Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Battery Industrialization

0:00Transcript

0:00Great. So hi, everyone. Welcome back to the 20th session of Battery Revolution. We're very happy that now is the 20th week we're hosting this. So thank you for following us, myself and Simon, for 20 weeks. It's very impressive that all of you guys are still here. Today, we're very happy to have Benedict as our final side of speaker, which I'll let Simon introduce in a short while. I'm currently seeing a lot of people with party hats on. So congrats to all the Android users or iPhone users who have recently just joined us on Clubhouse. Very excited to have you as well. So just to give you some background and idea as to the club and how we started, Simon and myself actually met on Clubhouse 20 weeks ago. So we decided to kind of just kind of have a platform where all the people in batteries can meet together to share interests and build a network. Yeah. So if you if you see on the top left hand side of the screen, you will see a battery revolution.

1:10Feel free to follow us on our club there and we will have our session every Saturday at 3 p.m. CET. So some housekeeping rules. If you want to join us on stage at any point in time, feel free to raise your hand and we'll let you up on stage. And once you're on stage, if you'd like to speak, feel free to tap your mic twice. And if you'd like to clap, feel free to flutter your mic. So this session lasts for one and a half hours. So from now to about 4.30 p.m. CET. So we typically have a lot of people who want to join a conversation towards the end of the session. So please do feel free to join us early on so we can end our time for everyone. Great. So I'll pass on to Simon to do the introductions and the rest. Thanks so much, Catherine. Yeah, very much agree. It's amazing that we're on a 20th session already. Definitely flew by and it's really exciting to, you know, to have you all join us.

2:17You know, I think I really love these conversations every Saturday. I'm learning a lot from each other. And, you know, also I think we made many friends over there, so it's just really nice as well. So, and yeah, so maybe just one last thing to add as well as you see on top in the title as well, there's a little red button and a rec sign. So we record these sessions as well. We started doing so because, you know, Android users couldn't listen in. But even now we think it's also beneficial for people to listen in to some of these conversations when they cannot make them in person. So if you go on batteryinsiders.com or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or anywhere else, you can find these sessions recording there as well. And if there's anything, you know, you want to kind of, you know, be cut out of something, you can also approach myself and we can handle that as well. But yeah, it shouldn't be really an issue.

3:01It hasn't been an issue so far. Brilliant, yeah. And then without any further ado, today we have a topic of battery industrialization. And I'm very excited to have, you know, all your insights of this as well. And we have a fantastic conversation starter. As Catherine mentioned, we have Benedek Konersmann with us who works with P3. And if he likes, he can also do this a bit more. But yeah, I know him as someone who spends a lot of time on thinking about how can we scale up these productions, you know, in Europe, but also elsewhere. And just very excited to have him with us and share his insights on this topic today. Without any further ado. Yeah, thanks, Alman. So first of all, thank you very much for letting me participate and also having the discussion today about the industrialization topic. I have joined actually Clubhouse, I think, two days ago. So I'm an Android user. It's quite new to me. But I listened in to some of your previous episodes from Spotify.

4:00So I also very much like the format and like the discussion I at least listened to in the Spotify recordings. So very much looking forward to today. And yes, so how I would like to approach this topic is basically to give you a short introduction, what I'm doing personally. And then just, you know, let's start talking about industrialization. I would tell you a little bit how I see the topic, how I see the topic specifically in Europe, because I think there are a lot of interesting things happening actually on a weekly basis. And just to see who is joining the industry or who wants to join the industry and all that. And yeah, from there on, I would just like to open up the discussion and then see which topics resonate the most and we could discuss the most. Yeah. Just to start off with giving you a personal introduction, I'm a senior consultant with P3. I'm team lead for the whole topic of industrialization for electromobility.

5:22So we are not just doing batteries, but also electric motors, electric harnesses, power electronics, all the kinds of powertrain components that need to be industrialized now to get electric vehicles into the market. So yeah, that's something we've been doing in this team for several years now. And we very much have been with this growing industry, at least in Europe, for the last 15 years. And then what we are doing is usually we try to support guys from the car industry or it's now also from the battery industry in all things considering industrialization, planning and feasibility studies for new productions. And yeah, that's basically what I have a lot of experience into, basically set up productions, set up production concepts and really starting at the, I would call it theoretical decisions and theoretical analysis to make the best decision from a productive and a product, production and product standpoint for now example, batteries, and then move toward the realization and actually setting up a production. So that's, of course, the very important thing.

6:54And that's, I think, also the topic that's right now for the battery industry, the most interesting part. I think when we would have had this discussion maybe two or three years ago, we would still have the discussion, is e-mobility going to work? Is our batteries the way to go? And to be honest with you, that's for me a discussion that has for the electric car, for the passenger car, there's been a solution for that. It's quite clear that the path will go on to be that lithium-ion batteries are going to be the key technology for electric mobility. So now the big question, of course, is how can we produce them in a scale that is sufficient to actually meet market demand and to drive market demand for that measure? And for that, you need a very large volume of battery cells. So even if you, I think I've seen market studies that go from, demand studies that go from around one terawatt hour in 2030 to around five terawatt hour or four terawatt hours just in Europe in 2030.

8:13And that's, of course, these are huge numbers. Just to give you some perspective, I think the last headline I saw from LG Poland that they were trying to tackle four gigawatt hours, 40 gigawatt hours of installed production. That's basically the biggest cell factory that we have right now in Europe. And that's, of course, still a long way to go from the terawatt hour scale in all regards. And as you've probably all followed as well, there have been a lot of new companies joining the market, joining especially in Europe. You have guys like Northvolt, which I would also already kind of call the most established startup in the battery space because they actually have quite good progress and have shown their first products. And, of course, there are even newer players like guys like Inobart, like Player or other startups. Then there are the players like RCC or ACC or which have OEM backing and which actually try to set up production with a specific OEM partner in mind.

9:44Same, of course, goes with VW's plans that are planning to set up, I think, several gigafactories with 40 gigawatt hours, 50 gigawatt hours of scale, which they announced in their power day. So you can see here that there are a lot of players joining the market. And you would think that these startups and also the maybe more established players from other industries have a good grasp at industrializing batteries at a large scale. But that's actually a big bottleneck because you're lacking experience in the overall European market or in general in the world. Of course, in Asia, you have in China and Korea and Japan, you have the experience. But still, it's spread across a lot of projects that are now starting. And the challenges that have to be tackled with the large demand and the rapid pace of industrialization for batteries. At the same time, you have these technology developments, you know, when we're talking about nickel-rich cathodes and all these stuff, all these things.

