another thing that happened, which was integrating the transistors onto a single piece of silicon, and that allowed a manufacturing revolution whereby circuits were grown rather than assembled. And so, you know, it sort of made me think, are we sort of, are batteries, are anything we would currently be doing, are they still in the valve stage? We haven't yet had that transistor slash integrated circuit switch where we're suddenly able to build up batteries or grow batteries or whatever, or perhaps have a fundamental different way of storing and releasing energy. And I'm just wondering, you know, whether there's even any inkling of something going in that direction where maybe there's a completely different way of doing this. Michael, thanks for that. That's so, that's such an interesting question. And so I wanted to make two points. One is I wanted to roll back to Maggie just for a second about something you said, and that's the, and Stephanie raised this point too, and that's the role of psychology in what happens over the next decade.

53:22And what if you're talking about the dynamic we have where people hang on to their vehicles, hang on to their combustion vehicles for 10 years, 15 years before they sell in, and that I think people think, a lot of forecasters use that as a fixed part of the equation of how EVs are going to roll out by 2030, 2040, 2050. But what if there is a mental switch? So before 2007, you would not, no one on this call would have predicted that we were all going to, at all times of the day, have in our hands a smartphone, right? A computer in our hands. Today, no one would walk out of the house unless they had a computer in their hands, their phone with a camera and so on. So what if you, what if you get mid-decade, right, this convergence point, that suddenly there's a mental shift in the public where they want an EV? It's like an Apple moment, an iPhone moment. People just, their view of the combustion car is that it's obsolete, and they start dumping those and buying EVs.

55:12The, the, you know, this is, it's something, we don't know if that's going to happen. It could happen. That's called the Osborne effect. I think it's, it's an interesting thing to, to keep in mind as we go into the decade. And then, Michael, about, about transistors and integrated circuits. Absolutely. So, so the way that it's, it's kind of insane, the way that batteries are made, lithium-ion batteries are made around the world, is, is a totally accidental technology. When, when, when, when Sony commercialized, uh, lithium-ion batteries in 1991, it coincided with the obsolescence of, uh, of cassette tapes, of reel to reel, of, of reel to reel, I'm sorry, um, reel to reel tape technology. And so they had all of this investment in, uh, in reel to reel, in, in the manufacture of magnetic tape. And so they simply, uh, they, they clutched their, uh, their machines for the magnetic tape onto their aspiration for, uh, lithium-ion. And the, the way that, uh, lithium-ion batteries are made around the world are, are on, uh, on a, on a, basically a converted magnetic tape, uh, system.

56:48And all of the economics that we're, uh, that we're speaking about and the, uh, you know, scaling up and, and all of that, all of it is by that accidental moment for, for Sony. But what if, um, what if the, um, uh, the, the, the manufacturing system, the way, the way that, uh, that batteries are manufactured changes? What if someone comes up with, with a, uh, with a way that's more appropriate for, for how batteries should be made, for how, uh, cathodes and anodes and, and so on, so on. Yeah. Should be used. And so, uh, and there is, you know, 24 M, uh, uh, Massachusetts company, um, is, uh, is the maker for, for, uh, for Freyer. When Freyer starts making batteries in Norway and it's opened up an office in, in the United States, they claim that their system, it's a semi-solid, uh, system, uh, that's, uh, that's completely different from, uh, from that magnetic tape from, from the standard system. They claim half the cost, half the cost.

58:05If that actually happens, if Freyer is able to, you know, to, uh, to scale that up, that kind of system that takes off, suddenly all of those factories, that CATL, that the Chinese, that the South Koreans, uh, that the Japanese have spent so much money building up, you know, to, to make them the players they are, they're obsolete. And the, the, you know, the new, you know, the, the new system. And this, this is, uh, Michael, this is absolutely analogous to, to what you're describing, the, the, um, the, uh, advent of integrated circuits. That's fantastic. Thanks for that. I, I literally had no idea that that's where the rolling up of batteries, like came from just because they were, they, they, they had the plant and equipment to do that. That, that's so interesting. I will, I will say one other thing. And, and, uh, back going, just, uh, rewinding slightly back to the, the charging thing. I, I really, I really sort of foresee a day when people will think about going to charge or fill up their card to be about as quaint as going to rent a video rather than just having it available whenever you want.

