Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Battery Manufacturing

0:00Transcript

0:00Yeah, great. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for tuning back in. And today, we're very happy to have Christopher Taylor joining us today talking about battery manufacturing. He spent the last 10 years working in the EV space and particularly in battery manufacturing. So we had a chat earlier this week about the topic. And it's a great discussion. And we know we would really love to have all of you guys join in as well just to discuss and hear your thoughts and Chris' thoughts on battery manufacturing and challenges. And some of the trends that's happening right now. So, yeah, maybe, Chris, I will pass the mic yourself a little bit and then I can share some of the rules and some of the format that we have here for today. Yeah, thanks, Catherine. So a little bit about myself. As Catherine said, I've been in the battery manufacturing industry for just over 10 years. Prior to that, I had no experience whatsoever in batteries. So it was quite a big learning curve within the industry.

1:14I've been involved in sort of all processes within a pouch manufacturing environment. So right the way through from material, right the way through to pack. It's coming off the end of the line. Obviously, I've spoke with Catherine earlier this week. And prior to that, I know Simon as I'm a participant in the BatteryMBA run by Battery Associates as well. Great, perfect. Thanks for that. Yeah, that's how Christopher and myself met on BatteryMBA. And if anyone's interested, feel free to check out Simon's profile. That's something that Battery Associates is running. I believe they may have another question coming up. But it's a great program with a lot of experts like Christopher himself. And looking forward to, you know, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Simon for that. So thanks for the introduction, Chris. Just some brief introduction about this club. So Battery Revolution, Simon and Michelle started 25 weeks ago on Clubhouse. And that's where we met as well for the first time.

2:27So it's been a great experience since. We've talked about various different topics, such as battery recycling, battery second life applications, and all the way to different usages of batteries and battery materials, etc. So we've got a great experience hearing and also from Firestarter speakers as well. So today we're very happy to be talking about battery manufacturing. And before I pass on the mic to Chris to let him deep dive into the topic, just some housekeeping matters. If you're new to Clubhouse, and I see some people who have party hats down below. If you're new to Clubhouse, this session lasts for one and a half hours. And this session is also recorded for podcasts on Spotify. If you check out batteryinsiders.com, you can see some of the earlier episodes that we have. If you're interested to participate with us on stage, just feel free to click on the raise hand button down below. And once we see it, myself and Simon will let you up on stage.

3:37And once you're on stage, if you wish to speak, just feel free to tap your mic button twice. If you wish to applause or agree with something that someone said, just flutter your mic. Otherwise, we really appreciate if you could get yourself muted when you're on stage. And we really value giving everyone the chance to speak. So we will usually go in the order that we see here on stage to facilitate the discussion. Right. So just a little bit about Simon and myself. Simon now is actually stuck in the traffic. So unfortunately, he will only be able to jump in about 20 past. And Simon is the founder of Factory Associates. Just, you know, a great person. For everyone. And especially, they post the background. So feel free to check out their website as well. Myself, I'm the co-founder. And yeah, we are your co-host for today. Chris, are you there? Chris, are you there? Hey, Catherine. I think I just lost you for a moment there.

5:16No worries. Yeah. I was just passing on the mic to you so you could kickstart the discussion for us. Yep. So obviously, as has been mentioned, I'm going to sort of look at the battery manufacturing side. 10 years ago, when I entered the industry, we were building at the time what was the largest battery manufacturing site in Europe. There was very little sort of media compared to the day with regards to battery manufacturing. There's a lot of skepticism in the industry, whether the batteries would become sort of mainstream. Fast forward to 2021. Fast forward to 2021. And it's very clear, you know, some of the latest maps I've seen, say, 30 plus gigafactories, either in production or planned within Europe. You've had, so earlier in the year, you've had sort of Tesla and VW doing sort of our ideas and sort of insights into theirs. More recently, the previous week, we've seen sort of Renault coming out with A-Wares and Electropop, Nissan and AV360 videos, which are online.

6:31And I'd recommend sort of anybody to jump on and sort of see them. But it seems very clear that the industry has grown exponentially over this decade. So what seems to have been very slow to start off is hugely accelerated over the last couple of years. So what's changed and why so quick? My personal view, it's almost like a perfect storm. So we've got governments with the plans for decarbonization, the ban on ice. So automotive OEMs are sort of pushing and accelerating their plans towards EVs. And this can only be sort of good news for the battery manufacturers because obviously the demand is there and the capacity, as we can see, is grown. So as more brands, and by brands, I mean OEMs sort of take the jump into EV, you know, we've seen more models of vehicles. This gives the consumer more choice. So if the consumer has got more choice, there's the potential, obviously, that they'll switch over to the EV side. And so that's sort of the landscape side of how I see it so far.

7:45From a manufacturing point of view, and you'll find lots online with regards to tier suppliers and sort of tier one, tier two, tier three. And there's varying different sort of descriptions online of sort of what each tier is. But generally, the higher the tier, the more stringent the qualification process. And then sort of further on, the manufacturing itself, obviously, it's putting inputs into a process, which then transforms it. And the output product is either your modules or your battery packs. So within manufacturing, there's varying different facilities aimed at the manufacturing that can be similar or very different between the manufacturers. And obviously, different between the types of cells, so cylindrical, prismatic, and pouch. So obviously, with pouch, you're stacking your cathodes, your anodes, separating them with separators. With cylindrical, I believe the term's sort of a jelly roll. And then potentially with the prismatic, it's more of sort of a winding in the cell process. But overall, the processes that they'll go through, so although the facilities may be different, the processes will be very similar.

9:09So starting off, you'll have the material preparation. And there's a lot of companies out there that begin to integrate this into the process. So, you know, coating of the material and the various processes you have with that. Why are they integrating this? Well, it reduces the environmental impact. You know, you're not having to transport large, heavy rolls. You're reducing cost of the business. It's given the manufacturers increased control on the process. And as part of that, you'll then sort of have preparing these rolls that you've produced into sort of material ready to feed into your own facilities. From there, you'd move into sort of a cell assembly. So it would be the same for any of the three types that I've previously mentioned. It tends to be a clean room environment. By this, what you find is sort of the stringent controls in place, the temperatures, dew points, particles, humidity. All of that's controlled and continuously monitored. And it'll involve, no matter what type of cell you're building, it'll involve, obviously, the assembling of this cell.

10:29Very important from a battery manufacturing point of view is the quality. So both in the material preparation and the cell part, if you get the quality wrong in this stage, it can have a severe impact on your battery performance, on the performance of it. Because once your cells are sealed, you know, the only way to change, well, there is no way to change anything in them, you know. It involves sort of dismantling and that sort of brings it out of the process then. You then move into sort of the process that will look at sort of formation and aging of these cells. So the cells will be getting, you know, the first charge to kickstart the chemical reaction. There'll be sort of various measurements taken. The functioning of the cell will be checked. And to imagine sort of this area, it is a highly automotive, automotive process. So if you think of large sort of warehouses and obviously the cells being moved in between them.

11:44You then go, once you've got your cell sort of built, you've got your module assembly. So from a cylindrical point of view, this may mean obviously you weld a number of cells together. From a pouch form, it'll be sort of stacking your cells into pouches, into sort of modules. And again, the expectation is it's sort of a highly automotive process. Obviously, it's potentially the last opportunity for any inspections to individual cells because after that, you're then dealing with sort of modules. And at this stage, there is a charge there. From your modules, potentially, you know, you could supply your modules direct to customers. It's easy to transport modules compared to full packs. But obviously, the next process potentially would be the pack assembly. So assembling these modules into packs ready for automotive. From a module point of view, it could be sort of sent straight to the customer and used in either automotive or in static storage or a variety of other different areas. So that's sort of the five main processes.