11:00That's, of course, a whole other ballgame. And they have to basically, so to sum this part up, new battery producers, or for the next years in battery production, we have to produce more cells that have higher performance and essentially better quality. And these are all, I would call them, you know, like three, the three main areas of the oil, three main challenges of industrialization. These are all challenges in themselves just to achieve one, you know, to get to a large scale. It's very hard. And it gets even harder and even more challenging if you want to combine these things. So to get with a very high-performing cell, get that produced in a way, in a large scale and with a high quality, that's actually what I would call a golden triangle of what I would consider production and production quality. And then that's only considering non-economical issues. So if you put the battery costs and the whole economics of battery production on top of that, then you basically get an additional dimension of challenges.

12:30And yeah, so what I would want to talk to you about today to get also more in the specifics is exactly these challenges. How can we tackle them? How do companies tackle them? And yeah, how can we succeed essentially in getting all these promises, all these announcements from new players, from for larger battery manufacturing, faster battery manufacturing, and essentially higher performing batteries as a result? How can we get these promises to really be realized in the next 10 years? Because if the batteries are not good, the whole electric car revolution, the whole market will not grow as fast as we would like them to. So yeah, that would be kind of my introduction to get very specific. Maybe one example where I think one of the biggest challenges or where I see it is actually the, I would like to focus here on the battery quality. So that might be something that's not discussed too much about, especially with the background of industrialization. However, we've all seen these videos, these photos or stories about burning electric cars.

14:01And I also know the statistics that state internal combustion engine cars, of course, much more likely to burn down. However, it's still bad publicity. It's still not good if batteries burn down. And now you could, of course, say that that's a development issue. That's a pure product issue and has nothing to do with industrialization or battery production for that matter. Now, I would put out the point that I actually believe that right now the whole issue of battery fires and for the future, the issue of battery fires is a predominantly production focused topic. Because from my experience, especially the car manufacturers, the European ones or the established car manufacturers, they have right now a very good idea of what batteries can and cannot do. They have very specific testing and very good specifications to get a battery cell into the market and to make sure it runs safely. Now, why are there still these things where cars burn down? Usually, that's at least what I know of these different issues.

15:32It has something to do with the fact that batteries are not properly produced. So when the car company, just to give you some idea about battery development, when a car company buys a battery cell, there's a development process where they essentially test in very much detail that the battery can perform safely in the car and perform according to the required performance data. So they make sure that the battery can fast charge. It can last for a certain amount of mileage. All these things are usually taken care of by development. Now, why do these car fires still happen? And that's, to me, that's because the production quality is actually not on a level, and production technology really put out batteries at a constant quality level. On a quality level, it's so high that these fires cannot happen. Now, what does it mean? Usually, these fires happen because none of the... These fires happen because the batteries that were produced are capable of... Are capable of performing and safely performing in the car.

17:04But the production quality, there are some bad pieces in the batch, and therefore they cannot perform and will fail. And that's essentially a production issue that we need to tackle. Yeah. Thank you, Benedict, for this great opening. I think, yeah, it's production and scale-up, and it's definitely something, I think, along the lines we've been also talking about before. Maybe just one quick question before also coming to the people already raising their hands, and it's also an invitation to raise your hand if you have any thoughts on this topic or any questions for Benedict. Because right now, you mentioned, right, we have a range of different players, so I'm just going to mute you, because I think otherwise there's a feedback loop. So one thing you mentioned as well is we have quite a few players, traditional players from Asia, like CATL and others. For example, moving to Europe and building up production here. And of course, they bring a lot of experience, of scale-up, as you have mentioned.

18:09Now that you have newer players, such as Northworld and others, who are kind of building up from fresh, and of course they're also hiring lots of experts from other companies. It's not isolated, but I'm just kind of curious, what's your thinking right now? Who are going to be the biggest producers, for example, in Europe? Will it be traditional companies, or like previous companies, big players, going to move to Europe? Or do you think it's actually going to be its own industry, such as Northworld and a few others in the pipeline? So I think it will essentially be something in between. You will have, I think that's basically the point of the European Union pushing a lot of money into battery industries with the IPSE and all the other funding projects. The goal is to have a local European market, and guys like Northworld and others actually participating in that market and delivering to that market. I think here the close relation to the European car manufacturers will play a key role.

19:13So you will essentially have some very close alignments, which you're already seeing between the European cell and battery manufacturers and the car manufacturers, or even something that I would count as having in-house battery production for car companies. And at the same time, we will still have these big players like LG and SK and all that playing a role in the European market just because they have the production sites, they have the know-how, and over the next years, they will also increase their production volume and just utilize this know-how to catch market share in Europe. Great. Thanks a lot. Catherine, do you have some other questions? Otherwise, you can also go to Varen. Yeah. Thanks so much, Benedict, for that really comprehensive overview of battery industrialization. I think you've covered actually a lot of topics that we've also talked about in our previous sessions. One thing that you mentioned you would like to highlight mostly on is the battery quality. And just building up on that, last week, we also spoke very briefly about standardizations of battery.

20:32And I was just thinking, you know, there are a lot of battery certifications out there as to what kind of safety standards they need to comply with, the ULs and the UNs. And it's interesting how the battery quality definitely for sure would impact, sorry, I meant the quality of manufacturing would impact the ultimate performance of the battery itself. I'm also curious as to your thoughts on the R&D aspect of the battery, say, for example, safer batteries, chemistries, and how that would potentially, you know, help to solve the quality issues of batteries when using EVs. And when do you foresee that the more novel type of battery chemistry would be able to be widely used in the market in the future? Okay, yeah. Let's just start maybe with the whole, to clarify the whole point of battery production and safety. So my point or what I was trying to get at is that these cells are tested and they are tested by international standards and by company internal standards for different applications.

