Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Future of Battery Technology

0:00Transcript

0:00Hi Catherine, I think you were breaking up for a bit. No. It seems not better enough. This is better. Please just feel free to let me know if I'm breaking up. So yeah, maybe just to kind of recap what I was saying earlier. Because of the pandemic or during the pandemic, EV sales actually forged ahead, especially in Europe, where it reached 16% by the fourth quarter for new EV sales, which is really interesting. And that coincides obviously with the drop of global EV battery pack prices. And as mentioned by Simon before, from 2010 all the way to 2020, battery pack prices dropped to more than 90%. And so, you know, right now we're seeing less than $200 per kilowatt hour for battery pack pricing, which is really encouraging. And obviously battery pack being one of the most expensive forms on EV, that will really reduce costs as well and probably reach parity sooner. So in terms of price parity in Europe, some interesting statistics as well is also with regards to light vents.

1:22So in light vents, the battery EV have actually crossed ICE in terms of price parity. will cross, sorry, will cross ICE in terms of price parity by 2024. And by 2030, it will drop quite significantly, about 5,000 euros difference in terms of pricing. So we're very surprised. We will be very excited to see that kind of development, given, you know, how that would potentially reduce emissions, et cetera, especially for the supply chain and delivery within Europe. So if we look at also in terms of public charging infrastructure, which is what we talked about a few weeks back as well, in terms of charging, how available that is. Right about currently in China, they have about 800,000 charging stations, right? In terms of, you know, be it LFPs and NMCs and whatnot, just public charging infrastructure that's available for EVs, which is one of the most in the region as compared to Europe and North America and Japan. And whereas by charging speed, we are now looking at the standard of 3 to 20 kilowatts for charging speed.

2:47You know, obviously we are hoping that to be faster so that we can really push forward to accelerate the adoption of EVs. But also we are seeing different types of charging infrastructure. For example, we are also seeing swapping stations being available, widely available in China due to NEO EV. But there are a lot of interesting developments here. And we just, you know, really like to encourage some discussions there. You know, let me know your thoughts on this. What are some of the developments that you have tracked so far in the region in terms of EVs, in terms of batteries? What are some of the things that you're seeing out there? So we have right now Yannick, Bassam, and Nels that have joined us on stage. Feel free to, you know, unmute your mic and share your thoughts. Thank you. Maybe just really quick as well. Can you hear me now, Catherine? Yes, loud and clear, Simon. Amazing. I just had to update my apps maybe in case it happens to other people.

3:52It seems like there's lots of updates coming. Maybe one of them wasn't good for me. So also just really quick welcome from my side. Very good to see you all. Thank you so much, Catherine, for kicking it off. And, yeah, let's have a really nice discussion today. I think today we have a, you know, like a bit more open session. But you can also now, you know, see the message functions. So I've already been writing with quite a few of you. So it's a nice way also if you want to share any thoughts. If you're busy, you cannot say anything, you know, because you're in some other meeting or something. Feel free to also send us messages. So you can also read out any opinions or any thoughts you might have or if anything else you want to share, feel free to do so. Fantastic. Yannick, would you like to start off? Well, thank you, Simon. I'm not a battery expert myself. I'm an energy management consultant.

4:41So I work a lot in terms of the applications of these batteries. And so I've joined this club to try to learn and keep track of trends that are going on in the space. But I'm not a regular contributor. I can maybe, like if you'd like, I can take this opportunity to raise a question that maybe someone can educate me on. Sounds good, yeah. Okay. So I assume that people here are probably familiar with the company Ample. But just for recap, they're installing third-party batteries onto electric cars like the Nissan Leaf and the, I think they've got the Chevy Bolt. And they've got a different model in that they have, you know, these drive-in battery swap garages where they only replace just as many batteries as is needed instead of replacing the full pack. And in talking about this to some other people in the space, the question that came up is how have they solved the balancing problem? You know, how do they balance these different batteries?

6:03And I'm afraid I don't even know what the balancing problem is to begin with. So I was wondering if someone could explain to me why batteries need to be balanced with each other on a vehicle and how does Ample solve this? Ample, I think we actually had some of them in the battery swapping, at least some people quite excited about these kind of opportunities on this session as well. So there's, you know, Clubhouse, there's quite a few people actually working there. And yeah, so there's definitely overlap there from a topic. I'm personally not exactly sure what you mean with the balancing problem. I mean, there's definitely like, you know, balancing is quite important in the battery itself, right? That's a thing of anodes and cathodes and things like that. I guess you might go a bit in a full direction of saying, okay, some cells, you know, maybe have been degrading more. And now you have like different packs or like different modules kind of put in one system.

7:00And you have some modules which are more, you know, have let's say 80% capacity left. Some have 90, you know, there could be some imbalance, but I think also in a normal, you know, normal module, like you also have some cells which might integrate a bit more. That's why you have a BMS, right? To try to balance it out. So I'm not exactly sure what you mean with the balancing problem, if it's connected to a BMS, etc. So yeah, maybe Catherine, do you have some other thoughts or Milo's or a similar, anybody else in the audience? Well, maybe I can, yeah, I can maybe introduce myself first. So my name is, I will answer that question as well. So my name is Basim and I work, have been working with batteries for the last five years. And my specialty is safety. And so I work in different companies like Northvolt, like Volvo Group. And now I'm in Volvo Cars, specialized mainly in batteries. For that, I think, Yannick, I'm familiar with Ample.

7:55And I think that when you talk about balancing mainly, I mean, at least in the industry, we mainly talk about balancing between different cells or cell groups if they are all in parallel. And then there is also another level, which is it can be cell balancing between modules if they are not in parallel. Because normally when you build, at least the old way, that I will share in my part, the old way was to, can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Yeah, because it's showing me like poor connection. So it's like, okay, maybe you don't hear me. So the point is that when you build like a module or when you build a battery pack as the old way, the new way is a bit different. You build something like, you build like cell to module, module to pack. So you put the cells in parallel and series to try to reach certain voltage. And then you put the cells. And then after that, you put the modules normally in series to try to reach the voltage of the pack.

