Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Battery Policy

0:00Transcript

0:00So, hi everyone. Welcome back to the 19th session of Better Evolution. Wherever you are, hope you're keeping safe and healthy. So, just some housekeeping rules. We are very excited today to actually have three co-hosts. So, it's Simon, myself, and Bob. We are here as co-hosts for this session, and we are very happy to also welcome Julia, which we'll introduce later on as well. So, some housekeeping rules. If you want to join us on stage, just feel free at any point in time, feel free to raise your hand, and we'll let you up on stage. Once you're on stage, please mute your mic when you're not speaking. And if you'd like to raise your hands, just do two taps on your mic like so. And we'll know that you want to speak, so we'll put you in line as well. And if you wish to clap to somebody's comments, feel free to flutter your mic like so. So, this is also for anyone who's just joined us, new Android users. These are just some of the normal rules that's been on Clubhouse. So, it's kind of translatable for the other sessions as well that you attend here on Clubhouse. So, yeah. So, we really value letting everyone speak, and usually towards the end of the session, which the session was for one and a half hours, usually towards the end, there'll be a lot of people who wants to participate.

1:16So, we really encourage people to join us on stage earlier, and just feel free to stay on stage. If you don't have any comments, feel free to mute your mic. If you do have a comment, yeah, feel free to jump in. So, yeah. I'm very excited today to have Julia with us. Also, this session will be recorded for a podcast on batteryinsiders.com. So, feel free to check that out. And we actually do have, we have uploaded our first battery dance session. So, super excited about that. And thank you, Bobby and Simon, for facilitating that as well. So, we are having our second battery dance session on the 26th of June. If you do know any startups in a battery space, feel free to drop us an email, either Simon or myself. And we will release also the way to sign up for it very shortly as well. So, yeah. Without further ado, maybe I'll pass on to Simon for the introductions. Thanks, Catherine. Yeah. Thank you so much. Just a quick history as well. So, Catherine and I, we met on Clubhouse about 90 weeks ago or so. And since then, we have been running these sessions every Saturday, which is quite mind-blowing for me every time when I see the numbers increasing. And yeah, so we have been running all kinds of interesting sessions from battery recycling, supply chains, and EVs, and lots of really amazing people. So, that's been really nice and really nice way of thing for us to bring people together.

2:39Just really quick for myself. Yeah. Simon, background in batteries, run battery associates. We are also very fortunate to, in some ways, have been connected with Bavia through that. Bavia has been really fantastic to step up and become an advisor board member of battery associates, but also be a lecturer of the battery ME. Same as Catherine, who's also going to give a lecture on this course. So, that's been just really wonderful. So, I can highly encourage to, yeah, to, you know, get engaged, you know, connect, and, you know, work on, you know, really trying to have a impact through the battery space. And yeah, also maybe one quick anecdote. Julia, I think we met many years ago, I don't know, three years ago, Phil. So, when it was before COVID, and I think low battery lines. So, very excited to have you with us today. I'm very excited to hear from your perspective as well. And I would like to maybe give it to Bavia, who's also the course of the Battery Insiders podcast, Catherine mentioned. And yeah, I'll let you introduce Julia. Thank you.

3:32Thank you so much, Simon. So, yes, welcome everybody to the 19th session. Today, we have with us Julia Poliscanova. She is the Senior Director of Vehicles and E-Mobility at Transportation and Environment, T&E for short. She joined T&E in June 2015 and leads this team that in her work includes policy and projects on car emissions and e-mobility, such as EU vehicle CO2 standards, sustainable batteries, and infrastructure for electric vehicles. And as Simon mentioned, she is involved with the Global Battery Alliance and represents T&E on the board. I personally have had the opportunity to work with Julia while researching lithium-ion battery recycling EU policy, and I was very lucky that my research led me to contact her. She is a wealth of knowledge, and I'm so excited to hear what she has to share with us today and, of course, continue the conversation afterwards with Q&A. And so, with that, I will hand it over to Julia. Julia Poliscanova Thank you. Thanks so much for this really nice word, Pavia. Thanks, Catherine and Simon, for having me.

4:43Indeed, the Global Battery Alliance still goes on. Unfortunately, we don't meet in person anymore. So, thanks a lot. You've already introduced who I am, what I do. Maybe just a quick word about who we are as T&E, Transport and Environment. So, we are today largest green transport group in Europe. We are based in Brussels, and I'm saying hello to everyone from a really rainy and miserable grey day here in Brussels. And we just work on zero emissions transport across policy, research, but also campaigning on the ground to make sure it all happens. My main work is around policy, and that's what I'll talk about today. So, just in my remarks now, maybe about 15, 20 minutes, and then I'll be very keen to hear from you, your comments and questions and also sharing your knowledge. So, batteries are often called the new gold these days. We all know, we know why there's so many groups, even on Clubhouse, about batteries, right? They're absolutely key to decarbonize our energy and transport systems. And specifically in transport, it's not just about electric cars anymore.

5:52We're talking about vans, trucks, buses, two-wheelers. The whole lot of road transport is definitely going electric, and that will require a lot more rechargeable batteries, mostly lithium-ion batteries today in the future. And beyond that, who knows, we might soon even be flying in between Paris and Brussels with an electric plane, for example. So, the frontier for batteries is really open. But what's the role of policy? And I would argue that today where we are when it comes to batteries, first of all, to make sure that they scale up on time and they're there on quality and volume that we need, but also to make sure that they are sustainable and produced with least impact on all of us and our environment. Policy is crucial. And there's so much happening around the world around batteries, and that also leads to regulators taking a much more active role in regulating and steering this field in the right direction. So, I think that there are three distinct areas around batteries and around battery policy that's worth mentioning and that I'll go through.

7:04First of all, we need to start with the beginning and start with the demand side. We won't have a battery industry or battery companies if we don't have demand for these batteries. So, policies around creating markets for electric cars, for renewables are really key to create business case. The second set of policies, which I think is really important, are policies on the industrial side to make sure that once we've created the market, for example, in Europe, we now have the market for electric cars, but we want European companies to be part of that and to be part of the battery supply chain, produce batteries, materials and so forth. So, industrial policy then comes in to make sure that it's companies in your region that benefit. And that's now really big. I think that's also big in America as well. The Biden administration talks about that a lot, about mining, refining and everything being in the US. It's huge in China. It's huge even in places like Indonesia, which is now getting lots of business around nickel, for example.

8:05And it's also really big in Europe as well. And last, but absolutely not least and crucial, once we get all those batteries or as we are getting all these batteries, we want them to be produced in a sustainable and ethical way. And that's where all the various regulations about how the materials are sourced, how the batteries are produced, so they're low carbon batteries, and also circularity, so the batteries are used and recycled, come in all here under this. So, let's go to the first area. Then some of our thoughts and experiences on what works on the demand side. We just want to basically make sure that lots and lots of companies want to buy batteries, because a battery gigafactory is such a capital intensive business that you need to have security of offtake. Otherwise, you don't build it. Otherwise, your investors won't give you money. If they don't know that a few years down the line, you'll have clear route to market. And we have seen such demand side policies being successful all across the world.

9:08China was one of the first. That's why in China – well, not that's why, but that's one of the reasons why in China there's so much battery industry. China had NEF mandates, so new energy vehicle mandates, so basically electric vehicle quotas. For any manufacturer come or, yes, cars or automotive manufacturers in China, they have to produce a certain amount of vehicles electric. And that has really spearheaded the market in China, alongside city policies as well, that require people that basically don't allow you to register a new normal car, but you can register a new electric car. Another region and another probably the most famous and actually the first successful EV policy is the famous Californian zero emission vehicle mandate. So ZEV mandates in California were there since already decades, in fact, even though they started slow. It's no surprise why Tesla comes from that region. And it's not just Tesla producing vehicles. Tesla also, of course, has battery factories. So it does. We have the last example I'll give, which is to date from European side, the successful example, but the most recent one, are policies in Europe.