21:55And my argument would be especially for electric vehicles that the companies know what they are doing and all these batteries that are now burning down, they actually shouldn't be burning down. If you look at the quality tests, this should not happen. There are very rare instances where actually I think the batteries were not engineered correctly, especially in the electric vehicle market. Hello. Hi. How are you? We're good. Thanks, Yusuf. Please, we're going to meet you until we're going to, yeah, you're at the right time. Just to catch back my train. So the issue, the production, of course, doesn't improve or, yeah, that cannot improve the basic safety features of a battery, but it can definitely impact them in a negative way. So you basically get the issue with battery production or production quality is always these negative outliers, and they are, to me, the ones responsible for quality issues in the product, be it a car or be it a scooter or anything else. So usually you can track down any fire in any battery to a very specific cell that might, you know, not have the, or might have a wrinkled separator because the stacking or the winding process had some kind of defect that maybe had a particle from a welding process.

23:46So, you know, having an internal short circuit because there was a metal particle from laser welding some part of the battery cell or battery. And these are things that really can impact battery safety. And therefore, I believe there's a strong connection. And for your second point, Catherine, with the novel chemistries and novel technologies, I think they will come and they will, the challenge to industrialize them as quickly as possible. And the specific challenge here is that the more aggressive these novel chemistries are, the more challenging it will be to produce. So actually the quality parameters for new chemistries like nickel-rich chemistries, like these new anode materials, they are rising. You need better dry room environments. You need more precise processes. So all the mistakes that maybe some older NMC 111 or, yeah, some other technology mistakes that they might have forgiven over a lifetime, these are now production errors that it will have a fatal impact on battery life potentially. So that's kind of the area of challenges we have to work here for this topic.

25:26Yeah, thanks so much, Benedict. Yeah, speaking of battery chemistry, it's also very interesting that recently there's an article on BBC about how, you know, moving to net zero would inevitably mean that we will need more mining of the raw materials. And just some figures for everyone of interest here. Well, the UK has already announced that they wish to move all new cars to electric by 2030, from 2030 onwards. But to do that, it would actually require about four times of the current annual production of cobalt, which is really interesting because that would mean, you know, all the way from the supply chain, we need to ensure that we will have good raw materials, sufficient supply of raw materials, all the way to, you know, ensuring that during the production of the battery cells, everything is in order and according to the requirements for a safe battery and to the packing of the batteries that complies with certifications out there and all the way up to recycling at the end of life of the battery.

26:37So it's very interesting how all these things come together when we talk about battery industrialization. I've also seen that we have a couple of people that have joined us on stage. So we'd like to go in the order that we currently see here. So it's Warren, Dionys, Milos, and Enemesh. Warren, hi, the stage is yours. Hi, thank you. So I have three questions in mind. I was going to start the other way, but I'll start because of what you guys just talked about with battery chemistry. I'll go with my third question first. What do you think of lithium iron phosphate chemistry, which, number one, avoids the concern about cobalt. Number two, is ample supply of the materials. There's no issue with it. There's basically unlimited supply of iron and phosphate. I think there's enough lithium for that. And then it seems to be a more reliable chemistry that's been around for a long time and is less prone to quality issues. My other questions relate to Tesla and QuantumScape, but I wanted to ask this first.

27:38Maybe I can start from a production perspective here. So LFP, as you mentioned, is quite reliable. You have established processes. You have established processes. And so what you can see on the material level, actually, these advantages for industrialization are also there for LFP chemistry. And of course, what's kind of the, my perspective, kind of the issue here is that it currently does not fit the requirements for high performance electric vehicles. So, yeah, from a production side, also very reliable and less challenging technology. If you are able to catch the basic challenges of battery production, it should be easy to or very doable to produce LFP chemistry batteries. And that's also why a lot of Chinese companies have started with LFP batteries and then moved to other chemistries like NMC. Okay, so my next question was, it's really the same question. What are your thoughts on Tesla Battery Day on the prospect of Tesla having a 100 gigawatt hour battery production factory in Brandenburg, Germany? You know, capacity by the end of, not full production per year, but potential production capacity of 100 gigawatt hours by the end of 2022.

29:15And what are your thoughts on the prospect of QuantumScape achieving production at scale sometime in the next five years? Yeah, so the first point is, of course, for Tesla, it's never to bet against Elon Musk, I think. That's something we all learned. But I think, of course, the battery production is impacted by the same delays that have already been communicated also in Tesla Berlin. And I think that the part that I see most critical for the timeline here is, well, there are two parts of it. It's first, of course, to get the right talent. Tesla has a lot of experience with batteries, but we have to remember that the bulk of the cell production done for Tesla has been done by Panasonic. So they are very close to that technology. They have a lot of know-how, but they still need to, they are not a cell producer. So that's something that they still have to learn. And yes, so the timeline is very ambitious.

30:30And the ramp-up will be challenging, especially with all these new technologies that they have announced with the dry coat, tri-electrode coating and the new adult materials. So my point of view is that they will be able to start a production, maybe not in 2022, maybe a little later. But I don't think they will be ready to start immediately with this, with all these technologies that they have announced. So, yeah, it will be a step-by-step process from 2022 going on. And then your thoughts on QuantumScape? Yeah, QuantumScape, I think a lot of people talk about solid-state, and it's very interesting. And especially from the product side, from the chemistry side, there are a lot of challenges that are discussed frequently. The production process for QuantumScape or for all solid-state in general is very challenging. And just to give you an idea, there's currently no equipment supplier, to my knowledge, that can offer any equipment to produce solid-state cells at a gigawatt hour scale.

31:51That's also why you often hear companies like QuantumScape or other solid-state startups saying that they want to do drop-in solutions. And I don't think that that would be that easy. I haven't seen any proof of concept that there's a drop-in solid-state solution for current battery productions. So, this timeline for five years is actually quite challenging because you have to keep in mind that QuantumScape has to develop its technology to get a large enough cell to basically scale the technology or the product itself. And then also find a partner or do it in-house to basically develop the production equipment. And that will be the biggest challenge to develop both production equipment and product. And if you look at the other startups that are now coming in Europe and also in the U.S., they usually use an established or more established technology and established production equipment. So, what other battery manufacturers can do is just go to some equipment suppliers like from China, Wuxi, Lid, or from Germany, Mons, or someone like that.