8:52And then maybe in parallel, if you'd like to have more power. It depends on like the chemistry and a lot of things to do. So if you will have modules which are in series, then they can have different voltages. And this is due to a lot of things. Maybe they are not charged to the same level. Maybe they have different age. A lot of things, which Simon mentioned also in the cells. So this can be between different cells. And normally we have like a balancing circuits, which are on the cells or the cell groups, which try to bring the voltage. There's two types there, active and passive. But mostly it's passive that's in the industry. And there you try to bring the cell or the cell group with the highest voltage. You burn a lot of energy. So you bring it down to the one with the lowest voltage. So they are all balanced with the same kind of capacity on the cell or the cell group.

9:40So I think they are referring there to module balancing. But I think from my opinion, they have a different problem, which is the health. Because if these modules are in series, the module with the worst health will be the one that will take down the whole power of the string. So if they are all in series, if one module can only produce up to, I don't know, 100 amps and the others can produce 150, you will only produce 100 because the oldest will be the one that's controlling you most. So there's a lot of problems, I think, in that domain that they need to solve before making it as a viable solution. Thank you. I was pointing out the example of Ample and saying, you know, it's like, why, you know, why aren't you doing this with buses? Or when are you coming out with a system like that for buses? Because that would be, that would seem to be a lot more useful for these kinds of vehicles than for passenger cars.

11:08And that's where they told me about the balancing issues. And specifically, they were talking about battery health. So I think that lines up with what you're saying about the amperage. Well, I worked before also with buses. So I'm familiar with the problem. But I think buses is a different domain, I would say. I think the problems, I mean, mainly I worked with buses, trucks, boats, and passenger cars. So every domain has its own problems. But I would say the buses are one of the easiest to solve. Because normally you will have one route. And then you have like a station where you will stop for 15, 20 minutes. And then you can have high power charging. And then on the other end, you will have also high power charging. So, but the problem of replacement, I would say, is different for me in the way that the industry is going towards not sell to module, but sell to pack. That is a new design. That's what Tesla did in the new.

12:13I think the S-plate, I think, is the first one to have it. I'm not really sure about this. I need to double check if the S-plate is the first one or not. And where you have the sell to pack. So you don't have module structure. So there, it will be much harder to try to, because the pack will be integrated as part of the vehicle construction. Also, when you do the testing and certification, the pack will be taking part of the hit. So you cannot just replace any pack with any pack. It's really different. And I don't know if it will be even principle to do that. But that's a different angle of the problem, I think, in the future. Because most of the manufacturers are going towards sell to pack solutions, not sell to module solutions. Yeah, that's what I wanted to say. That the battery swap, I can save you time. Don't think about it. It's not going to work. So it's going to work only on some niches market, maybe, for various reasons.

13:11But one of the reasons is that the battery packs are more customized. And most important, what you said right now, Bassem, if you want to be competitive with a future electrical vehicle, you need to do a structural battery pack like the Tesla is doing in their, Tesla will do in their newest two plans. So basically, for various reasons, the battery swap is not a viable mainstream operation. Well, I'll tell you a key problem that it would solve for one application that we're looking at, which is for school buses. Because for school buses, you don't really, like, you've got two big runs to do, like one in the morning, one in the afternoon. And in between, you've got time to charge, but you don't really want to charge at that time of day, because those are when you have the peak grid loads and electricity prices are at the highest. So if you could do a battery swap in between the morning and afternoon runs, you could cut in half the size of the battery you need on the bus, on board the bus.

14:27Yeah, but on the other side, it will cost you more money if you over-calculate everything battery swap. Then electricity, you are going to charge your buses. And if you have a bigger range, you can still charge it in the night when the electricity is cheap or when it is for free. So battery swap is not a mainstream viable option. That was considered, like, 20 years ago, when the range of the cars were, 10 years ago, when the range of the cars was low. Right now, when you have most of the users of electrical vehicles will rarely use even public charger. For them, it's enough, 300 miles, 400 miles, the range is enough for them outside of two, three trips per year for the whole. So basically, they will not even use public charger. We are charging the electrical vehicles. Most of the people are charging like the iPhone. It's not the replacement. It's not the replacement. Electrical vehicle is not the replacement of the combustion engine car.