59:23I, I, I, I, I mean, that's, that's the future I see, but, um, I, I, I don't, yeah, we're obviously not there yet. Thank you, Michael. And thank you, Steve. Um, Edwin, would you like to add something? Would you have a question or a thought? Yeah, uh, thank you for, uh, uh, letting me join as a speaker. It's my third time, uh, that I'm listening to this Saturday, uh, uh, uh, events. Um, thank you for organizing that. Um, uh, Steve, uh, I can add, uh, another event that, that, um, to the, to increase demand of the electric cars. And that was, was, uh, back in, uh, I believe, 2017, um, when, uh, Elon Musk, uh, of course announced the model three and, uh, to everybody's surprise, uh, especially from, uh, every, uh, uh, uh, car manufacturer. Uh, uh, he had like, uh, 250,000 orders in, uh, in just two weeks. Time. So that, uh, that, that was also a very, um, uh, that, that was clearly a moment that, that a lot of core manufacturers were thinking like, oh, oh, oh, we, we, we, we have to do something.

1:00:42Otherwise we, we might miss the boat. Um, um, I also want to, to add something about the discussion about the infrastructure. If you see an increased demand in a, in a certain country, uh, but there are still no, uh, um, charging infrastructure, obviously you start with, uh, with fast charging because the, the ice drivers, uh, uh, they were before ice drivers and, and they, they knew, they are familiar with that. You, that you go to a gas station, which now has, uh, a supercharger of a fast charger and, and you use that. But in the end, you need a lot of level two charging, which, uh, already was mentioned by, uh, Stephanie as well. Uh, you really need that because, um, the, the grid can never cope that we, uh, that, that, that is only fast charging. And, um, uh, so it's very important that you, that you, uh, that, that, that you install a lot of level two charging at the street, at houses, at offices, at the shopping malls, uh, because primarily, there, the charging will, will happen.

1:01:58Um, I, I come from the Netherlands and in the Netherlands, we started with, uh, with a lot of level two charging. We did, they do it the opposite side, uh, uh, way. Uh, so we started with a lot of, uh, level two char, uh, chargers at the streets in Amsterdam and, uh, and, and, and, and, and all the cities. And now we have, uh, uh, we have the most, um, uh, extended, uh, uh, charging infrastructure in the world. of Europe. I like about one, one out of four charges is already in, uh, is in the Netherlands at this moment. And we won't stop there because, uh, we are planning to install a couple of hundreds of thousands, additional charges in the next nine years. Uh, we, we, we hope to end up with about 1.7 million charge points in, in the Netherlands and a small country in 2030. So, um, and, and, and, uh, that's the way we do, do it. But, uh, you see a lot of all the European countries, they start developing first the fast charging infrastructure.

1:03:05Um, but I have a question and that has to do with, with, with the batteries itself. Um, I mean, now we, now we see, uh, that, that the demand for the electric cars is rising and rising. It's going quicker and quicker. Um, we, uh, we, we see also that, uh, there's a lot of, uh, uh, production sites coming, uh, especially in Europe and China, they are, uh, the, uh, the USA is a little bit lacking, uh, still, but especially in Europe, you see with, with Northvolt, but, uh, a lot of other, uh, production places that we, that we are building those bigger factories had to develop all those, uh, uh, uh, um, electric batteries and make us less, uh, or the European auto industry that's dependent on, on, for example, uh, EV batteries that we have to source from China. But if you look into a battery, uh, the, the main materials, they are of course, graphite and lithium and magnesia and nickel and, and even cobalt, but the last one, we, we, we, we can, uh, forget because in the, in the near future, we will have cobalt-free batteries.

1:04:23But if you look to the, the other materials, I mean, the, the, the problem is, can we source enough of these materials on the short terms to cope with the, um, with the, uh, with the battery development. If you, for example, take graphite, I learned yesterday from, uh, somebody who is also normally also participating in this, uh, in this event, but, uh, today he's not, uh, on the stage. I do see, uh, but he, he was, uh, explaining that for example, graphite is, is, is, is, uh, almost 100% controlled by China. They control the full chain of graphite. And, um, yeah, they still sell it to, uh, to other countries, of course, because otherwise we couldn't not, uh, not, uh, um, uh, built in those batteries in, uh, in the, in the other countries. But, um, uh, you see that, that, that, that, that, uh, like I said, uh, China controls the whole process from, uh, the whole sourcing process from graphite. And, and, and we, we, we also see that we, we need a lot of nickel.