33:20You can just order your battery equipment there without much engineering effort or engineering know-how. And for solid-state, that does not work. So, QuantumScape will have to do a lot of development work together with some partner. And for five years, that's a rough timeline. Just really quick, what are your thoughts on various cell formats, Prismatic, Pouch, and Cylindrical? Yeah. I think there was a shift during the last year. I think Prismatic is now, at least in Europe, in a big focus. China is the same. Yeah. So, I wouldn't say there's any clearly winning format. But I think the Prismatic has gained a lot of momentum. And, yeah, maybe a little bit less pouch cell. But the cylindrical cell also with Tesla announcements. So, I think all cell formats have basically had a little bit of an update over the last year. And now we will have to see which will stay the most competitive year. So, not a clear answer on that right now from my side.

34:44Thank you. Milos, do you just want to continue? Yeah. I think Darylis is also there. So, I think he just had to drop out. Let's go to Darylis very first. Hi, Darylis. Oh, he disappeared. So, okay. Milos, you're next. Hi, how are you? Benedict, I would ask you. The first question I would ask you, I think we have like 70 or one battery producers. I don't. What do you think? Which, I believe that some Chinese automotive producers, they are risking to put the tier two battery producers to their cars, but I don't believe that there is any European or American automaker who is risking to put tier two battery producers to their car? What do you think that which battery producer can break from tier two to tier one? I think we have seven tier one producers, only seven. I think it's critical to what you said before, to the quality and quantity of the batteries which we will have available. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely right.

36:15And I think a very interesting point to see if this difference between tier one and tier two suppliers, not in the sense of direct or indirect suppliers, but in the sense of quality and market application. Yeah, and that's of course something that's very interesting also to these new players in the market because they will have to aim to become suppliers for the OEMs, for the car industry. Otherwise, they will not be able to participate in this scaling of the car industry, of the electric cars. So that's actually, yeah, basically one of the critical milestones that a cell manufacturer has to reach, that they produce batteries that are good, that are interesting to a car manufacturer. And I think here, how can a second class or second tier supplier get an edge here and maybe compete for the car industry? And here definitely, we're getting back to the point of quality. So you have to show as a cell manufacturer that you can deliver an acceptable quality.

37:51And of course, also an acceptable performance. So cell technology itself also plays a role. That's often the issue that they cannot reach certain performance indicators. If they have a good enough quality, that's usually the, I would say the good second class suppliers can actually catch the quality, but they cannot catch the performance data. And then of course, the third major point is always the economical part as well. So there are, that might not count as much for the Chinese suppliers, but for example, here in Europe, you have some smaller cell manufacturers, some specialists. They can never compete for the electric vehicle market because they're just not cost competitive. So yeah. Yeah. Yes. I understood that. I was asking the question mostly because of the quality and which one they can break through the tier one, because we have only seven of them. But another question that I have, you were talking about technologies, new technologies, which they have the chance to be commercialized. What do you think about which technology, which particularly, I think that we have like three potential breakthrough technologies.

39:23And because you said relatively quickly they can break through. So what do you mean relatively quickly? What do you think? Do you think that we will have until end of the decade some breakthrough technology in the lithium-ion battery? Yeah. Yeah. It probably depends a little bit on what you consider a breakthrough. So until the end of the decade, I think something like all solid-state is possible, but it will not be that the lithium-ion battery as we know it today will be replaced by it. I see it more as an addition and maybe a potential for new market participants to actually make that jump to become a top-tier supplier. So with a very good solid-state technology, you can become a great competitor in the market. But I don't think that we will see a major replacement of the lithium-ion technology as we see it today. And by any other technology, be it also the state lithium-sulfur or sodium-ion, anything like that. So the lithium-ion battery with liquid electrolyte will stay the dominant technology for the years to come with some incremental changes.

40:44I call them incremental, but they are still big changes like nickel-rich, even more nickel-rich cathodes, cobalt-free cathodes, new materials on the anode. These are all big steps, but from a production side, it's not something completely new. Yes, I agree with you 100%, but I still tackle the first question. You said the solid-state has the chance to break through the niche technology or some additional technology. Are you basing it on what? On the wish or on the rumors or on the facts? What kind of facts? Because solid-state technology, John Gooden tried to do solid-state technology for 50 years ago, and we still don't have that. Yeah, that's right. However, I've done some projects on it, and we've done teardowns and seen some samples and all that. Based on that, it's not yet ready. But I've been working in the space of solid-state also for the past five years, and when I look at the development that it took for the last five years, and now you see all the capital and money that flows into it, I believe we will see the improvements that solid-state technology still needs over the next years.

42:19And then I don't think – I think we will see at the end of the decade some all solid-state players actually entering the market and having some kind of market power as well, not just in the very niche applications, but really also having some – at a gigawatt-hour scale, some impact on the market. Thank you, Mylos and Benedikt. I think there's some excellent questions, but I think also we want to move to the next people because we have quite a few people who want to ask questions as well. We'll have some thoughts. So let's go to Animesh next. Hey, Simon. Hey, Catherine. Hi, Benedikt. Thanks a lot for your introduction. So I wanted to touch a bit more about the issue of basically the battery cell reliability that you mentioned, especially related to production processes. So, again, cell reliability is not a new issue. It's something we have seen a lot in the consumer electronics space where we had smartphones by reputed manufacturers like Samsung.

43:22Battery cells made by companies like ATL and Samsung. Oh, wow. Okay. So made by companies like Samsung and ATL Catchfire. Over the 90s and early 2000s, one of the areas where a number of Chinese battery cell manufacturers had to catch up was precisely improvement in cell reliability through manufacturing, and most of them have done a great job so far. So when it comes to reliability, Catherine touched upon, you know, there are a bunch of requirements, the UN requirement, the Japanese requirement, BATSA requirements, so on. And when it comes to dealing with the statistical outliers that you mentioned, there are already, I would say, a number of manufacturing best practices which are applied, right? Like, for example, if you're, let's say, something as a separator producer or even a current collector supplier, you know, supplier, you need to, most likely they use Six Sigma, I would say, methodologies to make sure that there is very high quality control. The same thing applies for cell manufacturers. They apply Six Sigma, even more stringent requirements to make sure that the cell finally produced are free of defects so that, you know, incidences don't take place.