15:37Well, I wonder, Melos, are you taking into account the fact that we're going to see a larger and growing spread of prices between daytime and nighttime electricity rates? Yeah, I'm taking into account everything also in the future. But most importantly, like Bassem was saying, how you want to sell the car if your cost of the car will be double or 50% more than your competition? You are not going to be able to sell it eventually. So you need to do a structural battery pack, which is decreasing the cost of your vehicle and which is improving the quality of the vehicle, which is improving the energy density or energy density of your vehicle. So, because in this case, battery pack, battery pack, battery pack, whatever, per kilogram, are increasing, not decreasing, because they have negative, they have negative weight of the pack. so 35 kilograms negative rate of the pack so basically if they would have 250 watt hours per kilogram uh battery cells uh capacity in the virtual battery pack they will have 270 watt hours per kilogram if you are going to do battery swap you are going to have 170 dollar uh watt hours per kilogram if you would do white battery sweat i think maybe a comment here i think it's all related to your calculation so if you will do like batteries are expected to live in 10 to 15 years maybe and if you are especially in bus which is not very high power application and when you look to how much it will cost you to charge even with the highest tariff with the expectation of the value will it make sense to have two batteries where you will swap them and then will it make viable when it comes to from an economic point of view so for that maybe it can be a solution like specific for that problem if it will save you money but if it will not save you money maybe it will save you more money to have a bigger battery with a longer range so i think i think it's more about talking to battery engineers and trying to find a solution which is economically feasible free but it's also not solution you need to add about two battery packs per one vehicle so it's a it's another problem so uh basically we can close this discussion with them if you want to continue discussion about nothing we can discuss but it's not gonna be uh it's not viable solution for the mainstream uh electrical vehicle market another idea in this context you were asking about the tariffs and it wouldn't be cheaper to charge the car in the night okay today with our actual grid we have cheap tariffs in the night but as we build out further solar and wind we will have a peak solar energy at noon each day and if you take the use case of the school bus it's easy one to charge this bus in the course of the day with solar and use case to do it by night it won't work i think in the next five years in this context because the high energy prices we will have in the evening if the sun is going down and everybody is putting on this climate ac but in the middle of the day we will have cheaper prices in the future if we build out solar more thanks for the discussion um everyone i just like to pick up on the uh discussion earlier on battery swapping infrastructure i think i definitely do agree that the economics play a big part and i do think that battery swapping would need to be coupled with an economic leasing model which is uh batteries of service as offered by new ev um so i don't think it's economically uh you know feasible it makes sense for us to stock up battery packs so we can swap ourselves um and to elaborate on that um but with it with a leasing model and that really builds up the economics uh off scale and perhaps that will make more sense given that the the the oem are actually the owners of the batteries um so so i i see that um a lot even in battery swapping model for two wheelers and for four wheelers um all of them couple are coupled with uh batteries to service and the battery leasing model so that's just something um for thought for everyone and i think christopher has also joined us on stage hi christopher hi catherine uh yeah it was just obviously with the the battery swapping uh i think milos uh and batson have made some very good points uh you know from a just from the the shia economics as you're saying and the manufacturing side of it obviously from a if you're doing battery swapping then for it to work you would have to make sure that you could do the swap at any time so for any number of people and i just don't see sort of how that could happen in the future smaller smaller vehicles sort of in developing countries or motorcycles and things like that yes maybe but for car batteries which are huge potentially they're going to become uh sell the car eventually uh and then for the the test case that's used the buses the the battery size for them currently uh obviously all large uh even with technology uh coming down i don't see any viability in the swapping for sort of vehicles larger than maybe two wheelers yeah and sorry okay go ahead go ahead okay no i just also one more point is that most of them car manufacturers now are going more and more into the direction of tesla with more vertical integration so i think the only solution is or maybe if it's if it makes sense economically will be for example something like neo where you have that you will only replace the neo packs but if you are as ample who would like to replace for everyone else then they need to have a battery from for example volvo i replace it with volvo because this is a different cell so that's also a different angle yeah thanks for that i i absolutely agree i think meal is able to do it because you know you know it's their own vehicle and here in taiwan we see a two-wheeler company coco grod doing the same thing as well it's their own vehicle they're swapping uh using batteries battery packs that are designed to fit their vehicle um if you're looking at what ample is doing i i i do uh foresee it being you know a steep technical challenge i'm not sure how they're doing it currently i have to be honest but um you know to be able to use other different packs uh you have the blessing issues mentioned earlier and you have to deal with you you know the technical um aspects of uh uh uh not just the cell level i believe but also the pack level how do you put them together etc i'm interested to hear more about the cell to vehicle method that you mentioned earlier but i think yannick uh you have omitted yourself would you like to add something to this well i wanted to mention i don't know if it was clear but the uh ample installs an adapter plate in your car and then they put in their standardized batteries underneath yeah but but that's the point because that means that they will put their batteries and i think the model only works if they are released batteries because if i have a battery with 95 percent state of health and then you are giving me a battery which is 85 so that should not work but if you are part if i'm leasing the battery then we can have also an idea of that you don't lose the battery but you lose the miles per like dollars per miles how many dollars per miles or how many dollars per kilometer so that's also kind of a leasing strategy that companies can sell and then it doesn't matter because they are selling you kilometers or miles they're not selling you they're selling you energy in a way they are not selling you a pack and then they can swap whatever they want because you don't care as long as the battery fulfills your mission when it comes to energy and power um but so so again it depends on what the company's strategy is and where they will make the money and and i still but but also one more point is that a lot of the big companies they are trying to find a solution on how how they will bring the money that they used to take when it comes to service because before they used to have oil they used to have a lot of service because a lot of parts there is much more parts moving in an engine than an electric machine so when it comes to a vehicle the companies need to find a way to get money so they can use this leasing and services kilometer or dollar per kilometer or dollar per mile as a way to get money from the people because they know that it will make maybe it will make more sense economically for them um i i i i wanted to to respond some maybe maybe some of the comments that had been made that about battery swap being unviable for larger vehicles like buses um you know i i do think that there are some oddities about the school bus schedules that make them that could still make them a um a viable case uh because right now a lot of these school buses uh spend the you know the midday in in uh in residential sectors right like uh or you know in areas that do not have the 600 volts that these high speed chargers uh needs or i guess in the states it's 480 volts um it doesn't have the the medium voltage uh uh transmission available to for uh to install fast chargers uh so now like if you if you say that they're going to get uh that they're going to be fast charged in the middle of the day using solar power it means that your school buses now have to be brought into some central location for for uh for charging at a set time which takes a fair amount of time even if you are doing fast charging so um and you know as to the price of having two battery packs well i tend to think that having two battery packs that add up to the same amount of kilowatt hours as you know one big battery pack that would take you through the whole day that would probably come out to a i would guess that would come out to a similar capital cost uh but uh no no okay no well you know uh yeah because it's not double but uh it's definitely much larger than uh capital uh cost of the one battery pack i would cut it into two pieces i would say it depends you have development cost and you have the component cost so development cost it would be it would be uh divided on all the packs that you will build so that's number one number two you have away from the cells you have the mechanical and you have the bms and you have the sensors etc they are not as big as the cost of the cell so the cell basically is the biggest cost of the pack but still you will have as mario said you will not have the same no you will have more yeah and but again you need to discuss about that because we shouldn't devote to this subject a lot of time because it's not viable option for the future uh so i mean why do you think or do want to think about it i guess we we are not all as convinced maybe we don't have all the information you have milos and we're here to learn from you yes i mean uh i can talk about that uh for hours but uh to try to convince you but i will give you some uh fine to make my final point i will give you some some points you need more batteries you need uh your battery cost will be much more expensive uh than it is uh uh it is uh structural battery peg or other one it's not feasible even my engineer uh by the engineering mechanically it's not feasible because once you are installing the battery battery structural but the repair you cannot remove it that they replace it so even the companies like the neo which they organize this um their business model based on the uh uh battery swap or they will change business model or they will go bankrupt they will never be able to make money with a uh uh battery uh swap of battery because they will not be competitive with the quality and uh uh uh milos you muted yourself yeah i'm i finished already that even companies like the neo will go bankrupt or they will change their business model they will discontinue the um the start uh swap batteries i think one more point here um as i work with buses i'm not sure how the structure of buses in in u.s the school buses looks like where do you put the packs normally janik do you know where you put the battery packs well uh in the diagrams that i've seen the the battery packs uh were placed either in in the floor of the bus or in the back where the traditional diesel power plant would go yeah because in the bottom of the bus it can be feasible maybe to replace but i see i in the buses i worked with they are mainly on the top or on the back as you mentioned and that's much harder mechanically as me to say and the one more point uh what's the advantage of the battery uh battery uh swappable battery should advantage should be that you can you are able to swap battery faster that you are able to charge your car on the charging station on the fast charger we are coming to uh today already in 15 minutes uh uh to charge your uh car on the first charger on teslas and um we are coming the the shortest time for the replacing this battery it's like five minutes but it's not five minutes because uh the you need to wait in the line uh until it will be swapped uh because they can only swap one uh battery in a time you need much more people to swap the battery everything can go wrong because it's not uh um it's mechanical things you need to put it to the building the robots are not working and so on and so on so even from the practical point of view it's not uh competitive with a new future fast charger of the batteries well you often need you need to wait in line for your fast charger too and they often break down too no why if you have the many fast chargers you don't need to wait in the line well if you have many battery swap stations you don't need to wait in line but you cannot do it because if you if you're your uh 0.001 of the uh uh cars are operating on the battery swap charging uh uh why you would have the why you would build infrastructure of the battery swap charger thanks okay well i think i mean we can we can keep going on the conversation for for much longer i'm sure maybe just one quick thing also to to get ingo involved as well because he joined as well um but i i mean just maybe one thing to say right i think there are still challenges also as fast charging