10:27In Europe, we don't have EV quotas, but we do have car and van and truck CO2 standards that require car makers to reduce their overall fleet CO2 emissions from cars they sell in a given year. For example, last and this year, we have the famous 2020 standard in European force, which is set at 95 gram of CO2 per kilometer, which means that on average, no car by anyone sold in Europe, for example, by Volkswagen or Ford, can be more than that. Some cars can be higher, but if they are, which they are, SUVs have much higher CO2 emissions. It means that on the other hand, they have to sell more emissions free cars. So electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles to compensate. This has led to soaring electric cars in Europe, 11% last year, 14% last time I checked of the market. That's a real success. But what this meant in Europe, for example, and we as T&E actually track and trace battery investments and battery announcements a lot, companies are rushing over, head over, heel each other to announce and plan new battery factories.

11:41We did a report in February where we just counted how many gigafactories we have planned in Europe, and we counted more than 20 gigafactories that will set up shop in Europe. Some by Asian companies, some by European companies, and I'll come to that in a second. But ultimately, what we saw is that in the next few years, there will be enough of European batteries produced in Europe for the electric vehicle market in Europe. So that shows that it's really, really important to have such regulations to drive batteries. Very important policy to start with. Now, let's go to the industrial set of policies. So the second set. I think it's good, of course, if we have the market for electric cars. But what we don't want or what a good national politician wouldn't want is that it's foreign companies that fill in that market and benefit from it, right? Because it's your consumers, it's their money, you would like to benefit. And this is about jobs.

12:43This is about future investments. In Europe, we estimate that the battery business is worth 250 billion euros. That's a lot of money. So, of course, you want your European companies to benefit. Europe already has a really bad example with the solar industry, solar renewable industry, where we had targets for renewables in Europe, but they were filled with solar panels produced in China. And that has really led Europeans this time around, when we look at electric cars and batteries, to do things differently. And that's how, in Europe, the European Battery Alliance was born, or the EBA for short. So there's European Battery Alliance and there's also Global Battery Alliance. The EBA was set up in 2017. And the idea was ultimately to invite European companies, so companies with base in Europe, from all around the entire supply chain, as well as academics and some NGOs. So we were also involved as T&E. So you had companies on the raw materials side in mining, in refining, in chemicals, in battery production systems, IT, car makers, energy companies, recycling, the whole lot.

14:00Because we do have a lot of companies in Europe already excelling in these fields. Umicore, for example, on the recycling side, or BASF on the chemical side. And the idea was to basically get them all to talk together, to form partnerships, make agreements. There, of course, was also some public money and support available to make sure that they capture some parts of the value chain and they start producing various parts of the battery supply chain. And the result so far has been successful. So where we are today, as of May 2021, we actually recently did another count of battery projects. And we are already at over 38 plants. Some of them are very new, very mature, but nonetheless. And a lot of them are from European companies. That means that that has or is at the moment, seems like it's working. We have ACC, so it's Automotive Cells Company, for example, which is a German Franco consortium supported by Stellantis. We have Northvolt, the most advanced project.

15:06My favorite, for example, being very honest, personal here, not T and you comment. But that's really the kind of the green most advanced battery company today in Europe. They now have at least two factories planned. They're based in Sweden, the main factory. Recently, we've had Britishvolt. We had Ital Volt in Italy announced. And we even very, very recently had an announcement of Basque Volt in Spain, for example. And that's on top of various factories planned by Volkswagen. So we have European companies benefiting. And that's really, really important for this. And actually, this European Battery Alliance is also not a completely new idea. It would be interesting if someone maybe on the call knows or followed. But I understand that we in Europe actually copied it from the previous Obama administration. Obama had this idea of the U.S. battery hub. It didn't work. I don't exactly know why. But we in Europe basically copied the idea. And it did work. And it did make companies to basically do projects together.

16:11So that's really, really, really important. Maybe before I move to sustainability, and there's a lot to say there, I just wanted to say that what we see at the moment in Europe is a huge success on the side of battery cell manufacturing. So actual battery companies. The policy there has worked. The policy on the market side and on the kind of industrial value chain side. What we are today missing in Europe is more upstream involvement. So we are missing a strong industrial base and autonomy in raw materials. So the materials that go into batteries, as well as their refining. That's still today mostly done in China. So we can have an example where lithium can be extracted in, for example, Spain or Portugal. But it still has to be sent to China for refining and then sent back to Europe for either cell production or already as a battery. And that's, of course, it's not good from an industrial point of view. It's also really stupid from the environmental point of view.

17:14So the next step for Europe is to get autonomy in key raw materials and their refining. For example, lithium hydroxide. So I talked about lithium. We don't have at all, but we have a number of possibilities that we can use our company's chemicals and so forth to do it in Europe. And so the next step following the European Battery Alliance is actually the new just formed European Raw Materials Alliance or ERMA for short. And that's exactly the same idea. The idea is to get all these companies to talk together, provide them with public support, funding for pilots, for example, to start that getting that industry up from scratch in Europe. And the good news is, at least from European side, is that European companies have high environmental and social standards in their DNA. We also have relatively clean energy supply in Europe. So it's also more beneficial to do it locally. OK, last, third, a very, very important bit, sustainable sustainability and policies to drive sustainability of batteries.

18:23I can talk about it all day. We do a lot of work there as T&E, but I'll try to just highlight the key developments and important things that I see are needed. It's really important to stress that, generally speaking, from the lifecycle perspective, batteries or battery electric vehicles are already much, much better than petrol or diesel cars. But we need to be honest. It's not all bunnies and green leaves. It is a very industrially heavy process to produce those batteries. And batteries are one of the hotspots in this entire lifecycle analysis of electric vehicles. There are three areas which are key and where policy is needed to help. One, on the issue of sustainable and responsible sourcing or mining of materials. Two, on the sustainable manufacturing. So having zero or low carbon battery cells themselves. And last but not least, on circularity and recycling. And I'll go through them one by one briefly. The first one, the sourcing, the mining side, is probably the most difficult one and rather the most complex one.

19:39It's global and mining goes way beyond batteries. In fact, I would argue that batteries, because they are in the spotlight, offer an opportunity to solve some of the centuries-long problems in the mining space around the world. What we need to do is we don't need new standards. We have so many great standards. What we need to do is better implement what we have. What that means, on the side of responsibility, the best framework we have to date is the United Nations and OECD due diligence guidelines for responsible supply chains. That basically cover things around social labor, human rights corruption. What it means in practice is that if I'm Volkswagen and I want to source lithium, for example, from Chile, I have to meet certain steps and go all the way down to the mine in Chile to check that things are done properly. There's no child labor. There's no corruption, for example, how payments are made and so forth. Of course, you can say, well, it's also good.

20:44We can make it binding. But maybe Volkswagen goes there one day and it's all good. And then, you know, when the check is gone, they're back to the old business. And that's why today the difference between the standards 10 years ago and standards today is that we can implement them thanks to technology. And technology such as blockchain and digital ledgers, other blockchain-like technologies, really help to provide real-time tracing and tracking of supply chains to increase transparency. There's a lot of happening in this field. Lots of car makers already have projects, either with Circulo, with IBM or others. Volkswagen is using MindSpider, for example. There's also, this is the flagship work of the Global Battery Alliance, the battery passport. And the idea, indeed, is to provide a digital twin for every battery and to trace human rights, provenance and greenhouse gas emissions and so forth. So we've done the kind of the social side, right? They're responsible. What we still need to do is to also make sure that mining is done with the least environmental impact.