44:34Similarly, even before the procurement of any component, a critical component of a cell is made, there is very extensive supply chain audit that is done by the company purchasing from them, right? The quality of the incoming materials, the quality of the outweigh products are very thoroughly evaluated. And besides this, normally, you know, even if you're a small battery pack, the cell manufacturer has to give you a warranty that, you know, only one out of 10,000 or 100,000 cells can have a certain defect or can be susceptible. And again, car companies themselves have a very strong incentive to make sure that fires don't happen. We saw the recent incident recalls with Hyundai, NIO, and even other car makers in the past. However, again, this is a statistical game. So my basic question is, how do you reckon that these existing best practices could be improved, especially in light of, as you mentioned, there are newer chemistries that will have even more possibilities of production defects? Or do you reckon that this is just, I would say, there will certainly be a probability of effective products getting out in the market?

45:45There's 0.0001% at the tail end of a Six Sigma that will always exist, just as how we've come to live with it with consumer electronics. Yeah, that's, Animesh, that's a very interesting point that you make. And I think the point here is Six Sigma is, of course, the golden standard of production quality. That's, I think, everyone who ever touched on production knows the standard, where it's really, you mentioned a number, it's still in the very low, low, low percentage, where there are any errors to happen. You have all these quality measurements, all these actions to optimize quality and to make sure you have a well-working product with good quality. Now, my issue isn't so much with the Six Sigma in itself with this quality measurement. It's more that I, from my personal experience, have never seen any battery cell that actually was produced with a, compliant with Six Sigma. So I actually had that discussion with some cell suppliers a couple of years ago that mentioned that to me, that everyone always tells them to do Six Sigma, but it's so far away for them.

47:17So they do all these methods. They try to have all these quality control measures, but they will never catch this high quality rate because there's just the battery cell in itself with all the chemistry inside. And basically this active chemical reaction going on inside the product all the time, that has so high quality impacts that even with all Six Sigma quality measures implemented, they cannot ensure a high functionality of the battery cell or at the level that we want. So you're very correct on that topic that we might have to look at Six Sigma from a battery perspective and actually learn specifically for the battery industry what a quality best practice is because so far I've not seen any player that, what I would consider a desirable quality measurement or quality control. So there's no one yet in my mind that has mastered that challenge. Yep, that's very insightful. Thank you, Animesh and Benedict. Sergei, would you like to go next? Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Benedict, for your talk.

48:49I'm co-founder at the company that we do some type of innovation in electrode manufacturing, so this is very interesting for us. So what you mentioned about quality problems in battery manufacturing, it's well explained in a company called the future of battery manufacturing for electric vehicles. But what they say also is that battery manufacturing is not only played with quality problems, but also with efficiency problems. And what they say there, and we at Dynami, we coincide, is that current battery production lines rely on equipment and methodologies that are obsolete and that we'll never be able to fulfill the promise of electric vehicles with such technology. So what can you tell us about the efforts, I guess, that mainly in Europe, be made on improving aspects of battery manufacturing? I mean, equipment, industry 4.0, data-rich production, etc. Yeah, that's a very interesting point. And I think I know this paper as well. And there's some truth in that. And some things I will not say this strictly, or I would not say that, for example, the current production technology is not per se efficient enough.

50:47Of course, if you want to get to a point of below 70 US dollars on cell level per kilowatt hour, you will have to think production new. Just to give you an idea of what we are currently talking about, when we look at line efficiency or, yeah, the overall equipment efficiency, so the OEE, I'm not sure if you are familiar with that, it's essentially taking all the downtimes of equipment, all the quality issues, and all the good and not good parts into one number. And that's usually for a very well industrialized process, around 85%. That's very good. So just to keep that in mind, the most battery productions run at around 70, the very good ones between 70 and 80. I've seen some manufacturers that run productions for over a decade that have not surpassed 60%. So with that point, Sergio, you made a very important, you touched on a very important topic that the efficiency of the process has to be increased, and that's, of course, possible with new production equipment and better production equipment and also a better understanding of production equipment.

52:20And how do we tackle that? How can you tackle it? There are, of course, measures like digitalization and industrial 4.0 measures, you know, additional AI applications, all these things that you can do for all production topics and also do for cell manufacturing, that will help. you also need better equipment, just better hardware, so to say. For that point, I'm very optimistic, or for both points, because we have a very large scaling or very fast scaling going on, and that also means to me that there's a lot of money involved and that there are a lot of equipment manufacturers that are now starting to really push battery production equipment and not just see it as some kind of special or niche application, but we see it as a core business. So here I expect that the standardized battery production equipment from market leaders will improve significantly. And, yeah, and therefore also increase efficiency. The other point, of course, is new production technology. So it's, I think, something I touched briefly on with one, your question for Tesla with the dry coating.

53:49And these are, of course, the dry coating process, for example, would be very efficient and very promising if it works because you can leave out essentially one of the most expensive and most complex equipment pieces, the coating drying line, which is essentially, yeah, one of the key equipments of a battery production. And, yeah, just make, and then in a long term also increase the speed. That would be, that would be a major step to basically tackle these issues. But so far, this technology has not been shown to work at scale and has not been applied at a gigawatt hour scale to my knowledge in the battery industry yet. And, yeah, maybe to sum this up, you would assume that the battery industry because of its development would be some very open technology, very technology open industry. But from my experience, especially the, the, the, the, the cell manufacturers that have a lot of experience in the market, they are not very open to new technology.

55:09They are very cautious and very, and very reluctant to, to change a running system and a system that works. So, so here, I think sometimes a lot of people are, are, overestimate or the, I would argue in a different way, the, the, the guys that have experience with producing battery cells, they are much more conservative when it comes to new production technology than newcomers, for example, in Europe. and this also tells me something usually that I, I think there's a big challenge in applying new, new technologies in the production process. And yeah, we will see that over the next years that people will try to apply these processes, these new ones, but some will definitely fail and it will take, it just takes as much time as, as putting in a new material. I would put that at the same level of challenge, having a new production process or developing a new material. Thank you, Sergio and Benedict. And maybe also one thing to say, actually, Ben, sorry, Sergio was pitched at our first battery den happening on the, which happened on the 1st of May.