13:10Obviously, like I say, the facilities within each process will be different to obviously the type of cells you're using. But there will be some similarities between them. Key functions in this area from a manufacturing point of view, you'll obviously have your manufacturing departments. You'll have your maintenance departments, quality departments, engineering, supply chain management, making sure you're getting the part in. And the ideal is obviously the process to flow. So it's quite strange because when I speak about manufacturing, the people, you know, when they imagine a manufacturing process, they tend to think of a conveyor. Something going on at one side and something coming off at the other side. But as I've just explained, within the battery manufacturing side, there's lots of different processes that they're going through. And potentially, you know, they may come back on each other. They may sort of various movements forward, but there could be sort of movements back. And that's, like I say, the manufacturing side. From a future landscape point of view, you know, you know, there's numerous forecasts out there and they're continuously changing.

14:24So I'm not really going to quote any of them. But safe to say, obviously, the demand is increasing. As the demand increases, there's more capacity required. And that causes challenges not only in sort of the production side, but also in getting the materials that you require. So how it grows, obviously, you know, it's anybody's guess. I wouldn't like to say who the main players will be. But, you know, there's potentially 30 of them out there to choose from. Sort of if you've seen sort of the Gigafactory is in plan. So when you're looking at Gigafactories as well, you know, there's various sort of challenges to them as well. You know, and just the location of it can be a challenge. Because, obviously, the process, you know, can be sort of quite intensive. Just look at sort of the charging of the cells, the producing of the cells. You know, it's quite sort of energy intensive. You've got design and procurement. So, you know, you have to design these factories.

15:48You've got to order the machineries. And just the amount of sort of Gigafactories that are planned, you know, this can potentially lead to lead times and extended lead times on the machinery. There's various sort of buy-offs you would have to do on the machinery. And then you've got to build the factory itself. And quite often what you see when you're seeing sort of these announcements of new Gigafactories, you know, you'll see them sort of 10 gigawatt hours by such and such a year, 20 by such and such a year, and 30, and so on. And sort of my take on this, the reasons, you know, it could guarantee sort of faster production. It's quite quicker to get to 10 gigawatts than what it is to get to 20 gigawatts, you know, by the time you get your machinery in. It protects the organization from changes in technology. So, when you're looking at a large scale, for instance, if you sort of build all your technology based on today's technology, and it's still going to take you sort of two to four years to get going.

16:47By the time you're ready to run, there could have been sort of significant changes. So, there's a level of protection in there. And by starting off smaller and sort of building up your capacity, it allows you to gain sort of training and experience within a core group. And you can then be dispersed sort of throughout the organization. And then once you've got your factory built, there's then sort of further challenges, you know, sort of how's it going to set up, how are you going to get the parts in, who do you need, what buy-offs you do. And obviously, there'll be a level of buy-offs required right the way through, sort of all the departments. But some of these challenges, so from an industry, you know, I think there's sort of the challenges related to getting the volume there, the performance, the quality of the cells, the modules and the packs. You've got to make sure your process is efficient, you know. So, by having an efficient process, you know, you're looking at, again, you're looking at your quality, you're looking at sort of how your process is running.

18:00There's the challenges with sort of brand image. You know, you want to be there, you want to be at the forefront, you want to be producing these cells or these modules. And, you know, you don't want any sort of issues with your product. And then again, as I said, you've got the technology advancement. But that's not the end of it. You've also got other considerations when it comes to sort of industry certification and sort of the different regulations. So, just to name a few of them, you know, you've got ISO 9001. Obviously, that's a certification around quality. You've got IATF 16949 and VDA 6.3. These are more sort of customer specific and they're built sort of to go further than ISO 9001. VDA 6.3, it's a mandatory requirement to have that certification to supply German automotive. And the IATF 16949 is manually to be able to supply certain automotive OEMs, some of which include the likes of GM, GLR, BMW, V-Dub. And then on top of those, you've got all obviously all the other regulations.

19:21You've got potential future regulations. You've got sort of international standards for environmental. So ISO 14001. And you've got sort of the 45001, which is geared towards the safety. So, there's a lot of challenges out there to overcome before you even produce your first sort of manufactured product. And I don't want to bore you with sort of lots of it. I've tried to cover quite a wide scope there. So, obviously, I'd like to sort of hear some of your thoughts on it. Any questions, I will try and answer. Thank you so much for that overview, Chris. I do have some questions myself. I'm just going to let Milo up on stage for a second. Great. So, while Milo's joining us on stage, I do have some questions with regards to what you mentioned earlier about Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 manufacturers. And I was wondering if you know what are the differentiating factors between them. And the second question is, we know that in battery manufacturing, there are a lot of checkpoints.

20:40And what are some of the key checkpoints that you do see across processes in the industry? Yeah. Yeah. So, two very good questions, Catherine. In regards to sort of the TR supplies. So, TR1 tends to be sort of, it's the top level supplier. The companies have generally gone through a number of certifications. They've shown that they can sort of supply and supply and sort of its scale. TR2 is just under sort of the TR1. And there's quite some good information out there on the different tiers. Benchmark minerals, they tend to sort of publish, I believe, sort of every three months with regards to them. And on the latest one that I saw off them, they're named around seven TR1 suppliers. You've then got TR2. They can be sort of smaller in capacity to the TR1s. The qualification processes that they've gone through, they've still gone through a number. They're still qualified to sort of supply automotive. And TR3 is generally where they're not qualified to supply automotive.

22:15They tend to be sort of small scale. But as you're developing these companies, you know, you can rise quite quickly sort of through the tiering system. But it tends to be that, as I've said previously, you know, generally the higher your tier, the more stringent the process you've had to go through. So, you know, the various customer audits potentially, you know, being able to show sort of your process and everything that you're doing with it and sort of limitizing potential risks. In regards to sort of the checkpoints, obviously manufacturers will vary, but the checkpoints will all be sort of aimed to be around, you know, there'll be sort of quality checkpoints in there, you know, where you're checking the quality of the product you're doing. There'll be checkpoints towards sort of the environment that you're producing it in. And, you know, you'll be checking against your recipe, obviously, to make sure that the cells you're producing. But they're all geared towards sort of quality and performance of the cell.

23:29So I know that's quite broad, but I'm obviously ensuring that I don't get any IP sort of information. I hope that answers your question. Yep. Thank you so much for that, Chris. I'll pass on the mic to Myles, who've just joined on stage. Hi, Myles. Are you there? I am here. How are you? Great, great. Thank you. Chris, I would ask you, what do you think or what do you know? All the Giga plants, at least, or maybe other plants as well, are using the same manufacturing process, what I would call first generation manufacturing process, those 16 steps in the manufacturing battery cells? You know, I think, and this is sort of my personal point of view, you know, I think technologies come on a long way. It depends on whether you're looking at sort of technologies into the facilities themselves, which I'm sure have come a long way in turn here. The processes themselves, obviously, are dependent on the chemistries you use, so I would imagine there will be sort of different ones.