21:59And there, again, policy is required to do that. At the moment, some of the best standards we have sit with IRMA. So based, originated in the U.S., but it's international. So it's the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. And they basically certify mines on both social and environmental requirements. And their environmental requirements are some of the best. And we need to put this sustainable mining standards into legislation. I don't know any country at the moment that is planning to do that. If you do, please mention later in the chat as we start conversation. But this is something that's still missing to become a standard in regulations across the world. The technology is developing, though. Lots of stuff is happening on that side. If I take lithium, for example, a really good example, there's been a lot of innovation to produce lithium in so-called geothermal lithium. So a bit like geothermal renewable projects using DLE technology. So direct lithium extraction, not hard rock, for example, which is very CO2 intensive.

23:09And there's companies in the U.S., so in California. Salt and Sea, right, is a famous project. There's also companies in Germany, in Europe, Vulcan, for example, that are doing this. I know there's also lots happening on the nickel side as well. Also more low carbon production. So technologies are coming. Need policies to make sure they are used across the field. So moving to the next area. So sustainable manufacturing of batteries. It's really, really important to stress that making your battery cell, everything from your materials, so refining, cathodes and so forth, is incredibly energy intensive. 75% of all energy you need to make batteries is actually done at this stage up to and including battery cell. So that means that location and your energy source really matter. If we make batteries in Europe with low carbon electricity, for example, in France or Sweden, we have an incredibly low carbon footprint of these batteries, as low as 10 or 20 kilograms of CO2 per kilowatt hour. If we make these batteries, for example, in China, it also depends where in China.

24:23But if it's more northern China, then they are actually very carbon intensive. They have lots of CO2 embedded in them. But that's not so different if we make them in Poland, for example, in Europe, because we also have very carbon intensive grids. So it really means that we need to steer battery investments, steer gigafactories to the places that have abundant renewable energy resources. And that's why that's where, again, policy matters. So what we want to do in Europe in the new European battery law is to make sure that every battery in the European market and the companies behind it have to measure accurate, process-specific, up-to-date data, CO2 emissions of all their process, and report that. Once we've collected that data, because at the moment we have such outdated studies, we don't actually know what the footprint is. The footprint is improving every year. Once we've collected that data in Europe, so in the next few years, probably after 2027, we will then set minimum binding thresholds which companies have to meet.

25:28For example, we can say that any battery on the European market must be below 20 kilograms of CO2 per kilowatt hour to be allowed to be on the market. And that will drive companies that invest and set these factories to actually be incorporating carbon footprint of their manufacturing process into their business decisions and siting plants accordingly. And that's exactly, for example, what Northvolt has done. Northvolt placed its factory all the way up north in Sweden next to cheap hydro there. And that's why their carbon footprint is very low. Energy is not everything or the power you use. Of course, scale and efficiency really matters as well. So if you produce, if you have a bigger factory and a bigger scale and more efficient processes, per battery have less CO2. Another thing that's really important here is the trend towards vertical integration. So producing stuff locally. Instead of transporting various components of your battery across the globe, if you do them all in one spot, you cut a lot of CO2 from transportation.

26:36And that also means that your CO2 footprint is lower. So that's on the carbon footprint side of batteries. And moving to the last category from the sustainability side, circularity. It's already really important to stress that compared to gas and petrol and diesel cars, it's completely different with batteries and battery electric vehicles. We can actually take the battery out, reuse, recover, recycle materials such as cobalt constantly and open-endedly. So it is already actually a circular loop in its own, something that we cannot do with petrol cars. Once you've burned that fuel, it's burned and there's nothing you can do about it. However, while it's all doable, we need policy to make sure this happens, right? There's a big difference if you say, well, 95% of cobalt can be recycled as opposed to actually 95% of cobalt being recycled right now from batteries that we have. Batteries, electric vehicle batteries are today recycled. It's a myth. They are not. They're just often not recycled where we are.

27:45But they're not recycled in Europe. We don't have that industry at such scale. I think it's actually the same in America. What we often do is we transport these batteries to China and recycle there. And you know why? Because a lot of battery industry is in China. So they're getting these batteries, recycling, recovering the materials and feeding them directly into the battery factories that they have there in China. So it makes total sense. And it's a very smart industrial policy. So what policies do we need to make sure that we do, well, first of all, recycle the valuable materials and batteries, but also make sure that we have it, again, locally and they benefit our economies? One of the most efficient policies and something that Europe is now putting in place as well is to basically set recovery targets per valuable material in a battery. For example, that means that a certain percentage of cobalt in a battery or lithium or nickel has to be recovered when that battery reaches its end of life.

28:47In Europe, for example, we want to achieve more than 90% of all cobalt and nickel. They're mature processes. It's all very easy. We can recycle them. We also, at the moment, the standards are a bit too low for lithium because it's a bit less mature. But we as T&E believe that up to 90% of lithium can be recycled, even though it's a bit less mature. And we have companies and innovation going on. There's Lycycle, a Canadian company that can do that, Dusenfeld in Germany that shows it's possible. So setting these policies is really, really important. And last sentence before I stop. You can hear, you see how I'm very excited talking about batteries, but I need to stop. Just to say, look, on sustainable policy side, if it sounds to you like too much, I would maybe surprise you by saying actually not at all. It is possible. And we already have one law just recently announced in Europe, announced just at the end of last year, the European Battery Regulation, that combines all of these elements.

29:50It combines responsible sourcing. It combines requirements around sustainable manufacturing of batteries and requirements on the recycling as well as reuse side as well. And I can also talk about it later if we have time. And this basically is the first of its kind global regulation that controls the entire supply chain and life cycle of a battery. And we hope that in the next year or two, it will be approved by the parliament and we'll have the first green battery law in the world. And that can actually set good example for other regions to follow. So thanks a lot for staying and listening to me. I pass back to Simon, Catherine, Pavia, back to you to have a chat with everyone. Thank you. Thank you so much for this excellent overview. I think it was so much knowledge on there and so many insights. So I think there are going to be lots of things to address as well. Yeah, as people know, now is the time also that people can join us on stage as well and ask some questions.

30:51We already have Tarek join us as well. But before we do so, just also, I know, Bavia, you know, it's quite a bit of a long year of expertise. Is there anything you want to ask or add and then also lead over to the people? Sure. Maybe one thing I think would be of interest perhaps to this group and was to me, was, you know, talking about some of the batteries directives and where, what current status looks like. I'm sure it'll come up later, but I can start us off. Maybe, Julie, would you mind sharing a bit on that? And then, of course, as people start to raise hands and join us, we can start calling on them. Yeah, absolutely. So indeed, that's this. Yeah. So the European Battery, or is it called now, European Battery Regulation, it was proposed in November. So we now have commissions proposals on the table. And then now with the European Parliament and European governments to amend and approve.

31:47And that will probably take maybe another 12 months. There was a bit of a delay due to some procedural issues. So this exactly that, yeah, that regulation that covers all the value chain of batteries and all the different requirements from recycling to sustainable manufacturing. So hopefully by mid next year or end of next year, that law will actually be in force in Europe. Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you for sharing that. And I'm sure we'll dig more into more regulations. But let's see. Are there any questions? Tariq, I'll hand it over to you. Yes. Thank you very much, Julia, for an excellent overview. I'm sure you are aware about this IEA report that being issued last week, maybe. It's about the role of critical mineral in clean energy transition. And they were talking about this critical minerals, which you already touched on. But we chose also that most of the extraction and processing facilities are in China or external to Europe. So how do you address this supply chain security for this material?

33:11This is my question to you. Yeah, excellent. Excellent question, Tariq. I mean, Pavia, Simon, Catherine, just tell me if you want to collect a few of me or me to answer directly. I think that's – I mentioned something like this as well when I was speaking. And I fully agree with you the problem or the next frontier in Europe is to get autonomy in the refining and the raw material side of this supply chain, of the battery supply chain. We, just like we've done with the European Battery Alliance, we can do this also via industrial coalitions and alliances. And this is where the European Raw Material Alliance is so crucial. We need to ultimately support our companies, funding pilots and so forth. But just also connecting people together. So the reason, for example, the success of Northvolt is a good example. The Northvolt didn't just start producing batteries because, you know, they woke up one day and they had smart people. They had very clear, strong partnership with Volkswagen among others.