1:05:36Um, and, and, and, and, and, and, uh, yeah, it, uh, after maybe 2025, we don't know where to source it. Uh, do we have enough, um, uh, mining facilities for nickel, for example? And, and, and do you have there, uh, my, my question is basically, do you have a view on this? Is it, will, will this be, this be a problem? Thanks. Thanks for that, Edwin. Um, so, so I'm going to give a view. I, I don't know if, uh, Simon Moore or anyone from, uh, Benchmark or another metals, uh, metals watching firm is on the, um, is on the, uh, is, is in clubhouse right now. But if you are, uh, please come on stage. Um, so there is, uh, so what is graphite? Graphite is, uh, carbon that, that's, that comes from oil. And so, yes, uh, China has, um, has, uh, has seized, uh, you know, shrewdly over the last few years is, it has seized, uh, the processing part of batteries.

1:06:56It has the whole chain nailed down. And, and, and for all the other metals that, that you mentioned too, you know, going around the world and, um, and signing contracts for, to, to control the supply of, uh, uh, cobalt and nickel and manganese and, and, uh, lithium and so on. Uh, but the, but the, the game is shifting, uh, something very, very interesting. Uh, when VW had its power day, uh, uh, I guess it's been a month, maybe three, three weeks or a month by now, they unveiled, uh, uh, a two, two, uh, a sort of a two level system. So, uh, economy cars that will use, uh, uh, lithium-ion, uh, iron phosphate, LFP, which has no, no cobalt, uh, no, no nickel in it at all, you know, just, uh, and, uh, and then, um, high, uh, high manganese, uh, for, for the, uh, mid-range batteries and the, and the current conventional, uh, formulation, NMC only for the high end cars. And so, so suddenly if, uh, if, if, uh, uh, VW's approach, if, if they actually do this and, and, and I use this if because, uh, VW, while they've really stuck their neck out there, uh, in, in terms of, you know, um, so, you know, we're going, we're going electric and we're going electric by a certain date and, and we're doing this and this.

1:08:38When you, when you look in the details, they're very, very careful about, um, about what they're saying they're actually going to do in the battery space. Uh, and, and, and so when, when people forecast, for example, that QuantumScape is going to have its solid-state batteries in VW cars in the mid decade, only QuantumScape says that VW does not say it. And also on manganese. So VW did say, you know, our, uh, you know, we're, we're going to, uh, be, be using high manganese. And, uh, the reason that's, that's important is, uh, is that suddenly the nickel component of that battery is minimized. So the, the, the, the whole, uh, concern that we have about the world's nickel supply is, is diminished. But, but when you ask VW specifically, which I have, you know, when, when, and from whom are you, uh, are you deploying these manganese? They don't have, again, they don't have, uh, a date. They don't have a supplier and they're not going to, they, you know, they very, uh, definitively say, you know, we, we, we're, you know, in so many words, we're trying to do that.

1:09:56Uh, and so, uh, so it's, it's not sure, but it just shows you that the current, uh, map that we're looking at right now of the metals is in motion. It's changing. And the, the metals that seem, uh, you know, absolutely central, the new oil of the world, are we just getting ourselves into the new OPEC? That's in motion. And, you know, you could, you could have, if, if, just take the VW system, uh, the aspirational VW, and, and superimpose that on the, on the market, you could have in a decade, uh, no, almost no concern about nickel or cobalt. And, uh, and, and, and the whole, uh, you know, instead we're worried about manganese, which, you know, we don't really have to worry about because it's everywhere. Thank you for, for sharing this, Steve. And then also looking at the time, it's always flies by, even though every time always, you know, one of ours goes by quite quickly. So we have about 15 minutes or so left.