56:35We actually got another battery den coming up on the 26th. So battery dens is a session where, you know, startups in the battery field can pitch to a nice panel of experts and then we have like, you know, lots of other people also can come on stage and ask questions and it's quite a nice interactive format. So if you're a startup interested to pitch, you know, the work you're doing related to the battery field, for free to get in touch and you can also go on batteryevolution.club and there's like a form you can fill out. And this is also an invitation to maybe follow, if you haven't done so yet, batteryevolution.club, which you can see on the top left on your screen. You know, then you get notified about the future sessions. We've got quite a few more sessions as well. And this is also just one quick reset of the room because we're now at one hour into the session, which means we have about half an hour left.

57:21And we always know that it moves very fast. The last half hour, a lot of people suddenly realize they want to also speak and ask some questions and contribute. So this is just an open invitation to, you know, to raise your hand now if you want to, you know, come on stage. And also there's a special invitation for any woman because we're always trying to, you know, have the panels more diverse or if you're like a person less represented in the battery industry, you're free to raise your hand particularly because we love to have more diverse perspectives as well. With this, I'll give it to Catherine to introduce the next speaker. Great. Thanks so much. I've here on my screen, Sijio, followed by Zen. So if we could go in that order, that would be great. Sijio, the floor is yours. Hi, Catherine. Hi, Simone. Hi, Benedict. Thank you for having me on the stage. It was really insightful conversation and I'm really trying to learn more about battery technology right now.

58:17So I have two questions and a couple more news that I read and I wanted to seek your reflections on that. So I'll start with the questions. So coming to the new composition in battery technology, do you have any suggestions on what are the sustainable composition that is being researched on that you know about? Because considering lithium-ion, for example, after its life, if it is not recycled, probably it will end up in the landfill. So looking at the electric transition in transportation industry, on the long term, if you say it's not really 100% sustainable, I just wanted to know your thoughts on sustainable composition. That was the first question. The second question was regarding, do you have any resources, an open source software or something like that, which can be used to combine together two different probably elements and check how they react, that sort of, any website that you know about, I will be really interested to know. And finally, the couple of reflections that I wanted to seek from you, as many of you had even spoken about the production related aspect also.

59:44So I had read regarding two of the research activities that have been done. So one by a company called Saku, which is Sierra Alpha Kilo Uniform Uniform. So they are proposing large-scale battery production through 3D printing. So I felt it is really fascinating, but I just wanted to know what could be the challenges on that front when we are bringing in new rapid prototyping technologies in order to scale the production of batteries. And the second aspect, the second research that I wanted to get a reflection on was, which is done by University of Queensland, where they are proposing a graphene-enhanced aluminium-ion battery to generate high power density. So I just wanted to get a reflection on these two recent tech newses and understand what are the challenges in this front. So that is it. I'm Siyu Huang. I'm done speaking. Thank you. Siyu Huang. Thank you for the questions. Just to start with the sustainability argument or the sustainability of battery cells and lithium-ion cells. So in my opinion, the NFP technology that we've discussed before might be a way to increase sustainability here just because of what Warren mentioned before of the low criticality of materials.

1:01:23However, I think the key to sustainability here will be recycling. So I'm not aware, I'm not a big research guy. My research days are a little bit in the past, but I've not seen any cell that can perform on the level of a lithium-ion battery and be more sustainable. So I think really the key here is to close the circle, the body streams, to get recycling, to work, to scale recycling at the same level as the battery industry will scale. And then actually I think we will have a very good solution because actually the lithium-ion batteries, especially with nickel and cobalt content, recycling is a very feasible process and it's also from an economical space. As soon as you hit a certain volume for recycling, it's actually a very good use case. For LFP actually, we have a little bit of an issue just from an economical perspective because of course these iron and phosphate are not really high value materials. But I think with the right incentives, we can also increase sustainability here.

1:02:48So for me, sustainability is a topic to tackle. With recycling and to come back to the production part, of course we have to see that. I think that's something that North World has pushed and the whole European battery industry basically evolves around this topic. You have to make all production steps, be it battery production itself, battery cell production, or material production, as green as possible. And then these would be basically the roads I would tackle it with. I'm not too sure if it makes sense to make a big technology switch here. I don't see that as a realistic option. for the other question with the open source, I'm sorry, I don't think I can help you with that, with the open source software for reactions and all that. There are a couple of good review papers that did sum up the reactions in a battery, if you want to get specifically into batteries, technology. I'm not aware of any open source software there. For rapid prototyping, I think that's interesting, not so much for the large-scale industrialization, because you have to have finalized your prototyping essentially before you start your production.

1:04:27but on the way to the production, large-scale production, rapid prototyping is of course very interesting, especially for topics like electrolyte composition and all these other stuff, and all these other material topics, I would say. And yeah, very interesting technology. I've heard several companies trying to do that, doing it, using the methods of prototype to basically improve their battery technology. But as I see it, it's something that goes on before or in parallel to a production. Yeah. Graphene, and for the other things, the graphene enhanced batteries, I've heard it, I think it's a topic that comes up every year or so, that graphene can improve battery performance. I think that's an interesting way to go, but so far I don't think they are close to application. The only thing graphene related might be nanocarbur tubes, which actually are very interesting cell additive for battery cells. But the same goes for aluminum based battery technologies. To me, they are not ready for market application. I don't know if any project that really want to push them to a large scale.

1:05:59power. Thank you, Benedict. Just a couple of follow-ups as well. I just wanted to know your thoughts on, I think I'm hearing an echo. Sorry. what do you think about using electrolysis and scale it up for transportation purposes? The other part is, I don't know whether it is under the interests of this group, but what do you think about fuel cells? Do you have any reflections on those two aspects? hydrogen fuels? Yes. Hydrogen to me will be relevant, but not in the passenger cars. That's a clear no from my side, maybe for very large passenger SUVs with very long range or something like that, but I don't see that as a viable technology alternative for batteries, for passenger vehicles. long range trucks, there might be an opening here, just because the batteries have to get so big that it might have a negative impact on the truck performance. But, yeah, so to me, fuel cells have always been the less attractive option compared to a battery for most car applications, I would call them.

1:07:29Yeah. Thank you, Benedict. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to chime in and, you know, continue the conversation. Again, I'll just introduce myself. I am Shree and I'm currently working in the e-mobility space, working with an R&D based company based out of India, which manufactures battery management systems. So, my question is just a follow-up to the conversation that Sijo and Benedict were having. Benedict, you mentioned that recycling is a really good option when we talk about battery technology and, you know, bringing about sustainability in the practice. I wanted to understand whether reusing or rather looking at the second life of the battery would be a better option in comparison to recycling these battery packs. I wanted to know your perspective on this. So, the production of battery packs, Sijo, please interrupt me if I didn't catch your question correctly, but production of battery packs and modules, I would say, is essentially, of course, very important also, and whatever. So, that might be a very important topic that actually I had a guy from a battery equipment manufacturer make to me.