34:17So they had this longer-term offtake. They knew that if they produce now and invest in five, seven years' time, Volkswagen will buy these batteries. And it's exactly the same way that it works with extraction. It's even longer, right? You want to produce a mine in the best-case scenario. You need seven years, probably 10 for some projects. So ensuring that you have partnerships with either battery or car makers supported via maybe European funding or kind of the European alliance, such as Raw Material Alliance, is really important. Because that creates the business case for European companies to invest in these facilities and factories in the first place because they know they will have offtakes. So they'll have clients at the end of the day in seven years' time. And we've seen that, actually. It's interesting that some more advanced car makers in this space, like Tesla, that's exactly what they're doing. They're actually either themselves procuring and investing in raw materials or signing long-term deals with mining on the ground.

35:17BMW is also doing that. They're also signing contracts with mines on the ground. And that also helps sustainability side. Because as a big client, someone like BMW can tell or advise the mine on how they want the process to be made. If they want it to be lower carbon footprint, for example, they can just write it into contract and work with their supplier. So this downstream pressure, right? Work with the supplier to make sure that materials are produced more sustainably. So from both industrial and environmental side, this downstream involvement in refining can really be beneficial to make sure this industry is created in Europe. Over to next question. Hi, Julia. Thanks. Thanks, Simon. Thanks, Catherine. Thanks, Bavia. Julia, it was a great presentation. My name is Daivik, and I'm in from India. My question was two fronts. The first one is you said the whole part about sustainability in terms of mining itself. Now, how do you see sustainability going forward in the whole mining process when we're moving into, let's say, an 811 format cells?

36:30Because you are reducing cobalt, but you're increasing nickel. And again, there are reports that it is not a very sustainable side of mining. So this is my first question. And the second question is, I don't know if you're aware, recently India did announce EV policies. And on that front, even if you look at the countries that you mentioned, even if you look at Poland, if it is to make cells in Poland, even if lithium cells are to be made in Poland, it's at around about $96.2. Whereas if it is made in India, the government subsidy is coming forth, it would drop to about $92.8 per kilowatt hour, as compared to U.S., which is at about $105.2. So how do you see subsidies from the government as being a major uptick for manufacturers to set up the lithium cell manufacturing plants itself? Thanks. And I'm done. Thanks, Divik. Thanks for your questions. First of all, on the mining side, I wanted to make a very quick point, actually clear, first of all.

37:40So don't get me wrong. We are STNE as an NGO. We actually don't really think that the way to go is to continuously increase and have more and more mining, even if it's better mining than today. Just want to be very clear about that. In fact, longer term, our objective is to make sure that most of the materials we need for future batteries come from recovery and recycling. Right. So, for example, in 2030s, the vast majority of lithium, nickel, cobalt, if we recycle properly, the batteries can actually come via this route. So secondary materials. The issue is more short to medium term because we just have to be realistic. We don't have enough recycled materials and therefore we need to have more. Yeah. So more mining going forward because we cannot slow down the momentum around electric vehicles. We need them for climate. But I just wanted to make this really clear. We actually see the recycling route as a key supply route for battery materials longer term.

38:37I know a lot from the lithium space. So I know in the lithium space and I talked about geothermal lithium and direct lithium extraction technology. There are ways to make really low carbon, pretty much almost zero emission lithium extraction. So it is possible. You are completely right that actually now going to 811 or even, you know, there's 9.5.5 chemistries that we require much more nickel. There's a lot of industry now being set up in Indonesia and a lot of nickel they're producing is actually really high CO2 footprint, really unsustainable. I also hear that there's a few projects, for example, in Scandinavia that also are investing into new ways of producing nickel sulfates and other battery grade nickel materials to make them with a much more low carbon zero emission way. One of the main things, of course, is the energy. Your energy source is important in this process. Right. So if you're close to renewables, again, it helps. But it's beyond that. It's about also the chemicals you are using.

39:44For example, it's about the water treatment and all these processes. So there are ways and technologies developing. I just think we really need to, via regulations, require these technologies so that they get scaled up and the costs go down. Because that's today the problem, actually. It's really the cost that they're much more expensive. To get green nickel compared to nickel, you know, in the usual process is just really expensive. And maybe on your second question quickly on subsidies. I think subsidies, of course, are really key, especially when it comes to your local industry in your country. Right. And when you want to scale up. So, of course, in Europe, part of the European Battery Alliance was not just about companies coming together and talking to each other. Of course, it came with a lot of government support and lots of subsidies. Right. We know. So in Europe, we're talking about IPSA. So it's this term basically about projects of European common interest and they get easy state aid and subsidies and support to scale up.

40:49But what I really see today, to be honest with you, I don't see battery industry being driven that much by or primarily by subsidies from governments. I actually think what we see in today, especially on the electric vehicle side, is car makers starting to go and produce batteries in-house. Right. So not not offshoring, but inshoring battery production. Volkswagen will have six factories. Look at what Tesla is doing. So actually, car makers go into this either together with new companies or existing battery companies or even by themselves. And they have the finance and capacity, financial capacity available to them to scale this up. So subsidies become a bit less relevant in a more mass market kind of driven way. Yeah, I'm done. Thanks. Thanks. Can you just quickly follow up on that, if you don't mind? Yeah, of course. No, because this was a production linked incentive scheme, which kind of just was announced, where even BNEF kind of turned around saying that there's close to about a $24 subsidy per kilowatt hour, which can be translated with the additional incentives that the government is giving itself.

42:07So my question revolved around that fact that, I mean, because of the end of it for any car manufacturer, it's the lower cost per kilowatt hour, which matters. Right. So that is where I mean, I'm just trying to compare a European policy versus an Indian policy that India is saying that, hey, you know what, the government will take a hit. So as to increase employment, increase the number of factories and so on and so forth. So on that front, what are your views? I mean, like if the government is actually giving that is actually doling out that $24 lesser, would that not affect European policy or would it be a counterintuitive policy itself? Yeah, look, to be completely honest with you, I'm not not I'm not really sure. I still see that today, once the market is really big for electric vehicles, and that's what we had with diesel vehicles, we we have always local supply chains. Right. So batteries are hard, actually, to transport so much.

43:09They're cumbersome, they're volatile and all that. So you still have a huge impetus for local battery production developing. I'm also aware that, for example, companies like Northvolt say that because they have access to cheap hydro, for example, in Sweden, their costs per kilowatt hour are super low, and they can easily compete with projects in China, for example, by CATL. But I don't know in detail, you know, the kind of the Indian policy and its implications, I have to be quite honest with you. So maybe it's something that we can just take offline and look in more detail. I'd be interested to learn more. I'm done. Done talking. Thank you so much, both Julia and Zivik. I think it's great sharing, and I would like to just kind of reside the room a little bit. So we are halfway into our 19th session about battery policy, and we're very happy to have Julia sharing about her insights and thoughts about this. I've also just looked at the audience and people who have just joined us on stage.

44:07We do have people who have great experience in this area, so we'd love to hear from you. Let's go in the order that I'm seeing here on the screen right now. It's Bharath, Mila, and Harry, if you could share your thoughts on this in the order. That would be great. Bharath, the mic is yours. Yeah. Thank you so much. This is Bharath from India. Actually, I'm working as an intern in Battery Associates. So my basic question is that we are seeing this distribution of the battery ecosystem in a not proper way. You know, the cluster of battery ecosystem is quite denser in China and quite denser in Europe. But, you know, in order to make this battery revolution a complete revolution, which is accessible to all the countries, what should we actually do? It's all about the government or it's all about the industry? So I'm just curious to know, to understand this perspective. Can you please give some insights on it? Thank you. Julia, did you get the question?