um you know especially at the volume but if you have like lots of lots of really you know big trucks or you know you have um scoobas etc if you have lots of them to charge at the same time it can become quite costly but of course it's really i mean i think it very much you know also good as well as mine says i really want to reduce the amount of batteries we need so if you have like you know two batteries per vehicle there can be a challenge and yeah so yeah just want to say you know it's it's a really interesting conversation but i also wanted to maybe bring in ingo because maybe he has some other thoughts as well yeah my thought was around the business model uh janic if you really think about a business model take a use case where the system is working 24 hours or 18 hours a day on private cars it won't work i think private cars 23 hours in your garage on the parking lot not driving but maybe in the truck industry or it's a long long haul trucks that might be a possible solution to exchange a battery at a truck station and go on with the truck for a bus i think if it's a school bus he has two tours in the day so that's also not a big use case in my point of view but if you have a truck who's running 20 hours and really needs to make great distances and every minute is counting quite a lot that might be a way but i also see it not feasible in in the bus area or something not in the school bus area yeah maybe on the question from bus i know it only from diana they do it also on the top of the bus the batteries are on top of us because they have their space and easy to bring them yeah yeah i work as well at volvo and uh just to comment and also volvo buses they are on the top also a comment here i think for trucks uh that's the point i think daimler and volvo are also working in the fuel cell industry it will sell electric trucks because i think that the main point is the 100 kilometer if a truck can make a 100 kilometer per charge then it's good to go because when you look at the the drivers at least in europe i'm not familiar with us please help me people from the us is that in europe we are having that you need to have a driver needs to take a break every four or five hours and this driver needs to take a break around 45 minutes or something yeah christopher maybe you have a point there and then there uh you will have to stop and take a break and eat and then you can have stations where they have fast chargers for trucks as well but still when you hit the 800 volt then it's for 800 kilometers then that's the main point that most of the companies are trying to find using fuel cells or using uh battery electric people and then one major another major point is that uh one battery stay uh swapping station and would have how many uh battery swapping stations that you would need to have like what 300 models of the car means that 300 models or 300 buildings for the battery swapping stations each car has different battery i mean most companies are trying to have a modular design but still i think as you mentioned me from a mechanical point of view uh on a on a big frame you do not have the same frame they will have the same modularity as it's modular like it's instead of having 10 modules you will have five modules but then the battery pack mechanical will be smaller so you cannot replace them so as you said you need a different machines or a machine that can handle different ones yeah and that's what i'm saying you in one battery station you would have what building for mercedes building for minio building for the tesla building for something else no it's not gonna work 圓圈 range because we are talking about school trucks but trucks nowadays you can already find a fully battery trucks which have a range of over 160 miles roughly like 250 kilometers or something you already can find that those they are already on the market so this this problem of battery swapping will disappear anyway because we already building trucks and and buses which have a have a have a longer range than 250 kilometers or 160 miles in fact I live in a city where we have already for about 10 years we have like every bus in the public transport it's it's it's electric and and one one thing is not a problem and that's the charging because we charge here in the Netherlands overnight we're using and the reason why the the batteries are on the roof is because they are charged by a pentograph I believe that's the the the English name and and they are and that's the reason why they are charged of why the batteries are in the roof and not in not somewhere else because uh when when the when the bus drives to the uh uh um how do you call it permission that the area where they are parked overnight they they park the the them uh under a pentagraph and then they are charged uh overnight uh in this pentagraph and they have enough range for the day and I don't think that the school buses because they only drive twice a day that is the real problem uh that uh um uh of of charging doors because you can you can charge at night and you can charge during the day I don't think that's real problem but that's my opinion it might be a problem specific to to our country and I acknowledge that maybe I I haven't looked through all of the issues but um uh one of the issues we look at is that for many of these uh bus routes it would be difficult for them to take a detour out to an area where there is a medium voltage grid available that could supply a fast charger yeah but I I think the the answer lies in uh if if you can nowadays buy a school truck which already drives uh 160 miles and maybe you can even find that drive 200 miles on a battery I mean if if is is that enough for the school trip in the morning I don't think it drives even that far because uh school buses don't drive uh yeah they drive of course a a lot of uh mileage but not not I don't think it's it's going over 100 miles in the in the morning and in the evening oh it can go much further than that in rural areas yeah in rural areas okay I'm in Canada so we have some big distances to cover yeah yeah okay um yeah well and and and and I think the most important is is is you don't need to look to the current status of the technology because in in a couple of years you will see uh I'm I'm why I'm in in my in my city uh Packard uh uh is building electric uh trucks and they are already looking to trucks which will drive uh 800 uh kilometers or like uh 500 miles or whatever it is I mean they they are already that's already on the table it's already in the d uh in the in the in the in the design of uh because they will come uh even trucks which drive in the end uh like a thousand miles they will come it takes some time but they will come so um I think that uh if a if a rural area in in in for example Canada uh it I mean it can it cannot it cannot yet drive electric electric it uh um it it maybe it can can do in uh in in three five years from now range anxiety um generally about about electrical vehicles is the issue now because range is low but the range anxiety will be um continuously removed from the mind of the people uh because it will be much higher because of the efficiency of the models the efficiency of the powertrain the uh density of the battery uh so it will be better and better range look at the the tesla like the leader uh range anxiety is already uh kind of removed because eventually you cannot uh uh ride even the truck for thousand miles because you need to go to pee you need to go to take coffee uh so you need to and you are going to be able the fast charger to charge uh in the meantime you need to take some food and so on and so on so range anxiety is the issue now because the uh most of the electrical vehicles are most of manufacturers are not yet not yet there with the range so they are catching up leaders in the in the battery and uh electrical vehicles but uh like the development will go range range anxiety will will be removed yeah milos i think range anxiety is already gone to be fair uh i think that the the cars that are being produced now the the range as you've as you've just said you know the range is there i think the the the anxiety what sometimes get confused with is sort of when people don't understand sort of their use of that particular vehicle so i think ingo said something very useful earlier you know from a a car point of view you know for potentially over 23 hours a day my car's either sat outside the house or it's sat in the car park at work you know so i think range anxiety yes it was there in in the very early days and you know it still gets some some airplanes some talk about but actually the range of the vehicles is already there uh thank you for sharing maybe one thing just looking at the time as well you know we're i'm almost in it for an hour so one other topic i'm quite curious about um you know would also be you know the the announcements from the european union this week i mean um i would assume quite a few of you have been following it but essentially there's some new you know um some new some new goals some new targets from the european union from application of transport um so maybe just really quick i can just say some some numbers uh i just have here one is for example right the old targets for c2 reduction for cars was by 2025 15 percent that's still the same now but then from 2030 they want to reduce it from 37.5 percent to 55 pretty much says you know you have to really go much more electric and then from 2035 to 100 reduction of co2 which means you know you have to go either hydrogen or battery power and as we can see right now there's no real hydrogen in passenger cars and i think we can assume this thing will stay the case um but i find also quite interesting is that the vans as well it's a it's very similar you know it's like also 15 reduction 2025 50 by 2030 and 100 percent by 2035 and that's like vans so that's kind of a bit bigger not of course not the scooper size but a bit of bigger than individual passenger cars so i'm just curious because we i know we have a really interesting group here also in the panel but also an audience just curious from some people what do you think what this could mean you know is this like because i mean you can see us in germany of course there's still some you know companies also not that excited about it and many are i think quite supportive but if you are not because this also goes from you know any as far as i can see from any production right so i think so far was kind of only if you produce one ten thousand cars or so but now this can actually and then hit i think from at least 3035 2035 to go from if you essentially if you build one car a year so you already have to go electric for example so i'm just curious if there's any thoughts on the room um on these kind of topics because i think that's a quite something that's which happened this week and it's quite effective can i say in my opinion all those regulations are useless because um these revolution or this disruption is not driven by any environmentalist or any uh government institution this uh disruption is driven by the technologies technologies are converging this time so it's like you are telling those regulations it will be like that today uh we would need to issue regulations you cannot use horse on the highway you cannot use horse uh your horse cannot uh you cannot use a horse in the city and so on and so on this revolution is not driven by the regulations this disruption is not driven by the uh of the uh of the energy problem like the uh of the uh of the energy problem like the pollution or climate change uh those are only symptoms so uh it's driven by the technologies which they are converging in this time so technologies in are enabling the better product uh a better vehicle today vehicle is uh already becoming not only electrical vehicle it's becoming progressively electrical digital vehicle for the cost lower than the combustion engine vehicle so why you would buy combustion engine vehicle if it's in 10 years from now 15 years now from now if it's not gonna be your competitive vehicle so you uh you we will have opposite problem the people will people will still want to buy electrical vehicle but we will not have enough of them to be able to supply to them thanks milos i think ingo edwin and then maybe also admi and batsam have yeah from different point of view in cause of regulations i think exactly the european union with its co2 targets and the reduction of co2 targets pushed the battery electric vehicle in the european market quite uh strong forward and uh these new rules to reduce as you said until 2030 the only way will be that we go fully electric uh 2030 and beyond and even uh i just had a twitter week mark here from havertis the ceo from voxv he was fully welcoming this fit for 55 package from eu and they are full supporting that in the meantime and if you look on the recent announcement from i think stellantis you know the fiat and and you know the conglomerate and chrysland so on they are also dropping the combustion engine 20 28 or 30 something like that and i think daimler already is on his way to co2 neutral until 2039 and i think they may make a stronger announcements next week so the regulation is necessary uh if you look in the reactions of the german automotive industry the past 10 years they were always defending and and uh how do you say to dilute uh the requirements and co2 emissions that was always their way to dilute what they could and to improve the co2 emissions as high as possible and the regulations were forcing them to bring up the bev quota here and and now they are on the track and that was driven by eu regulations uh technology is necessary to fulfill that it's a hand-in-hand action but regulations are necessary to to drive the change here that's my opinion absolutely no the uh this uh the this disruption is driven by the technologies look uh what regulation