1:08:54You always have to look at all the battery production, and actually, yeah, everything that has to do with batteries. Once you have coated your electrodes, that's where you define the performance of your battery. After that, you can only worsen your performance. You can only make mistakes after electrode production. You cannot improve it. You cannot make out of bad electrode. You cannot make a good battery cell or a good battery pack. And just to give you a rough, just to give you that overall notion, and of course, battery pack assembly, battery module assembly, also follows this logic. And so, here you essentially have processes that I think are quite familiar for the industry. and that's a good thing because stack or welding and stacking processes are quite well understood in the industry and quite, yeah, even car manufacturers understand these processes quite well. also for battery pack production, I think the big quality issues are easier to tackle than the big quality issues in some manufacturing.

1:10:20You can also see that with, I would call it the level of comfort that car manufacturers have with battery packs and battery modules. And usually, they feel very confident to produce, for example, the battery pack themselves. For the battery cell, they've been very reluctant for a long while, and you can see them now changing their opinion. So, yeah, that would be essentially the point for battery pack production. The challenge here, the technology roadmap, the technology development that I see is that you have this trend to go towards cell to pack concepts. So, you lose a lot of the complexity of pack and motor designs in order to basically install as many battery cells in the car as possible to increase energy density and reduce costs. And that, of course, means on the one side, the streamlining of all designs from battery cell to battery pack. pack, but at the same time, it means that you have to master all the challenges that a battery has to survive with less tasks.

1:11:55How else can I say it? You really need to make sure that your battery design is on top of all the challenges that it will have to face during its lifetime, but you don't have as many safety levels left. So, current battery designs have safety measures on cell level, safety measures on module level, safety measures on pack level, and you see more and more these several layers of protection that they get taken out due to cost and due to the reason for simplification of the overall setup. I don't have a clear answer where this will end, but I think here we will see that at some point, this rationalization of battery design, battery pack design, will lead to cell to pack concepts and cell to pack batteries. Thanks so much, Benendik and Shrey. We are closing into the last 15 minutes of the session. I would like to give Dan the chance to speak as well. Dan, are you still there? I am still here.

1:13:15Thank you. It seems like not that long ago that there was a business model developing that involved swapping out batteries as opposed to recharging. I realized the other day that I haven't really heard anything about that in some time. I'm wondering if indeed that business model is dead or whether it's not and if it has been declared as not viable, did it somehow have to do with the battery technology? I hope that question is appropriate given the context of everything else here. I'm wondering if anyone can update me on that. Thanks. Thanks. Sure. I think I can give you my opinion on that. For me it doesn't have to do as much with battery performance or battery technology. I think that actually to start like that I think there are still companies that offer it in the Chinese market especially. I think NIO is doing it. The battery swapping technology and that has to do less with battery technology from my understanding but more with charging technology.

1:14:41So with cars like the Audi e-tron or the new version 3 supercharger from Tesla or the Porsche Taycan that can all do the fast charging in 10 to 20 minutes. I think fast charging just became what's the technology that basically overtook battery swapping and the other thing the Achilles heel of battery swapping I would say comes down to costs. If you just I think a rough calculation that you can do is you know a battery pack costs I think for electric car at least 10 15 thousand even if you want to just have it replaced it costs a lot of money and if you just calculate that with the batteries you would have to have on stock for supplying a large car fleet that will put you in a investment just for the batteries lying around of billions of dollars I would say and that's of course something that most car manufacturers are very hesitant to do to just buy all these batteries to have them lie around at different locations I would like to add that with the new Tesla structural battery pack is not possible because Tesla is building down in Berlin and Austin Texas the structural battery packs so basically you cannot change them another thing maybe to add as well is because there's also a topic which we had kind of in period sessions so there's new companies such as Ample so A-M-P-L-E no E in end A-M-P-L-E dot com for example and they work on a modular system where you can swap these modules battery modules and maybe Citrus or something but essentially so they also I think really targeting fleet sharing Ubers of this world so they're doing some pilots as far as I've seen in the US with swappable batteries for these Uber cars so they're using some simple Renault Nissan some more simple cars electric cars rather than Tesla so I think there could be some niche for it but it will be interesting to see if it gets widely adopted then also what could be the use cases for it C-Ju did you have a point again Hi Simon I just wanted to second your thought as well as support the concept of modularity so I was just tapping it to show the appreciation thank you then you want to ask the question or can I no I was just going to express my appreciation for updating me on all of this can I ask the question about what do you think about this new 4680 dry electric battery structural battery pack from Tesla I think it's a second generation of lithium-ion battery we had it up if it you said if it will work yes so let's assume that it will work do you agree !

1:18:14with me its second generation of lithium-ion battery we had the first generation for 30 years commercialized by Sony in 1991 and I think now we have the second generation of lithium-ion battery from Tesla combine those technologies manufacturing and everything yeah Milos I I'm not sure if I would call it the second generation because I think there were some generations in between the Sony and the current cell design so for example for me the Chevy Volt I think is something that is very rarely talked about that actually got this first large at least to my knowledge this first large pouch cell with NMC technology into the market that would be I think the second generation to me but you're right this this so maybe to explain my point of view on this Tesla technology if everything works that cell would be on the same this battery concept would be at the same level for me as a solid-state battery and that's to me also the reason why I haven't heard of any solid-state plans from Tesla because I think they have this technology where they want to focus on and if they can reach all their goals they will be competitive with all solid-state and I think that's a great approach and that's I think what you wanted to get at this new generation of battery so for me the 4680 with all the new materials and the dry coating and all that that would be a technology that is competitive with all solid-state and the next generation of battery technology yeah I mean for me solid-state is not yet competitive because nobody showed me a prototype of the battery independently verified you know so how we can go from the research to commercialization if we don't have even yet prototype that it works yeah with the prototype I would argue that there are some out there I think the I I don't sure if I wanted to call the QuantumScape a prototype but they have at least shown a working pilot cell you've seen guys like I think they're called fractorial that have shown some prototype I mean with all these new technologies you can always be critical so for example I haven't seen the prototype for the working 4680 with the silicon anode and dry coating and all that.