45:06Yes. Yes, absolutely. Sorry. I struggled to unmute myself here. Yes, you are right that today we see lots of clustering, first in Asia, yes, China, Europe. But I actually do think that in the next five years, US will have caught up. I think there's a lot in the pipeline in the US. So it will be happening. And so for me, I would quickly say I think there are two policies or two key aspects which are key to make sure that cell manufacturing, that battery industry develops in a region where you want it to. It's the demand side. It's the demand side. So countries that create the market for renewables, for electric vehicles will see battery business coming to their countries. That's what we've seen in China. That's what we've seen in Europe. And on the other side, industrial policy to make sure that you give opportunities to companies in this field in your country or from, you know, with the base in your country, give them opportunities.

46:04So it can be subsidies, piloting, partnerships, coalitions, whatever it might be. That then helps to make sure that that demand or market in your country is filled by homegrown companies rather than foreign companies coming. Again, that's what we've seen in Europe. And I think that success formula can be easily repeated in regions such as the US, for example. And I already see it happening actually with the current Biden administration. Over to the next person. Thanks, Julia. And just one thing I also want to add to this. Barath has actually been working very hard and has done a really good job on providing a battery map with all the different stakeholders around the world, all the way from mining, you know, to production, to applications, EVs and others, and also to recycling. So, you know, I think also what we have seen there is right there are still some big gaps. But I think what you say, Julia, is a really good point, you know, that people will go where there's the demand.

47:00So hopefully there will be more players joining, you know, markets like India and others. Thanks. Would we like to go to Mila next? Thanks for joining us. Hi. So I'm not an expert in batteries at all. I'm kind of more interested in electromobility in general. And currently, the main topic I'm interested in this week, actually, is the new law that was decided here in Germany about rapid charging stations, 1,000 locations by 2030. So it means not only 1,000 charging stations, but it's more like a location where you have multiple. So I don't know, maybe there will be around 20,000. So I'm not sure if this is related, but is there a difference actually depending on, yeah, with regards to the station or is not related at all? So, you know, slow charging versus rapid charging. Yeah. Are there any aspects? And yeah. Mila, can I just ask you to make sure I understand your question? Do you mean aspects towards batteries or just generally speaking?

48:14Yeah, we can also talk generally, but I was thinking, is there a connection with batteries? Like, so if you have a rapid, so let's assume you have a rapid charging station and a slow charging station and you have a car, you know, the car with the battery. So is there a difference somehow or it doesn't matter at all? Like you can charge any car with any battery on any station or are there any specific cars that you can charge rapidly? So maybe a short and a longer answer. So in short, no, you can't charge any car at any charging station. So your manufacturer when you buy an electric vehicle will actually tell you and you will know what is the maximum speed at which you can charge your car. I think generally speaking, the older generation of cars actually cannot, yeah, they can't fast charge. Well, it depends on the station, of course, and maybe kind of the detail, but it can also mean that even if you join a fast charging station, your car will still be charging at low speed, basically, because it can't, right?

49:19But there's huge, huge progress these days with batteries and especially with silica anodes, right? And that's one of the things they allow you, but also with more nickel, they allow you much faster charging. So car makers today that bring cars to the market indeed can be charging at really high speeds up to sometimes even 350 kilowatts. And that's the cars that really can you be using ultra fast charging stations, you know, properly and with, yeah, actually benefiting from them. So there has used to be this kind of old school, you know, kind of, yeah, rule that there used to be this old school rule that you should really try and do slow charging. It's better for the health of the battery. But as I said, technology is really changing. And if you have a car with kind of newest generation of batteries that can withstand fast charging, it's no longer a problem. But maybe if there's any engineers on the line, maybe someone else wants to come in on this.

50:19But that would be all from my side. Yeah. And just one thing before someone else sends us, what I kind of want to share with this community here, and maybe someone can comment on that too, is that this law was passed. I'm not sure if it's completely passed, but it's kind of almost done. And I just want, I'm just curious what effect this will have or actually what opportunities are out there on the market, maybe for small people or for like startups. Because if you have any thoughts on this or you can share or you are aware of some chances on the market or something, I just want to brainstorm around this topic if it's not, you know, too far away from what you typically discuss here. Yeah. Does someone have any thoughts on this one? Julia or anybody else? Would you repeat the question again? Because I just missed the question. Yeah. Yeah, I guess if it's a new topic, it's maybe not so easy.

51:25But so Germany wants to increase a lot of the number of stations available in the country because they are not enough. Like so far, it's just like for a hobby driver kind of the people don't rely on electric cars yet because the charging infrastructure in Germany is not good. Yeah. Yeah. There are only a little number of stations. They are slow charging only. And they pass now officially by the government a law that they want to increase the number of charging stations in the country by the year 2030. It's pretty new. Like this happens just this week. So probably in other countries, you haven't heard of this, but maybe maybe you have do you have something similar in India, for example? Or I don't know. I'll answer this question. It's a very big question. Yeah. I'll answer this question partly from the Indian context. There are startups in India, for example, who are working on setting up charging infrastructure. You know, there are companies which have tied up with the petrol station companies.

52:36Many of them, most of them are owned by the government. And the government is also actively encouraging such tie-ups. But this was before the pandemic. Of course, the rollouts have slowed down. I am aware of a couple of startups which are working in various condominium societies and setting up charging infrastructure. And the idea in India, of course, the market is driven primarily with two-wheelers and three-wheelers. The car EV market is not so big. Irrespective, you know, you are seeing startups coming in, setting up charging infrastructure, setting up battery swapping stations. Which will enable people to not just charge, but also come to the location, change the batteries, go for the journey. So there is a lot of innovations happening. Thanks. Simon, do you know something on that topic maybe? Or if it's a separate for a separate discussion, just let me know. Wait a minute. I can't stop it here. Thanks, Mireya. I think, I mean, this goes a bit far right now from our today's topic.

53:41One thing I can say, so we had a session on EVs and also on EV charging and battery swapping before. So you can find some of these recordings also on batteryinsiders.com or on batteryinsiders on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc. Because otherwise, I mean, if it is interesting, you want to have a discussion on this, we can also think about having a future session on this maybe next week or so. But I think for right now, we want to speak to the battery. Yeah? I have one question. I have one question for Julia and Fania. Arjun, do you mind? I think we go to Harvey first and then we'll go to Arjun. Is this okay? Perfect. Thank you, Arjun. Okay, Harvey. Thank you. I may have missed a bit on lithium recycling because I joined 10 minutes late. Julia, can you say something about lithium recycling? Because as far as I understand, recycled lithium is not so much good for batteries. It could be used for other applications, but not for batteries.

54:46Thank you. And I have finished. Yeah, thanks for your question, Harry. So lithium recycling, I think generally speaking, the process to recover lithium from lithium-ion batteries today is much less mature, right? Because the more mature processes such as pyrometallurgy just don't recover it. They only get cobalt, nickel and other metals. So you need to go to a more advanced hydro metallurgical processes, which are less mature. And I think the problem starts there, in fact, that the processes are less mature. You're using various leaching and chemicals. And there's still lots of companies that are researching this field. However, it's true that the problem can be with downcycling, right? So what you said, so you can actually recycle it into the lithium, which is of less quality. But that, again, policy or even just demands from industry can help because it's just about requiring that material to be recycled back into battery-grade material. That means it might require more energy or some other more processes or chemicals.