achieved don't live in the past live in the future why the the automaker is the automakers uh they are dropping or they're increasing the electrical vehicles announcing of the models they will have the problem to produce them in the volume no nobody's producing the uh electrical vehicles in the volume only one company and that's called tesla so because the uh tesla was not driven by the uh by the regulation regulations regulations in many cases are slowing down the process of the disruption uh or they are distorting the process of the disruption because they are picking up winners and losers this will happen despite of the regulation not because of the regulation or this is happening despite of the regulation not because of regulation even tesla is uh getting a lot of money from california regulations for co2 reductions a carbon-free pass they did in the past they get subsidies 10 10 10k dollars uh they were profiting what kind of money are you talking tesla ingo what kind of money are you talking tesla is not not getting any money from the california no no no no they every car sold in california the first i think 300 or 500 cars were subsidized or tax credits for the buyers that's history that's history but it was necessary to bring the production up and to bring the company up that wouldn't help at all some of the regulations can speed up the process uh or slow down the process most of the regulations are slowing down the process i think i have to agree with uh ingo on this one milos i think you know i think you're exactly right you know that the technology is moving towards electrification however and i use this term quite a bit it's a it's a perfect storm so the technology is starting to grow but actually the regulations have accelerated not only the technology not only the technology but the the other brands coming in so if you're looking at sort of the co2 sort of uh reductions yep the the the companies are taking them as far as as as far as they can go however to to hit those regulation targets then more electrification is needed hence why there's more and more brands coming on board and it's all most weekly weather here and sort of uh a new sort of strategy by uh say an automotive oem uh ingo mentioned a few there and there's been more sort of in europe over the last few weeks and there'll be more to come but definitely from sort of what i've read and what i've sort of seen the regulation is accelerating it yeah i mean the all those uh established automakers they are um announcing those models and uh those plans for the future from defensive position because they don't go to they don't want to go bankrupt but that's the words only not actions look at the volkswagen 2018 the ceo the same ceo said that we will in 2021 we will catch tesla we will produce better car and more cars than tesla where they are today today he's saying that we will catch the tesla in 2025 so they are always adjusting their uh uh their words towards situation where they are today they are pledging catching they are playing the catching game but i'm not a tesla fan i'm saying only that most of those uh established automakers by definition they will go bankrupt because we are going through disruption and disruption comes from outside not from inside nobody can disrupt themselves disruption is disrupted by disruptors and they are disrupting the existing the previous old models business models and old the world thanks myles i think let's you know i think that's different opinions let's get basim at when and yeah i will just bring it to a different angle so i think uh for my opinion i bring it to two pieces uh one piece is uh truck bus world or the truck world and so the bus world i think it's being pushed by regulations also towards the co2 emission inside the city etc but yeah and also promotions from the city to be like a green city etc so that's just on the side but for trucks point i think trucks are mainly was mainly pushed by uh regulations a lot of uh at least i have been in that world for like three years i mean that's three years years i i i saw a lot of companies going into there is no really a big disruption yet in the truck world um and i mean here truck because i think in us and in europe i think it's different so i mean here like big trucks like long haul trucks and there there the disruption is coming from the regulation towards the c2 emission of the company so that's one part but for electric vehicles i think it's it's a mix i i think i'm i'm not saying it's only regulation i think it's i i follow like what christopher said it's a mix between tesla doing very good performance cars that are really working well and people are promoting them and at the same time there's regulations pushing companies but i believe that a lot of the current companies a lot of the big giants old giants will just disappear they will not be able to uh they will merge or they disappear yeah we have the the global disruption if we are talking about electrical vehicles only for let's focus on that uh global disruption not the national disruption so you can not solve or you cannot regulations where regulations by definitions are regulations of one country or one region like the european union yes so the multiple countries together cooperating together so regulation in america are different than regulation in europe and their regulation in india regulation in china so you on national level you cannot solve the global problem so i'm saying that some of the i cannot discuss regulation because some of the regulation can accelerate the uh transition and disruption and some of the regulations can slow down uh disruption and um and uh uh transition and uh if we are not talking about specific specific regulation for specific country i cannot react to it because that's not global regulation thanks um basal milos and admin riemi do you have some thoughts on this yeah hi everyone uh i would be taking us back a bit to the from our topic um there was a bit of a debate about uh uh uh charging fast charging a big vehicles and um battery swapping as uh which of the methods to go i i i kind of am coming at it from you know from the angle of the grid uh probably because i i am an electrical engineer and i so that's like my my side of it i believe that if we you go to the back well the fast charging uh 15 minutes uh very fast charging route you know if we go that route and then people are able to do that simultaneously it's going to take a toll on the electric grid and uh the problem with that is uh you know the degree would have we need a lot of fast ramp uh generator systems uh to uh argument or you know that that short period of time and uh we have uh most we don't have so much the renewable energy that we that we that is on the grid i i i we don't have control they're not typically it's not so easy to actually uh ramp them up very fast we can't even wrap them up actually because you cannot increase wind speed or uh increase solar irradiation for example you'd probably resort to using natural gas turbines to quickly uh augment for that uh large increase in demand in that very short period of time so i see that um whereas battery swapping might give that opportunity for the grid to spread you know so the charging happens uh over a longer period of time and so the amount of energy that is demanded uh is is kind of uh at one point in time is not too much uh for the grid to handle so i think from that angle to uh there has to be that balance when we are looking at it at you know what the solution would be because the electric grid is also one what a very critical part uh in this and so we should uh look from look at it from that angle as well you thank you dami um fantastic so just looking at the time we're like about 20 minutes out from the end and usually the last 20 minutes or so the last half an hour is usually quite a busy one as well maybe some people want to join so yeah just you know maybe also reset the room we have these sessions every week every saturday from 3 p.m to 4 30 p.m ct or other times much later and where katherine has been talking about the last half an hour is in the last half an hour and we're talking about some some you know battery related topics today we're talking about we have been talking about um maybe charging or like electric bus charging as well brought in for our few speaker katherine has provided with an overview of some you know some some trends as well and then we have been also talking about some of the eu regulation which we just announced this week or the incoming regulations related to the required reduction of emissions from electric vehicles and vans in europe for the next decade or so and yeah just you know i want to say an invitation again for anybody if you want to you know raise your your hand feel free to do so now and to join this you also have now this messaging function if you update your app so you can also write each other messages which is quite fun and doing this quite a bit during today's session as well and you know if you want to raise any points any other suggestions for free to do so as well otherwise just you know going back to the panel is there anything else anybody wants to bring up today thoughts anything you want to add yeah i just have a question yeah i just have a question do we um or is it something that because it's due to the discussion we had is it something that people will appreciate with something more into understanding like some terms in in electric batteries and what does these terms mean as balancing for example and these kind of small terms that may make make confusion this is something that that we are that you are working on or that people are interested about personally i think that's always great i mean a bit of a you know recap last week we were talking about battery education which is something you know um like myself also with battery sources with our BatteryMBA etc active in kathleen has also been a lecturer christopher is a participant so um yeah so i mean education i think part of this idea of these sessions is to also make the topic around batteries more inclusive more accessible you know either the topic itself of batteries but also related you know from charging like the vehicles grids everything really you know which touches on it hydrogen as well so yeah i think from our side we i will also you know if you're interested in this massive you know if you want to do a conversation starter for next week you could do a session on you know like what are your you know what are any question you ever had about batteries or something like that we could do really like a deep dive in any of these terms etc if you're interested would it be something you'll be interested in passing yeah yeah i think so i think because i mean from uh as i'm in a cam i'm two parts so i'm engineer with batteries but i'm also interested about electric cars etc and battery so i see in a lot of situations some terms which needs to be clarified that will help other people to understand it more help them with ranger anxiety help them with what does it just sort of helps me and what do i see what does this mean what yeah but i think that's really important to have it regularly sounds great yeah we can schedule for next week and then let's do a session on this next week walter you just joined us yes hi hi everybody thanks for uh for let me uh asking you just a quick question about raw material i'm i'm more interested about uh material required to manufacture modern battery batteries and i was wondering to hear your opinion what are the most critical uh materials um um battery manufacturers are um are actually um yeah procuring and uh if there is any uh specific issue on the market on uh on these material making them uh difficult to you know to find or uh what are the the issue for um yeah in general what are the issue for raw materials in uh in uh in battery manufacturing i think i can answer very well absolutely i think my list totally i think my list you're perfect i just want to say one quick plug on this one walter thank you very much for your question it's also a topic we have been touching on before so i just want to plug our podcast called battery insiders and we also have these sessions but yeah i already can say milos is very ready for this question so i will let my list answer it yes so you are absolutely right walter um i will start like that because we are talking about electrical vehicles so electrical vehicle segments everybody announced that they are going to produce their own model of the electrical vehicle so we have like 500 models in the pipeline so uh 500 models in the pipeline they cannot produce them in the scale so basically not thousands of the vehicles but millions of the vehicles if they don't have batteries so we would have probably enough batteries because we are building very exponentially we are building battery giga plants six years ago we had one tesla never tesla panasonic nevada now we have 215 of them in the pipeline but those battery plants giga plants are only giga buildings if they don't have enough material so material for lithium-ion batteries there are five critical materials so it's obviously lithium because lithium-ion battery cannot work without lithium lithium cobalt nickel manganese and graphite those are five critical materials and then there are like 10 very important materials like the uh copper aluminum silicon uh some materials for the for the some other materials to make it short so the uh large challenge for this decade are so there are so much better materials but better materials of this century but especially this decade because a lot of people they don't realize magnitude of the scale of how much better materials we need to build how much battery we need to build to be able to produce per year so i will give you three numbers Ten years ago, we produced 20 gigawatt hours of the battery in the world.