24:50But, you know, it's, I think as experience grows, manufacturing is very, very good with sort of innovation and looking to continuously improve the processes. So, I definitely believe that, obviously, the new gigafactories, you know, will be using sort of cutting edge technology. It will be sort of newer technology to maybe what was used 10 years ago or even longer sort of in the Asian markets. Does that answer that, Mylo? No. No. Because I'm asking if the manufacturing process, basically how you are coating the anode and cathode and how you are then slicing and everything else, there is basically one process which I know about. And this is a major process which I think over the 30 years evolved, but I think almost everybody is doing the same process. And I would like to clarify my understanding if I'm right or wrong. This process of the 16 steps of the manufacturing battery cells, I think is the same process. Everybody is using different chemistries, but the process how they are applying those chemistries to the foils and then cutting and the whole manufacturing process is basically the same.

26:27Do you have understanding what is this process or you don't have? I think sort of what you allude and do is obviously the application within sort of the cells of, you know, putting sort of your stacks together, applying your tabs to foils, applying sort of the function in between that. Is that right, Mylos? If not, I think I'm completely sort of, yeah. Yes, I am talking about that. How you are basically manufacturing battery cells, especially in those giga plants, 215 of them, which are in the pipeline, but also many other plants which are in the world. Yep, so I'll get you. So, you know, I think, you know, the nature of the cells themselves haven't changed. So, if you look at cylindrical, you know, it involves the jelly roll and sort of then winding the jelly roll and obviously your connectors. If you look at the pouch side, you're putting your stacks together, you're cutting. You know, there's welding processes in there, you know, you're applying your sort of tabs to foils, sealing of obviously the pouches.

27:44So, there will be similarities, but I don't know what sort of every manufacturer is doing out there. So, I think, you know, you're right in sort of what the 16 sort of processes or sort of the different methods that might be used within that processes could be sort of innovated and different between manufacturers. Thank you. Thank you. So, it looks like you are probably on the similar page to me. Most probably there is the same process. You don't know for sure about somebody else who is using different process. Yeah, that's pretty much correct. So, basically, how I would summarize it for everybody else, how I understand it, and it seems like you are understanding the same, the 215 giga plants in the world, which are in the pipeline, they are using the same process of the manufacturing, which is already like 30 years old process, which is first generation process. But, obviously, it evolved over 30 years to work better and better and better. I think what we're talking about there, Melos, you know, the manufacturing sort of processes have come on.

29:18The chemistries, obviously, will be different ones amongst them. The technology itself, I'm not quite sure on those ones. So, obviously, you know, you've took the lead on sort of summarizing that. My question would be in the same direction about the coating process. I think Tesla is making quite a lot of noise since they bought Maxwell Technologies, and they were pushing somehow the dry coating process. And that is my question to you, Christoph. I think, you know, if you know, if beside Tesla, there are other companies or cell manufacturers already going in this direction. And even I think Tesla is more than one year, but still more than one year until they really can produce them in a reasonable number. So, what's your take on this dry coating process? Are you aware that other companies here in Germany or Europe building up using or intend to use these processes? What's your take on this? So, I've seen the similar sort of hype from Tesla, you know.

30:22I've got very little sort of information on that side of it. So, unfortunately, Ingo, I probably have the same level as yourself. I can answer you, Ingo. Tesla, I know this process very well. And I know what Tesla is doing very well. This process combined with other features of their new battery is basically second generation of the lithium-ion battery. So, they are further along. Tesla, I don't know about anybody else who is commercializing this process like Tesla is doing. So, I doubt there is somebody else. So, I think, not I think, I'm pretty convinced, almost 100%. Like 99% that Tesla is only one, which is incorporating this process. Not even Panasonic, which Tesla is sharing with them the technology. Not even the LG Chem, which is just Tesla is sharing that technology with them. So, Panasonic most probably is working together with Tesla on the new form of 4680 batteries. LG Chem is the same way. But Panasonic and LG Chem are using still traditional process of manufacturing these batteries.

31:4416 steps. Tesla is not one year away from this process. Tesla is producing batteries today. They call it pilot plant in Fremont, California. But if it would be a standalone plant, it would be like the 13 largest plant in the world. So, it's 10 gigawatt hours of the battery capacity today. And it's expanding to 20 gigawatt hours capacity. And they are manufacturing the cells as of today. The problem is that they are ramping up and tweaking this production. It's already like seven, sorry, it's going to be today like nine generation of the battery process from the time when they acquired Maxwell. And they are still tweaking it for the batteries. Those batteries, the first commercial plant will be in Berlin and Texas. In Berlin and Texas, they already ordered machinery. So, it's not like that. It's money a year from the time when they will start to produce the battery using this process. We will see what really happens. The battery manufacturing site in Germany is in the planning phase.

33:11It's not built yet. They start building. And even, I think, Elon Musk told in his last quarterly review that they are one year ahead of really production. We will see what comes up. Yeah, Ingo, it's, Elon said, one year away from volume production. And you are right. But Berlin is not in the planning process. Berlin is in the construction. And in construction, the machinery is already ordered. It's obviously not yet assembled because it's in construction. And same way is in Texas. The battery plants are, those two battery giga plants, which they will use, the 4680 process and the dry battery electro process, are in the construction already, not planning. But coming back to Christoph, as we see, there are a lot of battery production sites in planning in Europe. And I see it's still a lot of Chinese companies investing in this capital and all these other ones, LG or Taiwanese. What about European investors? How is your take on European investors? You see, I think, Northvolt, who is really putting money on this technology from a European perspective?

34:29Yep. So I think you've mentioned sort of one of the main companies there in sort of the European point of view. And again, from sort of a Northvolt perspective, it's just what I've sort of researched online that I've got the knowledge of, you know. But they seem to be sort of possibly quite, you know, the furthest ahead of the other ones. Yep. I agree. There's sort of a number of companies. Asian sort of companies out there. But you have sort of got other ones sort of coming into play. You know, you've got your free hours, your morrows. And I think sort of, you know, Europe, you know, just saying sort of the amount of them, they are growing very, very sort of quickly. Or the plan is to grow very quickly. I think the regulations, you know, that potentially could come out in regards to sort of manufacturing of the batteries, you know, and obviously things like where the sort of contents of the batteries are manufactured.

35:44I think that sort of is aimed at setting up these manufacturing companies within Europe. But, you know, I do take your point. There's still a number of Asian companies out there. Thanks so much, everyone. I see that. Karshi, you have to also join us on stage. Karshi, do you have your thoughts? Really interesting discussions. Thanks, Catherine, for having me over. A quick understanding, Christopher, I had a lot of breaks while you were talking, so my apologies for that. But have you taken the life cycle of your batteries the entire way in terms of end of life treatment and there are regulations coming in in terms of end product responsibility. How do you see yourself as being different or do you have a policy established for that? And do you believe it can be implemented well? You know, I think sort of end of life and sort of second life, you know, they're coming sort of well into focus. You know, there's a lot of focus on it.

36:55I think all companies out there have got to sort of consider the end of life or whether they're going to recycle, whether the batteries are going to be sort of second life, how they're going to use them. And, you know, I had an interesting discussion sort of previous in the week. I was discussing sort of with Catherine. And second life batteries obviously, they bring the challenges with them as well. Recycling is certainly not sort of mature in its mature stages are still growing. I think there'll be sort of innovations yet to come with recycling and the recycling of batteries will get more and more efficient. Does that then affect second life batteries? You know, so from a second life point of view, you've still got to sort of transport the batteries. And I think you make an important point with regulations. So when you're dismantling sort of a battery and you're creating it into, you're stripping it back to modules to be used in second life.