55:54So it's a bit more expensive. So it's less mature. That's the issue. I do know that there are now companies. So I mentioned a few. Lyscycle, Dusenfeld, Yumico is also going in that field much more recently in Europe, which can recover lithium up to 90% or even 95%. 95% sometimes they say, they announce, and it can be then directly used in batteries. So I understand the technology is pretty much solving that issue of quality. Yeah, it's just more expensive and we need to scale it up still. Yeah, over to the next one. Thanks, Julia. Ajir, would you like to go next? Yeah. So, Julia, I had a very specific question on the sustainability side, policies that you're building for the sustainability side. My question here is that when you're looking at the market, are you also contemplating a second life use of the battery? Because usually there is a very finite life for a battery, 2,000, 3,000 cycles or whatever, a lithium-ion battery. And then, at least in the developing countries, there is a market for using the battery for static applications to elongate the life of the battery.

57:10Is that also built into a policy framework in Europe? I didn't see much of what you were saying in terms of non-mobility uses of lithium-ion batteries. So my question is specifically from that context. Can you move a policy towards mobility usage to non-mobility usage and then recycling? Is that also in the pipeline? Thanks, Ajir. A really, really good question. I'm glad you've asked it because, indeed, when I was speaking earlier, I simply didn't have time to also cover reuse. Reuse is also part of the European battery framework, part of this legislative framework, absolutely. So what we are not doing yet in Europe, we are not kind of mandating or requiring reuse in a kind of mandatory fashion. So at the moment, reuse and recycling are kind of taken together. What Europe is doing is actually facilitating this and removing some of the barriers. Because when it comes to reuse, there's actually a business case to do it if companies had it easy, right? Because you kind of amortize your battery in the first use in an electric vehicle.

58:16And then you can sell it on to be used in storage, in forklifts or other operations. And you're actually making money on that, right? So it's also business. So what European battery law aims to do, it would like to remove some of the barriers. Most notably around, for example, the fact that at the moment, we don't have enough of data on the state of health of the battery after its first life. And for the new businesses, new operators, they really need to know. Because without knowing these things, it's very hard to know how good that battery will be in second life. So that's in the law. So we will provide... That's exactly what... Why I asked is because in India, there is a huge market for second life. And that's what we work on. So I'll probably connect with you offline on LinkedIn or whatever. Because I'd be very interested to understand. But yeah, we're also looking into this. It's very important. I agree with you.

59:03Thank you. Thanks. I'm done myself. Thanks, Joan and Julia. I think, Darshan, you have something similar in the same direction. So would you like to go next? Hello. Hello. Yeah. Hello. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Arjun, for probably asking the question. But a little more specific, Julia, on the SOH data, which you just mentioned. What kind of barriers is the policy now eliminating for the data transparency from OEM to second life companies? Yes. So it's still in the making. So the law is still being discussed and amended. But basis to this is to provide both static data. So easy, right? Provenance, nominal capacity and things like that. But also to provide dynamic data. So, for example, if I'm a company in the second kind of life business, I would like to know what's the remaining capacity in this battery, right? The voltage drop when I am buying this at a certain time. I'd like to be able maybe to even know its charging history, right?

1:00:30Because maybe if it wasn't charged properly, according to specifications, it will be of, well, worse quality. So a lot of these parts of dynamic data are at the moment in the draft. So car makers or battery makers would be required to provide this data. But it's not yet finalized. And I think it's fair to say that a lot of industry, especially car makers, are not really keen to provide this data. So that legislative argument and debate is still going on, actually. And we don't yet know what the final outcome will be on this. Yeah. I'd like to add some point maybe. So if I got the opportunity, like, can I make a point, Simon, here? Sure. For free to add on. It's a dialogue. Yeah. Yeah. Sure, sure. Yeah. So actually, I just got to a webinar, which is conducted by the European Union, addressing the real problems. You know, the main problem in this battery second life is all about the battery data, what we are discussing right now.

1:01:31So actually, they are proposing an ideation called as open battery data, like where all the companies are providing the data of the battery, because this will definitely help the batteries to go into a right kind of, you know, consumer application, or maybe electric storage application. It's all up to the companies and the government's policy. You know, the government can't compel a company to provide the data because it's also covered by their, you know, innovation. It's also covered by their IPR rights. So there is a big momentum happening in the European market to create an open battery database. If the database comes, definitely, it will be much more effective for us, like, people, like, in India or somewhere else, maybe. So that thing is happening in Europe, for sure. Maybe it will take some time, maybe. Yeah. Just one question, Bharat, sorry, just bajing in. Why is the data of the battery related to the IP? What does the SOH data have to do with the IP?

1:02:33So it's not like, like, actually, you know, the many databases are having their uniqueness. Many companies have their batteries are unique chemistry propositions. They don't want to share the data. So they are hesitating to share the data with other people, to the common people as well. So I think that is the problem. Maybe it's all about the policies and regulations. So if the policies are really clear, definitely they will come up with an open database where everybody can go and see the data of all the batteries produced by different companies in this world. Thanks so much, Bharat and Arjun. So I'm conscious of the time because we left with 25 minutes to the session. We'd like to move on to Juko, Stefan, Christopher. If we go in that order, that would be great. Juko, would you like to, do you have any questions to add? Yeah, I wanted to raise hand on the Mila's point on the quick charging network because that is something that does have an effect because many of these quick charging stations are going to have battery energy storage as in a buffer due to the lower cost of power electronics to provide the actual service to vehicles.

1:03:41So there's an additional demand aspect for the battery raw materials. But luckily, that seems to be diversifying to iron phosphate cells mostly, which is not competing with the automotive sector so heavily at the moment. And we have 100% source for raw materials in Europe and knowledge and history with it with almost two decades. To the battery health data and so-called second life applications, I wanted to make a point that battery management systems are done so different ways in different applications. There might be only one thermal measuring point, measuring point that the data is very not time coded. So the quality of the data is in essence. And if you don't have very quality data, it's better maybe not to have it at all. I think so. So we have a lot of collected data from thousands of electric vehicles, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands today. And that data amount is already providing a lot of things to be crunched. But that said, it means that when you have a battery system and you try to identify what is the usable or valuable kind of aspect of it still, after it's removed from the vehicle, it really boils down to the reliability.

1:05:13And that's why a lot of the second life battery energy storage projects have ended in misery, because the reliability is horrible. It's much more better to make 20-year investment on energy storage, which has track record and prove that it will work for that 20 years in the field. And many of these projects have failed after a couple of years or have some maintenance issues. And these are very crucial things for battery energy storage system operators. Well, so that's kind of my point. And I don't want to take more time, but thank you for the opportunity to say that. Thanks, Jukka. Maybe if I can just, so Julia here, come in quickly, even though it's not like it was a question. I think that's a really important, indeed, point you raised. So not just about providing the data, but also kind of the quality right of it. From what I understand, from the policy side at the European Commission level, once we have this regulation adopted, which kind of agrees with the principle that this data will be then provided, you know, in the open format, the next step will be for the European Commission to design specific technical acts exactly on how the data is to be provided.

1:06:24So standardize the format, but also ensure the quality. So I think if we, yes, if we are successful and we get this provision into law, we actually will be able to guarantee that the quality of data in the future is also of good enough quality to enable all these new companies and their business models. Thank you. Hi, everyone. I guess it's my turn. Julia, I just wanted to come back to some of your earlier comments regarding your preference, or at least T&E's preference, in the long run for reusing or recycling materials within the battery as the main source for future batteries to be produced. My initial reaction to that was to think that would contradict, and I'm sorry, maybe I'm provocative here, but that would contradict a little bit the takeoff of the whole mining industry. Because as you know, and as you mentioned actually, regarding the batteries themselves in the value chain vis-a-vis the OEMs, you need to have some takeoff in order to get that financeable.

1:07:41The same applies to the mining companies. You know, the mining project won't be financed or financeable if the life is only, let's say, a decade as opposed to several decades, and if there's no certainty about the takeoff going forward. But I assume that's offset by the huge, I mean, the exponential growth of the market in any case, whereby we would have so many batteries in a decade that whether we source them from mining or from the mines or from recycled products, it wouldn't necessarily matter. So the question is, I was just wondering if in your assessment, in your policy assessments, you've estimated by the end of, I mean, by 2030, what would be the market split between products, you know, sourced from mining and products sourced from recycling? That's the first question. And then I have a second question, and that's down the value chain in terms of the charging networks. I think we hinted on that topic in terms of your sort of lobbying, in a way, regarding interoperability of networks across Europe, the same way I think it has been now applied in the Netherlands, whereby the networks are interoperable, but that's not really the case at European level.