1:11:06And we've got three more, three more people on stage, Joe, Ingo, and Gary. Um, maybe you want to go this order, Joe, do you want to say something? Sure. Thanks, Simon. And, uh, thanks Steve. Thanks for having me. So a little bit of background context about me. I, I was with BMW for 13 years. I saw the launch of the I3 and I8 and some electric vehicles from the Germans. And then for the past four years, I've been developing my own electric vehicles too. Uh, I'm from Singapore. Uh, I think where Catherine is as well. So I've been developing vehicles for the region. Now, first thing I want to say about, uh, about what I know about the region, our region is, the South Asian regarding materials and, and battery materials. It's like, for example, Indonesia has one of the largest reserves of nickel. And I'm advising some parties to the government of Indonesia, how they should develop their battery, uh, industry. And I, what I can share is everybody from Tesla to CATL is in there, is in Indonesia.

1:12:01The biggest miners, the biggest battery manufacturers are all negotiating because Indonesia banned the export of nickel, uh, a few years ago, right? And they are, they're basically telling everybody, the, all the big auto, big auto and battery guys to come to investigate in invest here. And, uh, and you won't have an issue with any battery with you. So the cobalt is there. They have cobalt, they have magnanese and everything as well. As well. But having said that, I agree with Steve, the diversification of battery chemistry is happening. It will continue to proliferate. Uh, phosphate is a really safe and long lasting chemistry, but there's going to be space for, I think all chemistry is moving down, moving down the line. I just want to say a few things. Uh, so firstly about Morse law, what Michael was saying. And so I've been building our own battery packs as well for quite some time. So I've got a little bit stuff to share. So the key word for battery technology is optimization.

1:12:54Um, if you talk to some, a lot of the big electronic semiconductor guys, you're getting Morse law. Sure, Morse law, it's not really dead because they even see, um, more optimization and integration around the electronic circuitry. So it keeps getting better, but maybe the transits are getting smaller, but everything surrounding it keeps getting better, better, whether it's cost, whether it's scale. And the same thing with battery, battery packs, then the key words are getting better. The electronics are getting better. The packaging is getting better. And with more scale, you will see even more optimization and cost even coming down. I think Tesla is really at, almost close to a hundred dollars US per kilowatt hour. And the pack level, I think it almost there. Next thing I want to say about, uh, I totally agree with Steve about the, the, the, the need for investigative journalism for, for basically electric vehicle technology, battery technology, all that. We're quite disappointed with things that happened with Nicola.

1:13:47And of course, there's a lot of things that we hear about solid-state and all that. What I can share is, so most of you will know there's some really good websites out there, like net check and all that, which basically tell you everything about what's new about in the EV and battery space. Um, I was also pointing you to a direction of maybe you can look at analysts as well, like short seller analysts for listed companies or public companies. They have a lot of good analyst insights into some of these, uh, uh, public companies, right? They're doing all these, like have super huge valuations and all that. Another, some other YouTube channels, like the limiting factor by Jordan. He's pretty good. He really dives deep. You're going to spend an hour or two listening to him, but then you really get to the cross of, for example, what he thinks, how he analyzes, for example, solid-state tech. And then the rest, I think you should look at some battery researchers like Shirley Meng, Jeff Dunn.

1:14:40They are really top battery researchers in the world. And I think they give pretty good objective views about new technologies coming up. They don't necessarily say who is what, who is better, who's what, but when you read the papers and you read the, and listen to the interviews, they really give big insights, whether it's solid power, whether it's QuantumScape, all these things, for example, QuantumScape, I heard, I mean, as of a couple of months ago with this, the biggest criticism is that they still haven't launched any patent pending, you know, reports about, about their technology. So, right. So what are they really working on? Next thing about, I want to talk a little bit about fast charging. So I follow Stephanie on LinkedIn. And, you know, I can share, I think she knows better than me, but like, for example, ABB has just launched, they are consumer, 350 kilowatt fast charging. I don't know where they're, where they're going to launch it, probably in Europe, but I mean, 250 kilowatt DC fast charging can charge almost any passenger car.