37:59How are those batteries then shipped, for instance? You know, in essence, it's a repurposed module. So what sort of regulations do you then need to follow? So to answer your question, I think everybody out there involved in it is focused towards sort of the end of life and the recycling and sort of second life opportunities because it sort of creates additional value to the battery itself as well. Thank you very much. And also welcome from my side. Thanks so much, Catherine, for, you know, keeping it together, as I mentioned, or like, you know, doing the wonderful introduction. And thanks so much as well, Christopher. Very good to see you as well, as always. And yeah, thanks so much for these interesting questions as well. I think there is someone else trying to join, but I think somehow it doesn't seem it is working. So maybe also a question from my side in between, Christopher, because you mentioned, right, like, you know, all the big changes happening, et cetera, and all these different technologies and places.

39:08So I'm just, I mean, I know it's a tough question, but what is maybe your thought for, you know, how it could develop in the next 10 years or so from a volume perspective, but maybe also from pricing? Because, you know, I think we have seen a price drop about 90% or so the last decade or so. And I'm just quite curious. What are maybe your thoughts on a manufacturing standpoint? You know, how much, how much space is there? Like how much can still be improved from a manufacturing standpoint and when the battery space? Yeah. So very good question, Simon. You know, we have, we've seen sort of year on year drops in sort of the cost of batteries, which tends to be sort of measured as dollars per kilowatt hour. You know, the, I still see further drops in the future. How far it goes down is probably anyone's guess. I think, you know, certainly sort of the biggest improvements you see in cost tend to be sort of around on current chemistries would be sort of process improvements, you know, on sort of getting more volume through where obviously you come into sort of economies of scale, the more you, the more you're producing in the given time.

40:23So as sort of the facilities are improved and the processes, you know, if there's sort of potential changes to the process and by the process, I mean the, the overall. So there's definitely improvements to be, to be had there. And I think some of the biggest ones will come sort of certainly from chemistry changes as well. solid-state sort of stands out, but you know, I don't think we're sort of anywhere near. I know there's talk of sort of prototypes, but from a large scale manufacturing point of view. So back to the sort of summary of my answer, I would say, you know, it's the process of improvements, they them drop even further and there will be further drops as we, as we move through the next decade. I wouldn't like to give a figure on what it's going to be because I have to be honest that obviously same as everybody else, I haven't got a crystal ball, but it will improve certainly. Thank you, Chris.

41:33Yeah, I agree. It's a tough one. So I appreciate giving an answer there. Wonderful. We also look at the time. So I think we're now about one hour in, so it's about 30 minutes left. As Catherine mentioned before, it's usually the time when people start flooding the stage. So if you want to do it ahead of time, feel free to do so now. I'm also paying some people in the audience, but yeah, feel free to anybody to jump in on the session, because we'd love to have you here as well. And yeah, maybe in between, is there anybody else on panel right now who has anything ready? Anybody else? Thanks. I see there's some people in the audience trying to come on. Thank you. Hi. So I have a question. I have a question regarding aluminum battery. Is aluminum will be the new way for electric vehicle? I can answer very quickly. No. Thank you. Yeah, I think I'm sort of, I think I might be on the same wavelength as Milos.

42:51Yeah, I think sort of the lithium will be the dominant and it is already. So, you know, the use of lithium is now an electric vehicle and we've been using it for a number of decades. Do you think the lithium will deplete eventually, start depleting? No. And the lithium prices will increase? You mean lithium like the material like the… Lithium material, so if you know people are getting an electric vehicle, they're using lithium over there as well. So then, if the consumption of lithium increases, that means lithium will start depleting and eventually the price of lithium will increase? No. No, we have plenty of lithium on the earth. We have plenty of lithium for a million years. So the answer is no. We need only to learn how to process lithium more feasibly, various kinds of the lithium. Right now, we have the processes for two kinds of the lithium commercialized, for the lithium rack and lithium brine. And we are producing lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate out of those processes.