1:21:09I haven't seen a working prototype for that as well. So for me, it's both solid-state and this new Tesla technology. It's both promising. And now I think they have to do a lot of work to get it done, to get it to market. And right now I could not state where I think which... Currently I cannot tell you which technology will be more successful at this point. Because they both have still challenges to master. I understand you. Brilliant. Thanks so much. Minos as well and Benedikt, of course. And yeah, this is just the last few minutes. So if there's any last questions from the group or the audience, now could be a good time to raise it. And otherwise we're also going to have a bit of a lookout what's going to happen next week and beyond. Anybody has any questions? You too? Yeah. So I just wanted to seek information from a beginner's perspective. So Benedikt, do you have any suggestion for a beginner to begin learning more about the battery technology?

1:22:26Where to start? Is there any resources that you could refer to? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, I can... I mean, there are a lot of good review papers and sources online. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Maybe I can send you over some links so I don't have any titles with me now or anything like that. To be honest, with battery production, I think to give you a very start, a very good first idea how it works is to really... It sounds a little stupid, but that's also how I started a couple of years ago. Look at... Watch some videos of running battery productions on YouTube. And I still do that today if I don't, for example, understand the production process. I look if there's some promotional video or something like that from a certain kind of battery production equipment. And just watch it to understand how the machine works because it's a very physical... And it's a manufacturing process, so you can see everything that's going on.

1:23:40And what I usually do, just to be very practical, I reduce the speed to watch it frame by frame and really understand how the steps go, how the steps work. And I think if you combine that with some literature research and then some papers, I think you can get a very good understanding of battery production. Thank you, Ben. Maya, do you have a quick question? Yeah. I just want to ask about this startup at MIT called Ambri Batteries, which is started by this professor, very famous professor, Donald Sadoway. So any updates on that and how would you rank it as a technology? Do you think it's a potentially good technology since it is also backed by the breakthrough energy ventures? Yeah, that's my question. Ben, if you don't know technology, I can answer. Yeah, Miloš, just go ahead. I'm just looking for if I know the technology. Yeah. Yeah. I know Dan Sadoway for more than 25 years because he's coming from the steel industry.

1:24:59I mean, he's technology in the steel industry. So I know this technology relatively well. It's promising technology. But like, I mean, I think he's further away from the like those breakthrough technologies like solid-state and other technologies. But it's not yet commercialized. So basically, he's got the prototype. You can use this battery. His problem or the problem with this battery, it operates only in the very high temperature. So basically, you need to warm this battery to the certain temperature. I think it's 400 degrees Celsius or maybe 600 degrees Celsius. So extremely high temperature this battery is operating on. And it's suitable if it's going to be commercialized. It's suitable for the energy storage system, not for the cars. Yes, obviously. Right. Right. The energy grid, I think, is what he's focusing at. And yeah, it's a great point. I'll consider that. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. But from development point of view, he's got the viable technology, which he can show that it works.

1:26:22So basically, it works. The batteries are produced today. I mean, they are just not used. They were not commercialized. Right. But it has huge potential in that case. Yeah, thank you, Mayank. But yeah, it's definitely one of these startups which has been there for a long time and, you know, always waiting for more announcements. So I think it also shows, right, how challenging it can be. I think as many other startups, you know, like Benedict also mentioned earlier, was Graphene. And lots of companies, you know, claiming the big breakthrough. And, you know, sometimes they have it, but also many times it doesn't go as fast as anticipated. And I guess that's part of, you know, the excitement, which is also maybe a quick segue to, you know, the excitement of Battery Den, which we're going to have coming up. As I mentioned earlier, where battery startups can pitch in this forum here on Clubhouse. We have like a bunch of nice panelists and experts and investors in the room as well.

1:27:15So it's a really nice forum. So if you're interested, feel free to check out batteryrevolution.club or connect with Catherine and myself on LinkedIn. We can connect there as well. So just looking at the time, unfortunately, I know you raised your hand. I tried to accept you many times. Somehow it doesn't let me. And yeah, it's as usual. People are getting the most interested in the last minutes. But I think we are trying to stick to the one of ours. Before I leave it to Catherine to also close up the session or maybe provide an outlook for next week's session, which is already scheduled. You can see it if you follow Battery Revolution on the top left. Then you get notified about next week's session as well. I also really want to thank Benedict for being with us today. I think it was really excellent. Overview he provided lots of, you know, really gave lots of answers to many questions and very diverse directions, which was fantastic.

1:28:03You know, as you can see, he's also new to Clubhouse. As he also mentioned in the beginning, so you see a little Party head he has on the left side. And yeah, so give him a follow. You know, I mean, we can maybe increase his followers a bit today and, you know, keep him encouraged to stay around. And yeah, just a big shout out to Benedict. And, you know, if you want to connect with him, I'm sure you can do so as well. And yeah, also maybe a quick plug as well to say that I'm also very excited that Benedict actually going to join as a speaker, as a lecturer for the next BatteryMBA. So people who know me, I'm running a program with my company Battery Associates called BatteryMBA, Battery.mba. And Catherine going to be a speaker at this cohort, which I'm very excited about. But also Benedict going to be a speaker for the next cohort. So very much looking forward to have even more insights there and also have some of these nice graphs I'm sure he has as well.

1:28:51Great. With that, maybe I'll leave it to Catherine to have an outlook for next week and close out the room. Great. Thank you so much, Simon. And thank you once again to Benedict. Everyone, please give him a big shout out and also follow him on Clubhouse as well. So yeah, next week we'll be speaking with one of our panelists actually for Battery Den on Second Life. So feel free to tune in at the same time at 3 p.m. CET on Saturday. For those of you who are new to Clubhouse, give us a follow on our club for Battery Revolution and you can see all the updates for events as well. So if you do know any startups and who will be interested to connect with battery experts and VCs in this space, feel free to send them our way. And we can look them in for the next Battery Den, which will take place on the last Saturday of June for our second Battery Den session.

1:29:47So thank you everyone for staying. And we look forward to seeing you next week as well. Have a great rest of the day, everyone. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Well, everyone. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Well, everyone's great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.