Battery Insiders Reflection - Battery Regulation

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights in the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. And we are back. How are you doing, Bhavya? Doing well, Simon. I feel like we just had a very active conversation with Dr. Jyothi Ahuja. What did you think? Absolutely. I think it was one of these sessions where people didn't want to leave the stage or anyway. Truly. It was a bit of a struggle there at the end, but the best kind. Yes. I think it was really something people are getting quite engaged about. And it's nice, I think, to have these different perspectives as well. And I think it's definitely one of these topics which brings a lot of controversy, which I think makes it a really interesting topic to discuss and also to look into more. What do you think? What are some of your highlights about today's session? I absolutely agree. You know, we had a couple of interesting conversations, you know, like clarity on numbers, clarity on who are the recyclers, clarity on what percentage can be recycled, perspectives that are UK specific, as well as trying to understand a global landscape.

1:14You know, I think the past one and a half hour was almost just actually a mirror of the ways that we are trying to tackle battery problems. You know, the, the, the, the, the, the commerce, the conflicts in the conversation reflected the bumps that we currently have in the battery world. And in the journey to a sustainable, a fully sustainable battery, you know, I think everything came up in this from second life and recycling to designing for recycling. Um, and I guess I was just really fascinated by some, at one point I was just fascinated by, you know, how many differing opinions and thoughts there were. Um, I think that just goes to show the diversity and approach and thought that is either, um, you know, just based on experience or even like regionally grounded. Um, I did enjoy hearing Jyothi's specific UK perspectives as well. Um, maybe one thing we could have talked about is the UK's plan post Brexit. You know, I was there in the UK when, uh, finally Brexit did happen.

2:17And I remember while I was doing my research that becoming a moment of pivot for the UK, you know, they ship, they've, they've historically always shipped their batteries to the EU. So, um, maybe that's a conversation or a point we can pick up with her some other time. Yeah, I very much agree. I think it's one of these things where, um, it's, it's kind of interesting also regulation standpoint, which is of course highly connected and highly influential. And also I think what's interesting for today also, which is, I think it's one of these things and, you know, I've been quite familiar with that, but I think it's a good reminder that it's quite tricky sometimes to get these numbers, right? I mean, here we talked about, I think the two main, you know, numbers related to recycling is one is, you know, how much of like, you know, in like how much, how many of the batteries are recycled first, like, you know, just percentage wise.

3:07And then if you look also the batteries itself, like how much of the battery recycled and how much is, but now of it. And I think, you know, as you also have been discussing today and quite some length, there's quite a lot of different numbers, you know, ranging from, you know, 50% to like 95%. And a lot of companies are, you know, pushing their numbers, but it's kind of hard to sometimes, you know, to understand, you know, is it like real, is it like anticipated? Another thing like, you know, not really audited often from outside. On the other hand, there's some like really, I think also, um, old numbers out there, right? From like academic papers. So like a 20, 30 years old or so when people use these numbers, I say, that's the sort of scroll as well. So I think it's just one of these things where creating more transparency and like creating more openness to really have real discussions and really address this in a proper way is very much needed as well.

3:54Yes. It's interesting how many times when you really begin researching any part of this, how many times the same number pops up over and over and it's just like, you know, cited, like it's the absolute truth. And it makes me wonder, it must take a lot for the next set of numbers to become, um, the go to data set, you know, every, and everybody's talking about data. We're constantly like, you know, everyone I talked to is on the search for the most accurate information. But when you think about it, it's actually really hard to put on the spotlight, um, unless you, you know, already have X, Y, Z credibility as an author or happen to co-sponsor or co-author with someone, you know, who's got that same level of, you know, heightened, um, attraction and attention. But it is, it's interesting and it definitely reflects a part of the struggle to, you know, if you're going to ever standardize anything, you've got to be working with the same set of facts, I think.

4:54And I imagine that that takes a lot of work to change in the battery world, given how much we love numbers and how much we want to hang tight to like, this is the ultimate truth and 50% is recyclable and no more, no less. Yeah, totally. And I think it's, to be honest, I think it's actually kind of a nice invitation maybe also from, you know, the people listening to this podcast, you know, to kind of, I think actually if you would have a good number there, if you can get a credible number, you know, some more, some more real insights, actually you can get lots of citations for it. Because I think people have been, you know, as you said, kind of repeating numbers, which are not even that, you know, like sometimes I'm credible, right? So I think actually that's, you know, I think also as a company, right, if you have, and we talked today about Volkswagen, some of their numbers and others, I think you know, I think it's a big, big opportunity also to, you know, to make yourself quite known in the field by providing more real numbers.

5:47And I know there's some, you know, some players and we have some also in the BatteryMBA, you know, who are really doing that in some way, you know, really do a lot of work on this as well. But yeah, I agree. It's more work to be done, which is good in some ways because it means more, more exciting things to work on. Yes, absolutely. So what are we thinking for next week? Good question. I think we don't know yet. So it's going to be, I think we know one already in two weeks or two weeks, but let's not spoil it yet. We'll have some, we'll do, we did some legal today. We'll try something else. We have policy, a policy conversation lined up in a couple of weeks. So it'll be nice to kind of revisit this topic, but from a slightly different lens, I think the two are often conflated. So maybe with the next conversation, we can kind of dig into the difference and what does it take, which one, what's the leveraging power with policy and regulations and what does it take to make one into the other and actually drive some of that change that we are all seeking.

6:49Absolutely. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to it. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday. Thanks you too. Bye.