44:09We know to produce it commercially, but we are learning. And I'm sure we will, next decade and decade after, we will learn to process also other forms of lithium. Okay. To add to that, what Milo said was absolutely accurate. Give you a stat. We are using less than 20% of our mining capacity globally today. This is brylithium. There's lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide. There's also lithium that can be sourced from the seas, which is not an environmentally difficult process, or it doesn't create a lot of hazard if handled well. And with the amount of lithium that can be recycled, we have enough to keep ourselves going. So unless lithium-ion batteries are replaced by something which is far more superior in terms of charging cycles or charging time, I don't think we're running out of lithium in the near future. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. One more addition to that, what Kaushik said. full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full other technologies if the other technologies will break through they can capture like maximum five percent of market share may i ask a question if that's okay with the mods yes yeah my question is uh you know we are looking at some you know alternative hybrid strategies coming up especially in the heavy vehicle segment of hybrid fuel cells like hydrogen fuel cells plus battery storage how will that impact the overall evolution is that going to dent the battery storage market especially in the mobility no the hydrogen fuel cells in the in the uh vehicles uh light vehicles uh passenger vehicles and light vehicles it's dead on the arrival so there is no place for the hydrogen fuel cells in the heavy vehicles a long distance vehicles and maybe ships maybe maybe planes there is uh maybe a hydrogen fuel fuel cells could be could be like the technology in addition to the batteries so you're saying the batteries uh the best case scenario will be a hybrid of batteries plus hydrogen fuel cells it cannot be only hydrogen fuel cells yes i said yeah you are right the hybrid of the batteries plus hydrogen fuel cells in the in the uh vehicles which uh the but only batteries is not enough but that's for me questionable it needs to prove uh the system it needs to prove itself not yet yeah there's a lot of investments and talks going on of investments in this infrastructure especially in india i think reliance has uh announced reliance is the largest oil and gas company uh uh uh uh uh a lot of hype so a lot of hype about hydrogen fuel cells there is no one um hydro i recently researched which is the best technology for hydrogen fuel cells um i tried to re find out one profitable one there is zero profitable uh uh hydrogen fuel cell fuel cell manufacturer okay thank you so much thanks just to add a little bit more information to that uh because arjun specifically mentioned india uh we do know that reliance last week has made a huge announcement what is happening in the hydrogen field is the scales are building up now and what milos said is absolutely right while companies like johnson matthi have been working in this area for the last i think 19 20 years they have not been able to achieve a product or uh you know a profitable balance between a product and what the market needs yet but that seems to be changing very rapidly with large investments coming and i think companies there is something that we probably don't know at least i don't know about hydrogen powered units which could change a lot especially if you i mean i agree with what milos is saying in terms of automotive units but there is uh renewable storage which is being done for industrial domestic uh a bunch of other things which are non-moving which are fixed assets where uh you know hydrogen can be used and if they can prove that it can be used efficiently or used using existing resources i think it could be a winner i feel that we might see a lot of change coming there because the scale at which it's coming in is magnificent it's huge so not actually kathy calls for another in fact another round of discussion at some point koshik can i add something over there uh reliance wanted to increase the portfolio that's what i've seen uh and that's one of the reason uh they wanted to share the show the shareholders that they are investing money in uh battery division and everything and because evs become a very big thing their biggest competitor is total uh when it comes to battery because total has taken over soft it's a french uh company soft batteries and they are the biggest uh battery manufacturer one of the biggest manufacturers in the world and and soft has invested money in india when lithium storage and i think that's the reason uh they're also you know increasing their portfolio of reliance uh i can add one point here so one of the advantages of the hydrogen fuel cells is the fueling times it's as fast as the regular gasoline engines uh while the feeling terms are the fueling times or the charging time for the batteries is getting faster nowadays but it's not proved yet for high heavy duty applications so i think hydrogen feels that have as one of them yeah there is a hydrogen fuel cells you can touch them faster if you have the uh uh filling station so the three problems with the hydrogen is uh one of them is infrastructure we don't have it for the infrastructure you need to build infrastructure it will take you at least 10 years to build this infrastructure then the second largest problem is efficiency battery is at least three times more efficient than hydrogen fuel cell and the third problem is cost the battery the hydrogen is much more expensive storage of the electricity in the end hydrogen is storage of electricity than battery so three big problems by hydrogen will not break through in the transportation and hydrogen is very valuable for the industry like the steel industry like the uh cement so it's precious to use it in transportation with the uh in the last half an hour so you know we have many new people join us on stage it's really exciting we've got sikens join us marques ingo again and also zara so i think it would be fantastic if we let every one of them also to you know raise a point if you want to speak in between if you want to like raise anything please do what katherine short in the beginning i will do it again flicker your microphone slowly like that shows us as the moderators katherine and myself to do that and also quick reminder you know this week our overall session topic is battery manufacturing we got christopher taylor with us who's an expert in this topic has you know over 10 years experience in the space so you know really take advantage of this as well if you have any questions related to manufacturing battery manufacturing i can recommend that as well but so now i would recommend maybe we start with srikant you have another point or if you already had your point let us know and then we go to marques uh yeah i started joined late so i just started the discussion in between yeah so my background is in right now battery modeling so i worked in fields in the past so i think for battery manufacturing uh all the manufacturing uh facilities are getting scaled up faster but again the thing is like there a lot of new technologies coming up so the manufacturing process or the manufacturing industry hasn't been able to catch up with it so it takes uh some lead time to develop the to understand the manufacturing process and try to build the plants so in especially in our labs uh whenever like whenever the recipe is already given for the manufacturing process then the research team comes back and started giving the changes which is getting difficult for the manufacturing team to adapt to it fantastic thank you much for sharing kaushik did you have a quick point on this one oh no thank you very much shikant for sharing that i i will have to excuse myself i have another one coming up so thank you for the lovely discussion and have a great weekend folks thank you very much and thank you for joining market well christopher yeah i mean just just to sort of build back on uh those thoughts there before it goes back to sort of what i was saying at the beginning uh you know technology is changing uh hence sort of in my opinion and i'm sure sure it'll be shared that when you uh the the lead times for machinery are quite long you know so as the technology changes the the gigafactories obviously they'll be sort of producing the first maybe stage of the the process on uh facilities that they purchased some time ago and part of the the building it up in stages is if there is a significant sort of change or shift or in technology or even as you're installing your your own processes if you're able to improve them you can then add these improvements so horizontally deploy them as you're building the new building the capacity yeah through the stages you know i have uh you know a question i mean is there any thought being given towards the extended producing extended producer responsibility for end-of-life uh batteries in the sense that uh what are the liabilities from an environmental standpoint and is there a business model uh which is going to be uh coming up around actually uh not just recycling the material but actually disposing of the e-waste as well i just wanted to ask the moderators already so kathy can i take that yes please all right yeah thanks aljoon i think that's a very relevant question uh given uh that epr is catching momentum epr picked up momentum first in the us uh however it was product specific uh which means uh you know certain product areas had to have extended product responsibility where they needed to they need to understand where the product is going and how the end-of-life product is going to be treated but it was limited to the point that they just had to tell their customers that this is where it ends you know i mean uh we can tell you what to do with it and just be safe with it but it is not our responsibility to manage uh what happens to it at the end of it uh what we are progressing now to globally and you know including countries like india china are picking this up very fast where we're changing extended product responsibility to end product responsibility which means the manufacturer provides a solution where they call back a product it could be the product that they have made or could be a product which is made by somebody else and uh i mean obviously the first option is to call back your own product and give it the treatment that it needs so that it's it's recycled or it's given end-of-life treatment with responsibility but the least possible or permissible environmental damage and hazard and that is gaining momentum now how do we do that tracking is a much larger challenge especially with products like batteries which are uh most of them that we're talking about is evs today we have somebody from ather on board and every time they sell a bike it is going to different locations the bike gets resold in india and you really don't know who the end customer is uh so there are technologies and software which are coming in with sim technology which simple sim based tracking uh which tell you who your current customer is it also gives you feedback on the life of the battery what's left of it you can inform your customer that you might need a change in battery pack or you might need to get it serviced and look it's reaching this amount of time it's run this amount of cycle would you like for us to take it back and give you a new one and we take responsibility of recycling it which i think is caution do we have regulations yes we do europe has those regulations us is getting there uh india has the policy framework in place uh are they well defined and are they followed up uh no not yet i mean this is a humongous task and i think it needs the manufacturers to take up ownership take leadership and ensure that uh we leave a better world behind so that with that thought process this is going to change regulations and uh you know legislations and policies alone will not lead to the change but uh there is another economic driver i mean if you're sourcing back batteries for example you become a huge source of lithium right and that's an economic benefit which you have so it makes sense for you to be organized especially in countries like india where recycling of batteries is very primitive disorganized very microscopic all across and we're working hard with the government in building up regulations as well as building the requisite software the companies using this can track it and make it viable i hope that answers your question archer thanks thanks thank you very much and also uh welcome from my side thanks so much catherine for you know um keeping it together as i mentioned or like you know doing a wonderful introduction and thanks so much as well christopher very good as well as always and um yeah thanks so much for for these interesting questions as well i think there is someone else trying to join but i think somehow it doesn't seem it is working so maybe also a question from my side in between christopher um because you mentioned right like you know all the big changes happening etc and all these different technologies and and places so i'm just i mean i know it's a tough question but what is maybe your thought for you know how it could develop in the next 10 years or so um from a volume perspective but maybe all from pricing because you know i think you know i think you know i think you have seen a price drop about 90 percent or so the last decade or so and i'm just quite curious what are maybe your thoughts from a manufacturing standpoint you know how much how much space is there like how much can still be improved from a manufacturing standpoint um in the battery space yeah so very good question simon uh you know uh we have we've seen sort of year on year drops in uh sort of the cost of batteries which tends to be sort of measured as dollars per kilowatt hour uh you know the i still see uh further drops in the future uh how far it goes down uh is probably anyone's guess i think you know certainly sort of the the biggest improvements you see in cost uh tend to be sort of around uh on current chemistries would be sort of process improvements you know on sort of getting more volume through where obviously you come into sort of economies of scale the more you're the more you're producing in a given time uh so as sort of the facilities are improved uh and the processes you know if there's sort of potential changes to the process and by the process i mean the the overall so uh there's definitely improvements to be to be had there uh and i think some of the biggest ones will come sort of certainly from uh chemistry changes as well uh solid-state sort of stands out uh but you know i don't think we're sort of anywhere near i know there's talk of sort of prototypes but from a a large-scale manufacturing point of view so back to the sort of a summary of my answer i would say you know as the processes improve we'll see them drop even further uh and there will be further drops as we as we move through the next decade i wouldn't like to give a figure on what it's going to be uh because i have to be honest that obviously the same as everybody else i haven't got a crystal ball uh but it will improve certainly thank you christian agree it's a tough one so i appreciate um you giving an answer there um wonderful we're also looking at the time so i think about our in so it's about 30 minutes left and as katherine mentioned before it's usually the time when people start flooding the stage so it's if you want to do it you know ahead of time feel free to do some people in the audience but um yeah feel free to anybody to jump in um on the session because we'd love to have you here as well and yeah maybe in between is anybody else on panel right now who has any questions already request questions and i see there's some people in the audience trying to come on thank you hi so i have a question i have a question regarding aluminium battery and is aluminium will be the new way for electric vehicle i can answer very quickly no thank you yeah i think i'm sort of uh i think i'm maybe on the same wavelength as milos yeah i think sort of the lithium will be the the dominant and it is already so so so you know the the use of lithium is now an electric vehicle and you've been using it for you know number of decades do you think the lithium will deplete eventually start depleting lithium prices will increase you mean lithium like the material like the lithium material so if you know people are getting into you know people are getting into you know we have plenty of lithium on the earth we have plenty of lithium for million years so um uh answer is no we need only to learn how to process lithium or more feasibly um various kinds of the lithium right now we we have the processes for two kinds of the lithium commercialized for the lithium rack and lithium uh brine and uh we are producing hydro lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate out of those processes we know to produce it commercially but we we are learning and uh i'm sure we will uh next decade and decade after we will learn to process all of also other forms of lithium okay to add to that uh what milo said was absolutely accurate give you a stat we are using less than 20 percent of our mining capacity globally today uh there's bryl lithium there's lithium carbonate lithium hydroxide there's also lithium that can be sourced from the seas and which is not an environmentally difficult process or it doesn't create a lot of hazard if handy well and with the amount of lithium that can be recycled we have enough to keep ourselves going so unless uh you know lithium-ion batteries are replaced by something which is far more superior in terms of charging cycles or charging time uh i don't think we're running out of lithium in the near future thanks one more addition to that what koshik said um so in the end of the decade 2030 there is going to be lithium will be dominant uh lithium-ion batteries will be dominant technology in the especially the electrical vehicles but also in energy storage systems and other other use applications for the for the lithium for the batteries it will be like uh 99 percent market shares uh in the versus case scenario for the other technologies if the other technologies will break through they can capture like maximum five percent of market share may i ask a question if that's okay with the mods yes please yeah my question is uh you know we are looking at some you know alternative hybrid strategies coming up especially in the heavy vehicle segment of hybrid fuel cells like hydrogen fuel cells plus battery storage how will that impact the overall evolution is that going to uh dent the uh battery storage market especially mobility no the hydrogen fuel cells in the in the uh white because uh light vehicles uh passenger vehicles uh and passenger vehicles and live right because that on the arrival so there is no place for the hydrogen fuel cells in the heavy vehicles uh long distance vehicles and maybe ships maybe maybe planes the there is uh maybe uh hydrogen fuel fuel cells could be could be like the technology in addition to the batteries the batteries uh the best case scenario will be a hybrid of batteries plus hydrogen fuel cells it cannot be only hydrogen fuel cells yes i said yeah you are right the hybrid of the batteries plus hydrogen fuel cells in the in the vehicles which the but only batteries is not enough but that's for me questionable it needs to prove uh the system it needs to prove full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full full So, a lot of hype about hydrogen fuel cells.