1:09:13If anyone, you know, crosses the border with an electric car, it's going to be difficult to be, to charge necessarily on the same network and have the same benefits and make things simple. And at the same time, what's your, what are your views regarding standardization of the chargers, you know, around, you know, one single protocol and probably that CCS in the long run. Thanks. I'm done talking. Thank you, Stefan. Thanks for your, for your really good questions. On the first question, I think that's a really, it's a really good point that you raised. Maybe I'll first answer your question directly and then add my comment to that. So in our analysis, what we saw is indeed, like you say, because of this huge exponential growth of the battery demand from electric vehicles and the rest, the growth in supply will be so big that in the midterm, it can actually incorporate both recycling and mining. In our analysis by 2035, with really ambitious recycling targets in Europe, we can meet 20% of all lithium and nickel demand, so about one fifth with recycled content.

1:10:23That means 80% still has to come from, from mining, but 65% of all cobalt we will need in 2035 can easily come from recycling. This is of course, also due to the fact that the cobalt content in batteries is decreasing. Whereas batteries today on the market have a lot of cobalt. So as we recycle this, we can use more. So that's the answer. So it's still not the majority. That's maybe more our vision. Of course, this is just looking at the battery electric vehicles. A lot of recycled lithium, nickel, cobalt especially can come from many other sources. We all are now on the phone, right? We have another three phones in a drawer. We all have a new computer, an old computer. All of that electronics being recycled can also help. But maybe a quick comment before I answer your second question, I think you raise a really, really important issue. You know, so we are developing an industry like we now have, for example, oil and gas industries that ultimately one day in the ideal sustainable world, there is potentially no space for it.

1:11:23There's no actually role for it. What do we do? And that's not a midterm answer. That's more a longterm answer. But let's just have a look at what, for example, that IEA study said, right? And someone before actually mentioned it today on the call, they basically say that after 2025, there shouldn't be any new oil projects. And by 2050, very, very few of these projects, just the existing capacity, mostly in the Middle East, will be used. So ultimately, the oil industry will have to find itself in a new place in this world. They are. Maybe hydrogen, maybe charging, they're doing lots of things. And maybe the same for mining. And that's actually the story of Yumiko in Europe. Yumiko used to be Union Minier. They were the hugest mining company of Belgium in Congo. And today, Yumiko is world's most known company in recycling. So maybe mining companies will actually go into recycling business because they know materials and maybe that's a route for them in the future.

1:12:22On your second question about interoperability of charging networks, absolutely. So we do have European regulation. So AFID, Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive, a bit of a European mouthful. So AFID will be reviewed and is coming this July. And as part of that, the key priority for us, for consumers, but also for the European Commission, is indeed to make sure that all the charging networks across Europe are interoperable. So they will actually mandate a communication standard among them, a bit like with roaming today, right? You can easily just use your network in, I don't know, in Germany and England and it doesn't matter. So it will happen. And another thing that's really important beyond just interoperability in our view is to make sure that ultimately people can just charge ad hoc. So it's not just about having, you know, always having a contract with a certain provider. Of course, companies prefer that. But as electric cars become mainstream and people have different views on their digital privacy, and so forth, I think you should just be able to at least on some stations tap your card like you do in a supermarket and that's also possible for charging.

1:13:35Thanks. I'm done talking. Just a quick follow-up on that. Is there any timeline regarding this European regulation to be put in place? And the other point that I tried to raise as well was the standardization of protocols. Yes, so protocols will be standardized. Absolutely. It's on the table and it's not actually so much in European policy that I was talking about. It's actually it's a European standardization body, I think, SEN, that is working on that. So they are working on protocol standardization. In terms of timeline, so the proposals are coming this July. It probably will take 18 months, so by the end of 2022 for that to become law and then usually the countries will have another year or so to implement it. So yes, in two, two and a half years time, which is the usual lead time for European regulations, we're likely to see all charging networks being interoperable across Europe. Do you see that as a barrier for the takeoff of electric vehicles?

1:14:43Because two and a half years seems to have a very long time to be fair. So yes and no. I think, of course, people think about that, right? So at the moment, it's not a problem because not so many people have electric cars, but as it becomes mainstream, people travel all around, want to go on holidays. It can be a problem, but really importantly to stress that companies in the charging business, right, it's a huge business and in the Netherlands, companies like Fastnet are actually already profitable without subsidies. All these companies see that and they understand how important it is for their clients, right, for their consumers. So companies at the moment are already at their own level setting up agreements and partnerships between each other to make sure that their customers and drivers can use different networks. So it's already happening voluntarily at the industrial, you know, at the industrial level anyway. It's just that it's just not a European standard. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, so I hope that that answers basically.

1:15:43So I don't think in practice we will really have a situation where a big network will not allow you to use their car in a different country. They're also not stupid, right? They want you to keep you as their customer. Indeed. No, thank you very much for the answer. That's very, very helpful. Thanks. Thank you, Stefan. Yuka, did you have a quick point you would like to? Yeah, I can make a brief point to working and founding some EV charging companies in here in Europe. So the interoperability is one key element, of course, but the problem in roaming is the pricing. So there's a lot of bad experiences with users when they go to some roaming partner and they receive like 10 times or 15 times the amount of cost on the charging event. So I think the on-site payment with the credit card, debit card on the event, that is going to be the roaming method eventually, just like the traditional gas filling stations have been operating for decades.

1:16:47So that's going to probably solve the problem, not these highly distributed different operators because we have, we will have a consolidation phase inside the Europe on the charging networks. It is just too crowded at the moment. There's too many small operators and everyone is having their own back-end front-ends and everything is so messy. So that will happen sometimes and consumers will benefit from that. I guess it's already happening in reality and the petrol stations, the oil and gas companies are actually consolidating the market very, very fast. Yes, I just read an article on this. So in Germany it's still a problem and there is one more issue that when they want to build a charging station somewhere the prices of building that are very different. I think, I don't know how it's in English but just to get the electricity to that place kind of, this installation because there are huge differences in prices up to 1,200% so this is not solved in Germany yet.

1:17:55And there are also different providers and stuff so it's on the agenda of the government too. May I ask a question? Especially on the charging standard side? If you don't mind, I think we'll be quite good just looking at the time. So we've got about 10 minutes left. We've got quite a few people who raised their hand just in the end so if you don't mind we can maybe do it in the end if we have some time left. Otherwise, I think we should move on for now. Christopher, welcome. Are you with us? You're muted right now in case you are speaking or maybe you're busy as well then we can... come back to you a bit later. Sorry, I was having some difficulty getting the mic off. So it was a question sort of for Julia. So in regards to the policies around sustainability, certainly within Europe, a lot of the sort of industrial players in the battery manufacturing side follow quite stringent standards already.

1:18:59will you see the policies as being a build on them or will they be sort of very similar to sort of responsible source and covered under the likes of IATF and ISO? Thanks for the question, Christopher. So you're right, actually. I agree with you. That's already in DNA of European companies to do it better than some others. batteries. But I would say two things. First of all, that's also why European battery regulation that's proposed is not just seen as a regulation to improve sustainability of batteries. It's also seen as an important industrial measure to in a way help, in some way, help benefit European companies because indeed it's easier for them. They already are doing things better. So for sure. But the second thing, I don't think it's not set at the same level. It does go beyond and above some of the international standards and some of the ISO standards. For example, I'm not aware today of any very detailed all the way kind of LCA measurements of batteries that are being required to be done and required to be made transparent and required to be verified.