1:06:41We grew production from 20 gigawatt hours to last year more than 200 gigawatt hours. But from 200 gigawatt hours last year, we need to grow in order to satisfy all the markets, electrical vehicles and everything else, until end of the decade. We need to grow it 100 times, from 200 gigawatt hours to 20,000 gigawatt hours. So it means that we need 100 times more materials, 100 times more mines. There are three stages in the materials. So there is mining, there is processing, and the key is processing, and then there is active material production, like the cathodes and anodes. So processing is the key, because that's like 10 times value of the mined concentrated materials, and you can relate it like the specialty chemical processing or pharmaceutical processes. So the role of the government is not regulation, but the role of the government is to help and support to build supply value chain of the batteries. It means that including the materials. That's how the government can expedite or accelerate the energy transition and the electrical vehicle or transportation disruption.

1:08:09So by the focusing, everybody should be focused on how to build supply value chain of the batteries. Thanks a lot, Milos. Thanks for this, and I certainly will check also your podcast. And may I ask just if it's possible for you to send me a quick message with a link to the podcast? It will make it easy for me to find it. Thanks. I will. Maybe just a quick point. Just a quick point, I think, from what I work with, I think a lot of the companies now are trying to go away from cobalt due to a lot of the mining issues when it comes to Congo and other countries, and a lot of companies are trying to separate themselves so much from these ethical mining issues with cobalt. So a lot of companies are trying to go with cobalt-free. If you look, for example, to the Stellantis presentation, Renault presentation, Volvo presentation, they were looking at this and they are pointing out that we are trying to go cobalt-free.