1:08:53There is no one hydro... I recently researched which is the best technology for hydrogen fuel cells. I tried to find out one profitable one. There is zero profitable hydrogen fuel cell manufacturers. Thank you so much. Thanks, Min. Just to add a little bit more information to that, because Arjun specifically mentioned India, we do know that Reliance last week has made a huge announcement. What is happening in the hydrogen field is the scales are building up now. And what Milo said is absolutely right. While companies like Johnson & Mathieu have been working in this area for the last, I think, 19, 20 years, they have not been able to achieve a product or a profitable balance between a product and what the market needs yet. But that seems to be changing very rapidly with large investments coming. And I think companies... There is something that we probably don't know. At least I don't know about hydrogen-powered units, which could change a lot. Especially if you... I mean, I agree with what Milo is saying in terms of automotive units.

1:09:59But there is renewable storage, which is being done for industrial, domestic, a bunch of other things which are non-moving, which are fixed assets, where hydrogen can be used. And if they can prove that it can be used efficiently or used using existing resources, I think it could be a winner. I feel that we might see a lot of change coming there because the scale at which it's coming in is magnificent. It's huge. So not actually... Kathy calls for another, in fact, another round of discussion at some point. Kosh, can I add something over there? Reliance wanted to increase their portfolio. That's what I've seen. And that's one of the reasons they wanted to show the shareholders that they are investing money in battery division and everything. And because EV has become a very big thing, their biggest competitor is Total when it comes to battery because Total has taken over Soft. It's a French company, Soft Batteries, and they are the biggest battery manufacturer, one of the biggest manufacturers in the world.

1:11:06And Soft has invested money in India on lithium storage. And I think that's the reason they're also increasing their portfolio of reliance. I can add one point here. So one of the advantages of the hydrogen fuel cells is the fueling times. It's as fast as the regular gasoline engines. While the fueling times are... The fueling times are the charging times, so the batteries are getting faster nowadays, but it's not proved yet for heavy-duty applications. So I think hydrogen fuel cells have advantages in that. Yeah, there is hydrogen fuel cells. You can charge them faster if you have the fueling station. So the three problems with the hydrogen is one of them is the infrastructure. We don't have it today, infrastructure. You need to build infrastructure. It will take you at least 10 years to build this infrastructure. Then the second largest problem is efficiency. Battery is at least three times more efficient than hydrogen fuel cells. And the third problem is cost. The hydrogen is much more expensive storage of the electricity.

1:12:20In the end, hydrogen is storage of electricity than battery. So three big problems by hydrogen will not break through in the transportation. So the transportation is very valuable for the other stations, like the industry, like the steel industry, like the cement. So it's too precious to use it in transportation with the electric motor. Thank you very much. I'll just quickly just let me jump into Reset the Room because I think we're now at our famous one-hour mark. We just passed it. So the session runs, as Catherine mentioned before, we run this session for one half hour. So now we're one hour in. You can tell people love to join in the last half an hour. So we have many new people joining us on stage. It's really exciting. We've got Srikans join us, Makesh, Ingo again, and also Zara. So I think it would be fantastic if we let every one of them also to raise a point. If you want to speak in between, if you want to raise anything, please do what Catherine showed in the beginning.

1:13:23I will do it again. Flicker your microphone slowly like this. That shows us as the moderators, Catherine and myself, to do that. And also a quick reminder, you know, this week our overall session topic is battery manufacturing. We've got Christopher Taylor with us, who's an expert on this topic, has, you know, over 10 years experience in the space. So, you know, really take advantage of this as well. If you have any questions related to manufacturing, battery manufacturing, I can recommend that as well. But so now we recommend maybe we start with Srikant. If you have another point or if you already had your point, let us know and it'll be good to Markesh. Yeah, I started to join late. So I just started the discussion in between. Yeah, so my background is in, right now, battery modeling. So I worked in fields in the past. So I think for battery manufacturing, all the manufacturing facilities are getting scaled up faster. But again, the thing is like there are a lot of new technologies coming up.