1:20:14So it really is one of the first in the world regulations, not some kind of voluntary standard, but regulation that will require all batteries on the U market to do that. Not only European, but for example, also Asian ones. It's also going way beyond of what's existing at the moment on transparency of data, right? So we talked about some data for state of health and reuse. Same for recycling. It sets binding standards for the amount of material recovered at the end of life in batteries and that goes way beyond some of the more industry, kind of average industry practices. So it is above the standards, but it's true that it's likely benefits European companies who are betting this already and that's one of the aims of the regulation. Yeah, indeed. Yeah, thanks, Julia. I'm so sorry, Julia. Julia, Simon, Catherine, this is a question for all four of you all. I just want to understand because there is conversations around the data and the second life usage of batteries.

1:21:14Do you see companies like TWICE and Voltaica being the dominant force or do you see OEMs who already have their stack of data collection being, I mean, what do you see as a business going forward? Do you see it as a standalone company with a business going forward or do you see it as an OEM having control on the data being the way forward? So maybe I'll come in quickly. I see it as both, right? Of course, we know that Renault and others are active in this field, but I do think that if we make sure in Europe that we have this open data databases, right, that we talked about, that companies have to provide this key state of health data to independent providers like TWICE, then there will be huge business case for these companies appearing because they can really specialize and really, you know, design very kind of tailored and various tools and, you know, analytics and measurements which can really, really benefit this new market.

1:22:19So I think there's definitely space for them if we open BMS and provide the data. If we don't or if the data is not enough, then it will be indeed more OEM driven, more kind of today proprietary systems that we already see. Thanks, Julia. I think that was great for an answer. Simon, do you have a view on that, Catherine? I totally agree with what Julia said. I don't know if Bavia or Catherine has any thing to add? Yeah, I was talking to that as well. Yeah, so I absolutely agree and I think if standardization comes out, that would be great for everyone, especially for recycling as well because that is one of the biggest barriers right now to recycle batteries. So I would like to move on to other people who have just joined us on stage, Milo and Edwin, if we go in the order, that'd be great. Hi, how are you? I was not here in the beginning of your discussion, but I would like to add one thing and one question.

1:23:22So towards standardization, I think the tendency is right now in this decade to go opposite way, not towards standardization, but towards customization of the battery, basically, especially in electrical vehicles, everybody is producing its own battery, its own chemistry, and they are keeping it like the trade secrets. And towards the general policies, my question is, by the over-regulating the batteries and the electrical vehicles, but especially batteries like the key components of the electrical vehicles and the energy storage systems, do you think we can slow energy transition, which is so important for this world, which is already happening, energy transition or energy disruption? So the battery is the key technology for the energy transition. Do you think by over- regulating the battery industry, can we slow the progress? Thanks, Milos. That's a really good question. We actually, as T&E, asked it a lot. There are a number of things, but I know we also come into the end of time. In short, we do think that if we go too much and we kind of over- perfect every part of the battery and over- regulate it, there is a risk that will not just slow it down, but will just raise costs for batteries in Europe.

1:24:51And we have to understand the bigger picture, right? The bigger picture is battery electric vehicles are competing still with petrol and diesel costs. They're not yet at the same price. And ultimately, our whole, well, from our side, climate agenda is to replace the conventional with zero emission vehicles. So we can't be too, you know, perfecting. These regulations don't exist on petrol at the moment. However, I would say that some of the things that I've raised in the beginning, so around responsible sourcing, around low carbon production of batteries, are a win-win. And there's some key things that we have to solve in the battery supply chain for that to be an acceptable technology socially, you know, from people's side. Batteries still are a bit of an Achilles heel of electrification. So by covering and, you know, sorting some of these key issues, we just enable this technology to be part of the future and not to be questioned, actually. And some of them also help. As I mentioned before, for example, if you use cheap renewables to produce battery, it's also actually your business, so the economics of it also improves.

1:25:57So it can be win-win for environment and economy as well. Thanks. Thank you very much, Julia. And just really quick, so we have Adrian and Mariano, we have about two minutes, if you want to have some really quick questions or points. Okay. Hi, Julia. A few years ago, the European Union said they wanted to reinforce the battery industry because the European car manufacturers were just too dependent on the Chinese batteries. And I even recall that somebody from the European Parliament said we missed the boat on the lithium-ion batteries, but we can be leading in the next generation batteries. What we, however, see now is that we see the building of a lot of gigafactories, many subsidized, but I missed the part on the development of the next generation batteries. Can you elaborate a bit on that? Thanks, Edwin. Yes, it is also happening. A lot of the time, it's actually companies who are today investing in the current or fourth generation of lithium-ion batteries who are also researching and want to make sure that they're part of the next generation, right?

1:27:09And beyond that, there's also what is called Batteries Plus Research Consortium in Europe, across all European countries, many universities that specifically is looking at advanced batteries. But just look at QuantumScape and Volkswagen, right? That's, of course, the solid-state next generation, and they've recently announced that they will build a factory in Germany. So it is happening by both research and existing lithium-ion battery producers. Okay, thank you for the answer. Thank you, Edwin. Julia and Mariana, do you have one last point as well? Thank you, Julia. One quick question. Is EU regulators doing something to expand all this new regulation for other countries? Thank you. Not yet. I think first we're focusing on getting this regulation right in Europe. But within the emissions space, so space in vehicles, for example, that I know, European regulations have often been copied by other regions. Either just they kind of copy in terms of learning the regulations, for example, on emission standards, or via the UN ECE body. Europe can also then bring its own regulations and make them more global.

1:28:27So I think it's the next step, but we're not there yet. Okay, thank you. Amazing. You all did really well on the timing. So we're perfect on time now, half past. So before I leave it to Catherine and also Bavia to close down the room, maybe have a bit of a small reflection. And I want to say a really big thank you to Julia, first of all, for being with us to provide an excellent overview, answer all these questions really well, and I think left us with lots of insights and thoughts. And yeah, so if you know Clubhouse and you're on Clubhouse right now, you can also go on her profile and follow her, give her lots of new followers as well, and I'm sure she's got quite interesting insights in the future as well. We also got a club, which you can see here on top, it's called Battle Revolution. So if you go on the top next to the house, you can also follow this club, you will get notified about future sessions.

1:29:16So we have, you know, some other ones coming up on Second Life and also we have our battery den coming up. Maybe Catherine wants to say a few words about this as well. And yeah, just from my side, thank you so much for being with us again today. Very much looking forward to future sessions and I'll leave it to you, Bavia and Catherine. Thank you so much, Simon. And once again, thank you so much, Julia. I really appreciate you sharing, you know, in such detail about European policies. And I think I really love this session and I would love to kind of rehash it on battery once it's up on batteryinsiders.com. So yeah, for Battery Den, we're very excited to hold it on the last Saturday of June. Very excited to have our second Battery Den session and it will be joined by the same battery, what we call panelists or judges. And we will announce it very quickly, very soon as well on both Simon and my own LinkedIn profile.

1:30:19So if you're a battery startup owner or if you are, if you work for a battery startup, feel free to sign up for the event. It's very exciting. The last one that we had and we had very good feedback as well from the battery startup, the startup owners who have joined us for the event. So yeah, feel free to reach out to us and we'll be happy to share more about the event with you. And with that, maybe I'll pass on to Bavia to close off the session. Thank you. Thanks, Catherine. It is so wonderful to hear from all of you. Thank you for asking insightful questions and shout out to Julia for fielding all of them. She really brought her wealth of knowledge. I was never, which I never doubted. But thank you for sharing your insights, Julia. And really just appreciated having the policy perspective from the battery world. And yes, for those of you who would love to share this conversation, it'll be on battery insiders.

1:31:18Eventually, Simon and I will get to that, get to posting it probably sometime later this week. And hope to see all of you soon at our next session. Thank you.