1:09:17So that's just, I think cobalt is one of the most important and most difficult components or materials. Yeah, that's what I was precisely talking about, that the governments can slow or geopolitical issues can slow down the process or speed up the process. Cobalt is a prime example. Everybody is trying to eliminate the cobalt. Some of them, they are trying to eliminate it for a wrong reason, and some of them, they are trying to eliminate because of the cost and so on. So I don't want to go into details. But cobalt for the high-capacity batteries today, high-nickel batteries, is necessary. You cannot do high-capacity batteries without the cobalt. So we need cobalt. Because we need cobalt, we need also the Democratic Republic of Congo, and we need also the other cobalt resources. So cobalt is one of the five-parts. If we want to produce those buses and trucks, electrical vehicle trucks, we need cobalt. Fantastic. Thank you, Maddo, for sharing some of these things. Great. Great.

1:10:48We have about 10 minutes left. So any final questions from the audience or from the panel, please raise them now. There's always an interesting group of people. Or also, there's also a chance, if you have any conversations, I was very excited. We have Bassem for next week. But also, beyond that, we have James first from BNF joining us in August. So this was on the wish list from a previous session. So if you have anybody, we should try to invite anybody you know who you would like to bring. Let us know. And you can either say it now in the session, or you can also just write us a message. Catherine and myself, if you just write us a message as well, that's really helpful. Because we're always looking for amazing people, especially also with more diverse backgrounds, less represented backgrounds. It could be women, or also maybe countries where we don't usually have speakers from. So if any ideas you have, be free to get in touch with us.