1:14:21So the manufacturing process or the manufacturing industry hasn't been able to catch up with it. So it takes some lead time to develop the, to understand the manufacturing process and try to build the plants. So especially in our labs, whenever, like, whenever the recipe is already given for the manufacturing process, then the research team comes back and started giving changes, which is getting difficult for the manufacturing team to adapt to it. Fantastic. Thank you much for sharing. Kaushik, did you have a quick point on this one? Oh, no. Thank you very much, Shikhan, for sharing that. I will have to excuse myself. I have another one coming up. So thank you for the lovely discussion and have a great weekend, folks. Thank you very much and thank you for joining. Markage. Well, Christopher, yeah, Chris, you've got... Yeah, I mean, just to sort of build back on those thoughts there before, it goes back to sort of what I was saying at the beginning. You know, technology is changing.

1:15:24Hence, sort of, in my opinion, and I'm sure it'll be shared, that when you... The lead times for machinery are quite long, you know, so as the technology changes, the gigafactories, obviously, they'll be sort of producing the first maybe stage of the process on facilities that they purchased some time ago. And part of the building it up in stages is if there is a significant sort of change or shift in technology or even as you're installing your own processes, if you're able to improve them, you can then add these improvements or horizontally deploy them as you're building the new... Building the capacity, the air through the stages. Thank you very much for sharing, Chris. And then, would you like to go to Makesh, maybe, next? Makesh, maybe, next? Good evening to Anand Dal. And I am from India. So, my name is Makesh, and I am working in a budding startup company. So, we have developed a quite powerful battery right now as we have been developing a battery pack since two years.

1:16:43and we have developed a battery pack technology of 1070 watt per kg. It is four times more powerful than lithium-ion battery pack as everyone know it. So, we are in very early stage of this startup and we don't know what to do next. So, can someone help us or guide us to what to do next? Makesh, can you just connect with me offline? I am sorry to chime in. I am also in a similar battery domain in India and I think you are from India so we could connect offline. Yes, sure. You can DM me and thank you, Arjun and Makesh. And maybe, let's also a quick plug into an event we are running regularly as well. We did one last weekend. It is called the Battery Den. The Battery Den is a chance where startups can pitch their startups and their work and we have like a nice theme panel for one of with us from different sectors from OEMs such as ABB but also investment funds, etc.

1:17:52So, I can also maybe recommend this and if you are interested in this, please go on Battery Revolution so the same as the session name and the club name batteryrevolution.club and on there you will find a form you can fill out this is a startup and if you want to do this then the information is in the system and you're going to get in touch with you for the next battery den opportunity so that's a great way to get some feedback as well and maybe some potential support from esteemed experts in the field as well. So this is something maybe we can add in addition as well. Sure, sir. Thank you. Thanks. Kauras, have you had another thought I just wanted to ask one thing to Makesh. Makesh, what chemistry are you using for your battery pack? What else are you using? What's the chemistry? Actually, we are not supposed to reveal technicals. Okay, okay, okay, let's not do that. That's okay. Perfectly fine. Perfect.

1:18:54Thank you very much. And the other steps as well but yeah, whenever you feel ready for free also to join the battery den get the excitement going as well. Zara, would you like to go next? Yes. Hello. My name is Zara and I'm from Canada. I'm working the company called Low Energy Storage. We are developing energy storage grid connected energy storage system. So, I had actually one question for Christophe about the battery and manufacturing of the battery cell. Since what we see actually in the field is one battery cell actually sometimes can cause the one megawatt battery down because it is connected to the same DC bus and it's important for the grid and the standard that we need to disconnect. So, I wonder actually what is the process there? Is there a process for every single cell or how they are actually catching similarity? They are assuming that since the process is similar all of them are similar. So, how do they do that?

1:20:09How they would make sure that the cells are the quality of all cells are actually good since what we see actually that assumption is not that much true when you part of it can be actually when during the assembly of modules and then to the pack to make a megawatt but part of it actually when we take it back we see that it's a really single cell that can create a few damage for grid especially when we are using the batteries to make sure that the grid is actually stable for different applications like a frequency or voltage that's important and so I wonder where that comes in the process. Yep, Sahara so basically what you're talking about there is traceability within your process and from a traceability point of view the manufacturers will be able to fully trace back right the way through back through their process right the way down to the raw materials from a check point of view obviously the way the process is set up you can set your process up and you can gain the information off every single cell you build so yes there's traceability there yes you're able to go back down to cell level or past on your data and that's actually for your manufacturing processes there do you think since I have not actually heard about the batteries that we are using so is that a common practice that everybody is doing since I did not actually know that you can trace it back to yourself is that the comment I would believe and this is sort of speculation on my point of view but I would believe manufacturers that certainly sort of TR1 right the way through the process they'll have the checkpoints in they should be able to do that but again like I say that is speculation on my point just based off experience yes there are you know there are just to answer that question and you know give another perspective there are specialized companies which now help battery manufacturers do the end of line testing and there are specialized tools available and so even if it's on batch process maybe every cell every pack is not tested but there are you know you know specifically there are testing samples which are taken up and tested so probably it is happening is my understanding yes since the sample yes actually we do the same we do the testing for a sample but what happens that you do the for the sample but when you back and use actually I think there is a problem in the process that sample is not actually most of the time I think something is missing one for one customer so we we actually have a software tool my company actually has made that tool and there is one client in india who is actually doing end of line testing using the tool right up to the cell level it's not very very common but I know of people who are doing okay thank you wonderful thank you so much for those questions and also for Christopher and Ajahn to jump into that so we have got 15 minutes left and I guarantee it's going to run very quickly so yeah if anybody in the audience feels like you have any questions on this topic of manufacturing or anything you're discussing please come on otherwise I can also see Ajahn raise his hand this was a question related to non-mobility storage especially grade level BESS systems does anyone feel that lithium will be the primary chemistry for those kind of storages or will other storage other chemistry like vanadium flow or something else will take over my question to anyone in the moderators and audience yes for the short term duration of the energy storage systems or stationary storage definitely yes so lithium-ion technology is good for several days of the duration for the long term we have some established technologies maybe we will come with the new technologies but again dominant technology because we don't need for the long term duration so much like we need short term duration means that four days five days even ten days lithium-ion batteries is the best technology I can add that also for me also the same is the duration for the grid connected is one thing the other is security in terms of security also for now is the dominant actually technology but in the future we should see but at least in the next couple of years I think it lithium will be actually the dominant thank you much yes and like you said Zara we don't need so much duration longer duration than ten days so duration is decreasing how much we need storage one thing actually may change that duration for now is the climate change maybe actually have an impact since right now with the way that we have all the plants up and running so we can the arbitrage and that's the common thing that they do in the storage most of the time the storage are being used for a small duration or they couple with the renewable like TV and the wind but if we want to go actually to zero then I think other technology will come up but the price and actually the efficiency is not there for now so I think if you want to reach actually the 100% renewable then the other thing make it actually profitable my question was specifically from the perspectives of new business models around energy time shift and time of day pricing so possibly the consensus is that lithium-ion is probably the dominant chemistry right now and will continue for a while because those are not long term storages I would use one day to do is that is my understanding correct yes your understanding is right and mostly it's due to we simply don't have other technologies yet commercialized which they can compete with short-term duration with lithium-ion battery I actually met a startup here in India which is looking at which was working on the vanadium flow and they in fact had an investor who owns !