1:15:36If the battery allows, like what Catherine and the rest of you know, easily five minutes, right. If the battery can take that, I don't know, five to 10 C charging. So it's coming, right. It's coming really, really fast, fast charging. It's really there. So the technology is there. It's just about adoption, about cost, about, and all that. And this, this comes to the part about battery, so because somebody asked this question about, so my opinion about battery stopping is simple, right? If you can pour electric fast enough into a very flat, why do you need battery stopping in the first place? In the future, I think battery stopping is good, is good to, to scale in the beginning for fast adoption, but after a while, you know, it just, the law diminishes in terms of battery stopping. Last thing I want to say, sorry, I'll be quick about this. It's about charging. We talked about some questions, good questions inside about charging. I mean, at the end of the day, let's look at the first principles of charging.

1:16:27The fact is, like somebody said, level two, it's not level two, I'm just there. The fact of the matter is, people only travel less than 100 kilometers a day. Most urban commutes are 50 kilometers. And most batteries in cars nowadays are about at least, you know, 50 to 100 kilowatt hour batteries. So technically speaking, you don't need fast chargers. Fast chargers are edge cases where you, where you go interstate, where you, where it was commercial use, right? 99% of all people, I mean, 99% of your car stays packed all the time. So just something for everybody to think about. So I think it's really a mindset issue. I really don't think it's a technology issue. Look, and somebody said about, Mike, I think Michael said about, you know, there's not enough copper and come on, look, you know, we're terraforming our cities all the time, right? You just launch a new apartment block. And that's like, you know, 10 megawatts up there. So, and I've talked to even developing countries like Indonesia, I've talked to their power companies, and they tell me there's so much electricity.

1:17:25And their grids, you know, their grids have been around for 100 years, and they've been, keep on improving them. So it's not an issue of technology infrastructure. It's really an issue of, like you guys say, I think, I think Mike said. Thank you. Thank you very much for your thoughts, Joel. And if nobody else has some quick thoughts, then we can also go quickly to Ingo and Gary, because I promised Steve we would finish on time. So yeah, if you want to have any thoughts, Ingo and Gary. Yeah, thanks. Two short thoughts. One about Evelyn and Joel, about charging networks. I agree that level two is for home charging. That needs to be cheap. Not thousand bucks as today, but cheap in the garage or something like that. And if you want to make money with the charging system, that only works. If you have high throughput, high energy consumption, you need an HPC network. And that will be on the highways and the interstates and so on.

1:18:22And that will be built up in Germany, in Netherlands, wherever. There you can really make a charging network and down money with, not with this level two chargers. That's too much infrastructure, too less current. You can really sell. That's the one. And the other point about Moore's law and, and the, the production processes. So for computer chips, and so the miniaturization made a lot of that, but also the production processes to get them stable, to get them reliable, to get high yields, and make a lot of these components. And there's one guy from Finland. I heard in these talks and the battery talks, he's a lithium-ion battery stuff. And he's propagating the idea to make it a process like printing a newspaper or something like that. So like in a paper mill, you have a printing process for these petrol materials, as Sony did for these magnetic tapes. And if you do that for battery production, you can get high outputs, and really drive down the costs.

1:19:30So as you look actual, I think at some iron phosphate battery, the materials costs today are something about $10 or something like that. The other stuff is production and making the things right. If you can drive down the production cost of these batteries by new methods of producing them, then you really drive down the costs below the $50 or something. Tesla is forecasting on in the next three to four years. That's my two thoughts. Thanks. Thank you, Ingo. And Gary, do you have some other thoughts you would like to add? Yes. Well, thanks for having me on the stage. I appreciate Steve Levine joining us today and providing his insights to the various topics. I was wondering, Simon, if we could maybe continue with the room, if Steve has to depart, for one thing. Otherwise, I do have a directed question for Steve. I think you might want to start with a question to Steve, yeah. If you don't mind. Okay. Well, I guess, Steve, I mean, you wrote your book back in the mid-2010s.

1:20:43How would you, if you made a new revision of your book, what would be the main headlines to be addressed now? Thank you. Thanks, Gary. Right, right. So just so it's clear what's happening. So my family is getting their second COVID shot today. So I'm going with them just in case anything happens, and that's why I need to get off in five or so minutes. So the thing about the powerhouse is there was no ending. You had the beginning of the battery story. You had the middle of all of this intrigue with GM and Envia and so on, the pursuit of the invention of the super battery. But at the end, the ending that was supposed to happen, the one that I had planned for was Envia revolutionizing the battery for GM and putting a 200-mile car on the road. That was the bolt. But three months before the book was due, I discovered that Envia had exaggerated its technology. Well, GM discovered it first, of course, and then I discovered it.