1:11:41We're always looking for amazing people to invite and have their insights and thoughts be sharing with us. Fantastic. Catherine, do you have any other thoughts otherwise? Or maybe your connection is bad, Catherine. That's fine as well. Great. Otherwise, yeah. Any, you know, Asim, Milo, Christopher, Edwin, Adi and Walter, any ideas for a future session? For a future session, I don't know. I think Basim is a little bit right. I don't know if it makes sense to make a relatively clear because those terms of the battery are sometimes confused. Because what's the power, what's the energy, how it is measured, even the simple things like the joules, the kilowatt hours, and so on and so on. So I think that we understand each other, is education of the basic terms of the battery should be probably helpful. That's great. Thanks, Milo. Yeah, we actually, sneakily, Basim and I rearranged actually for a session for next week over the message function, again, which is new. If you haven't updated your app yet, there seems to be some bugs going on.

1:13:15Also, Catherine, she cannot hear us right now or speak. So that same issue I had earlier. But the message function is quite nice. You can now write messages to each other. If there's a little arrow at the bottom right, a little, you know, paper plane. And yeah, Basim is going to do a big conversation starting next week on like, you know, battery terms, battery basics. So I think we're going to call the session battery basics and, you know, have a really nice session, of course. Also look forward to have many other experts like Milo's and all of you guys to join as well because, you know, it won't be that Basim going to share everything. Basim is going to kick us off with some of these definitions and then we're going to have a nice question and answer session. Yeah. One point which I would like to make probably by the closing that this disruption is already in the process. so it's, we cannot return it back.

1:14:09The question is not how fast we can do it. So everybody should think how to accelerate the process. His way or in his business or her business, it should be how to contribute toward the acceleration of the process. Many times those issues, especially those government policies, are confusing and many times they are slowing down the process. Even well-intended regulations, they have the opposite effect on the practical effect. Basically, they are not accelerating the process but they are slowing down the process. Yeah, maybe one more point I think or two points. First point I think it's maybe and that's what Catherine was mentioning that she's interested to listen more about which is like sell to pack which is something that maybe not everyone is familiar with that term and what does it mean and what does it mean for the future and why we are going in that direction. So that's maybe something that maybe we can bring it later on what does sell to pack mean, who is the leaders.

1:15:27Also, one more point which is coming in the future which is moving from the electric vehicles moving from 400 to 800 volts. Also, vehicle to grid versus vehicle to load. For example, EV6 and Nero 5 the ones with the 800 volts currently and more coming in the pipeline and the last point is that I think that a lot of the traditional car manufacturers on a top level on a management level they are not still they didn't still understand fully what's going on from what I see and what I read from different news outlets. Analyze, do you want to say something? You are new? I'm helping in Summers. Hi. I had a question on your point about the fact that it is speeding up and this is the way things are moving and that you think that regulations would get in the way of that process rather than speeding it up. what would you recommend for countries such as the big three in North America Canada, United States and Mexico where there are a lot of people in positions of power that don't necessarily recognize that that transition is underway yet.

1:17:05how would you recommend helping them see that they stand to gain by getting on board with this accelerating movement toward batteries? You mean the opposition to the global climate change the politicians which they are opposing or they are standing by toward issues of the global climate change? That's what you mean? Correct. So rather than asking them to make regulations they don't necessarily believe in I understood you correctly. Yeah. I understood you correctly. So the global climate change is not the problem. That's the problem what most of the people they don't realize. Global climate change is the symptom of the problem. Pollution is not the problem. Pollution is the symptom of the problem. The problem lies in the energy specifically in the energy waste and this energy waste we are creating by using fire by using combustion. So energy waste creates most of the problems related to pollution safety health killing the people 10 million people are dying from pollution not from global climate change global climate change is also caused by the fire.

1:18:43So politicians I don't want to go wide because I would occupy a long time politicians can be with their policies they can be part of the problem or part of the solution. Unfortunately most of the politicians in countries like United States Canada or even Europe they are part of the problem because they hijacked the issue of the symptom of the global climate change or pollution but global climate change they hijacked for the power purposes so because they hijacked the issue for the power purposes they are not interested to solve the problem because they are not even talking about solution of the problem so they are talking about how to gain the power by capturing the issue of global climate change and that creates polarity basically that creates averse approach from the other side they hijacked this issue and they changed the political situation right now to religion they changed it to religion they changed it not to scientific issue but to religion basically they are operating like the religion basically they are saying many untruths many lies only how to gain the power so what's the solution lies from what I call bottom up approach it will be solved it will be solved through organic process of the disruption which we are and this disruption is not driven by the technologies and those technologies need to be deployed by the by the businesses so businesses will solve the problem businesses entrepreneurs for the profit and we will solve the problem despite of the government not because of the government we will solve the problem for economical reason basically we will utilize the underutilize the largest tool for the solution which is free market communistic Marxist ideas doesn't work thanks Basim Milo and Annalise and I know we mentioned this before this tends to be the heated time of the day right at the end of the sessions it's usually when people get really into it and it's great but looking at the time we run is one hours every Saturday and Catherine and myself we also have to you know there's more events happening there's like a battery branch happening in case you know about that another event this evening if you are this morning depending where you are on battery so there's more things happening so I think unfortunately we actually have to close today's session even interested for free to reach out to each other write us a message also very much excited to have a session next week with battery basics we just set it up on this app so you should see it now if you go on this battery revolution club you see on the top left so yeah we're going to keep the conversation next week and hopefully see many of you there again Catherine has a bit !

1:22:50we always recording them every week and you can find them on battery insiders dot com or battery insiders on Spotify Apple podcasts Google podcasts or anywhere you can find them and hopefully see you again next week and have a wonderful day and weekend bye bye yes all have a nice weekend until next week bye bye everyone bye Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.