1:27:52which got me thinking especially on the grid side so that is why I was asking this question thank you so much technologies like the flow batteries they can be commercialized and they can have the complementary place there but it's not commercialized yet so I don't know about many technologies which could break through but they don't break through yet people have been talking about graphene for example for a while okay thanks everyone this is I'm done thank you yes graphene I know graphene very well because I own the company which is producing graphene so not yet thank you thank you very much this is some good thoughts and maybe also into the topic of manufacturing right I mean I looked at some I think I maybe mentioned in an earlier session I was very I mean what got me started personally in batteries was a startup which did aqueous sodium batteries in the US I think was called aqueous or something like that and I thought the story was beautiful and you know they had some products and actually announced some applications in Gambia for hospitals et one of the big issues was production right I mean if you bring in any new technology you have much lower volumes and it's also for some of these slow systems you know the volume is much slower you know smaller and the cost really gets reduced by scale right like you know when we scale it and that's I think something where lithium has been really shining you know the last decade or so right to really you know having this immense growth also through the V's et cetera and really dropping the price and I think here manufacturing is really a massive contributor and Christopher knows all about that so that's really fantastic great just looking at the time I think we have about less than 10 minutes and we Gaurav do you have a point I thought no so I have a question actually can thermal batteries are basically using D-therm pallets right so if can thermal battery be used for electric vehicles in future what batteries go around thermal thermal batteries I don't understand what kind of batteries those are thermal thermal thermal thermal thermal E-H-E-R-M-A-L thermal batteries I haven't heard of that technology I suppose I think we've probably answered that you know next 10 years at least I think lithium-ion will be sort of dominant you you you store thermal heat in a liquid or something like that and use it in the winter no no thermal batteries are actually made by lithium so they have high energy and short duration but what I've heard is some people they are trying to use an electric vehicle as well so I was wondering if anybody knows about it certainly from my point I haven't came across them yet okay me neither so because soft soft was normally I follow soft batteries because they are the guys who are into technology and I just follow them and they have a division called ASB and they make thermal batteries and and I was wondering and I was reading somewhere that thermal batteries can break into electric vehicle they're actually lethal it's another form of lethal batteries I personally also haven't heard of them but if anybody has an audience feel free to raise your hand maybe other one quick thing just from my side as well because I've been talking about this quite a lot with some fans about sodium and batteries because I mean I also started on sodium batteries as I mentioned earlier and I've seen quite some challenges there and now there seems to be some movement there and of course it could be a very cheap form for stationary maybe like similar like LFP or so I'm just curious if you have any thoughts because also maybe one quick hint I got a message from Fervadeon which you know is in the UK who also has been listening to this podcast and quite enjoyed it so maybe also at some point you're going to get them on and hear their story as well I'm just curious any thoughts from Christopher or anybody else for sodium-ion there's some new talk about it just curious if you have any thoughts obviously I've heard some talk on it Simon but you know and this is again this isn't sort of an educated answer but maybe for sort of lower level sort of energy consumption but again I think you touched on it earlier you know any changes in sort of chemistry has to be sort of taken into scale in a manufacturing point of view from today's manufacturing from an EV point of view you know it'll be lithium iron from a static storage point of view I'm not quite sure thanks for sharing I mean I think it's something interesting to see I think there might be you know I think something to monitor maybe there's some interesting announcements but I agree with you it's kind of the scale is always a big challenge in manufacturing as it is as you mentioned wonderful so we're literally just hitting the last five minutes last few minutes so anybody has any final thoughts any comments any additions or also maybe we can already look a bit on the next journey as well or we already can look into next week's session because we're going to have another session next week and we don't have a speaker yet we don't have a topic yet so if anybody has any thoughts or suggestions grateful for these as well see Vic hi Simon hi Catherine hi Christopher my loss so my question is when do we see the death of the cathode materials of 111 all the way up to 532 so NMC so I'll probably be I mean I'll probably put the question in the right way NMC when do we see the death of the cathode chemistry of 111 111 all the way up to 532 yeah so from a death point of view I'm not sure on that Vic obviously there is new generations out there from obviously 811 recently I read something online about sort of 9 point and then 0.5 0.5 you know so I think as the as the chemistries are obviously improving and the less dependence on sort of the other parts and sort of coming sort of higher nickel I think it'll be a natural progression through the from 532 whatever to 811 on to certainly less and less again but I'm not sure exactly I think the tendency in this decade is to go toward customization everybody is producing their own chemistry even inside of one company like Tesla is producing many chemistries for different kind of models of the cars or even one model of the car is using different chemistries so we are not going toward standardization but toward customization in many cases those chemistries are closely held secrets thanks my thanks Christopher I mean just a follow up question I mean this is where even Elon Musk came in saying that nickel is something which is probably going to become more hard to find going forward so do we still see a 9.5.5 and if so you know then what is going to happen to the statement that was made that nickel is going to be obsolete going forward from a moment nickel is going to be obsolete you are saying nickel yeah nickel nickel yeah nickel no I mean for the high density batteries which we need for the cars like the vehicles for the high density batteries like the semis or cyber trucks we need to use high nickel batteries so even in the Tesla I think Tesla is saving their high nickel batteries for the cyber trucks and for the semis perfect thank you so much everyone sorry just a follow up question what is the chemical composition for the Tesla on the cathode side it's 532 or high NTA many chemical compositions of the Tesla for the for the cathode many okay but there was talk of 811 becoming standardized isn't that going to happen I already answered that there is no standardization there is opposite direction customization okay wonderful just another Simon sorry just another point about whom to get next I think if you can probably get James first from BloombergNEF I think as the next host I think I think that would be a great session I'd like to follow Simon I have also another suggestion maybe not the next one or maybe after that we need to get into the electronics behind the batteries you know because in the connected world every battery is going to be connected or will get connected there's a lot of work on the electronic side which is happening on the embedded side and we need to get a perspective on that BMS and controllers yes I agree with you Arjun that the battery pack we should move from battery cells to battery pack because that's next battle ground exactly thanks there's some excellent suggestions thank you very much I'm definitely going to reach out to some I also James I think is an excellent suggestion from Bloomberg also if anybody in the audience feels like you know or is interested to be a conversation startup please get in touch so just from my side I want to say a massive thank you for Christopher being with us Christopher Taylor you can give him a big round of applause and maybe also give him a follow I think we can definitely there's many amazing things to hear from him so I recommend him to follow him on Clubhouse or on LinkedIn you can also follow of course the club we have the Battery Revolution Club if you click on top left you can follow this club we have these sessions every Saturday 3pm CET you can also follow Catherine and myself on Clubhouse and on LinkedIn we are happy to interact on LinkedIn and have further chats there I will give it to Catherine to close up today's session thanks so much Simon it's a great discussion thank you Christopher for leading this I love how they transform into talking about battery materials with the end that's a great and interesting discussion as well just a reminder we did talk about materials a while back thank you for your suggestions on future topics we really appreciate if you have any thoughts as to how we can make the sessions better so feel free to drop my self-assignment message on that and with that thank you so much for joining all of us today please feel free to give Christopher a follow shout out on LinkedIn and thank you so much for the great discussion once again Christopher and we look forward to seeing you next Saturday at 3pm CET have a great rest of the week everyone bye bye