1:22:20And so the ending of the book, you know, the story for GM was thrown up in the air and the story for the book. So now if that book came out today, there would be an ending. And the ending would be this miraculous cost breakthrough where you actually have gotten to $100 per kilowatt hour for some of the players, including Tesla, as you mentioned. But I do think I'm assuming that other people, other thinkers, other writers are, you know, thinking about their own book or have their own book in the works. There is something to write. There is a drama going on right now. It's a big trauma. It's a consequential one. Again, it's big geopolitics. Who's going to be in charge? Who are the winners? Who are the losers? We haven't even discussed the losers yet. What happens to Russia? What happens to Saudi Arabia? If we have this mental switch, that Osborne mental switch starting in the second half of the decade and the mass market makes an iPhone-like switch to EVs, you could have just a hollowing out of demand for oil.

1:24:03And those countries whose economy, and in the case of Russia, their foreign policy relies on the sale of oil, those countries could be in real trouble. And so all of those factors, all of those things, those are the drama going on now. And if someone is on the line who has a literary bent, that's what I would do if I were you. So thanks for that. Amazing. Thank you so much, Steve. And we are perfect on time. So really well-timed. And I just want to say a really, really big thank you to Steve Levine, who joined us today in his first ever, as far as I know, Clubhouse session. So really, really big welcome. He's using his wife's account. But if you want to look at my bio as well, his name is there. And you can find him on his book, The Powerhouse, which was mentioned a few times, and many fans in the room, as you can see as well. So feel free to have a read there if you haven't read it yet.

1:25:08And also you can follow up with him on The Mobile List, which was published regularly on Medium, and also give some really nice insights on many of these topics we discussed today. And yeah, anything else you would like to say, Steve, before you have to jump off? Nope. That's it. Thanks so much. It's such a delight to be on Battery Revolution and to have this conversation. Thanks for setting this up. Thank you so much. And yeah, I'm sure we're going to speak soon. And you can also, as mentioned before, find a recording on batteryinsiders.com, hopefully in the near future, when I get it to edit and upload. And then you can re-listen and also share with all the other Android users who couldn't be here with us today. And then, yeah, if Steve, you want to drop off now, feel free to do so, because we know that that's absolutely fine. And then we can do some quick just housekeeping for the people who are excited about next week.

1:26:06Because, Catherine, you want to give a bit of pitch again for what we're going to do next week and how they can join us. Yeah, sure. Thanks for that. So thank you all for staying to the end of the session. Just another quick plug to Battery Den, which will happen next week at 3 p.m. C8. So if you were to sign up for the event, please feel free to click onto my profile and go to batteryrevolution.com, where you'll see a sign-up link to join you as a startup or as in Panama. So within the next week, we'll start reaching out to you. And as mentioned earlier, Stephanie, who's here on the panel as well, will be joining us as an expert. So we're very excited to be able to host the first ever at Battery Den with the startups and also with panel of 5BCs and tech experts. So for any of you out there who have yet to join and are excited to or want to join us, please feel free to do the sign-up link.

1:27:00If you were just to join as an audience, feel free to just hop in on 1st of May at 3 p.m. CET. So with that, Simon, do you have anything else to add before we close the room? Yeah, I just want to say, you know, I'm really excited for next week and also I think I was just writing with Maggie as well. So feel free also to connect with Catherine and myself on LinkedIn. We're quite active on there and, you know, always happy to chat. I had a good chat with, I think both of us, Catherine and I had a good chat with Michael and Bruce in the audience as well. And it's really nice to Stephanie and it's really nice to also meet outside. So feel free to reach out anytime. And yeah, also if you haven't done so yet, feel free also to follow the club, Natural Revolution, you see the little house on top and you can follow it and you're going to accept you there and then you get also notified about these sessions as well.

1:27:47Without that, I just want to say really nice session again and I'm looking forward to next week. Thank you. Thank you.