Battery Insiders Reflection - Battery Safety

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights in the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. And we're back. Welcome back, everybody. How's it going, Simon? Very well. It's a sunny day in Munich. How about you, Bhavya? How are you doing? It's a gloomy day here, so we are not on the same page. No, but what we are on the same page about is battery safety, which was our topic this past week. We had a great conversation with Sriram Parath, and I enjoyed some of his insights. It also took me back to my Tesla days. That's the first thing I worked on when it came to batteries, was environment, health, and safety. So what'd you think? Yeah, no, I think it was a fascinating discussion. And I think, as you said, it's one of these things which is, I think, really important to do right. I think it's one of these things where you can't overlook that. You can, if you want to just quickly build something together, but to actually build something sustainable and also have transition of the entire industry to see batteries in all kinds of applications. Of course, we have to make sure that the safety is done properly. And yeah, I think it was interesting to look at different applications. I think from, we had, of course, the AV application, which is one of the big ones always in the headlights, on the headlines when you have things blowing up or things going wrong. But also talking about IoT and all these other safety and shipping and all these really fascinating topics, which are also relevant. It's sometimes easy to think it's only one area, but actually, as we know, batteries are used in so many different applications. Of course, there's also, you know, the topic of safety is one of them, which combines them all, right? How to operate them in a good manner. What about you, Bavia?

1:57Yeah, the timing was kind of almost impeccable. I've been getting more and more questions recently about, well, I saw this Tesla blew up and this EV battery was on fire. And, you know, what does thermal management look like was a question I have been tackling with for a while. I know others have too. This is where we seek my favorite thing, standards. But that, I mean, the questions are fair, like, but you also have to like, remember those are small sample sizes, kind of like not totally a one in a million situation. I mean, yes, they're happening, but, you know, what are the reasons and do we really understand, like, even why things are happening? It doesn't, does that automatically make the technology faulty? I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I think that there are plenty of examples of where this technology has worked and done good. And, you know, we'll continue to do that for years. So I thought the timing with those was actually quite, quite nice because of the recent events that have been going on. But I think like what it, what most people think about when we talk about batteries is, you know, just the thermal issues or the potential of any kind of fire hazard. And that's so real. Like when you talk about like stockpiling batteries at end of life, that's a real concern. You have basically piles and like, imagine piles and piles of batteries in warehouses that are, and they're just kind of waiting and you don't really know if they're supposed to be recycled or reused or what have you. And I think that ties into the other question that I really have spent a lot of time with, which is end of life management. And that how, how do you handle batteries when you're transporting them to the recycling center or going to prepare them in remanufacturing for like reuse or for a different application? All of these things like step by step have to be thought out. And, you know, how you have to talk, talk about like, how do you discharge any kind of battery? And what do the workers or any type of any like employee who's working on batteries, what, how should they be educated? It really comes down to like the level of education and like continued education on this issue because people just don't know. And then they try, they start, you know, working with it like it's any other product, but it does have all of these flammable properties and other, other like pretty dangerous concerns. But, you know, that there's, it's not, that's not all to say that batteries are ever, I'm ever going to say that they're bad, but it just requires like a very, very in-depth type of like standard and guidance and process around it. And I think that was the message that this topic drives home is that we need guidance and we need that to be standardized across the board in order for like people to be safe around batteries, whether they're driving it, working with it, recycling it, et cetera.

5:06Absolutely. And I think it's, I agree. I mean, the timing is, I feel always good for these things because it's, yeah, it's one of these things which stays in the media once in a while. But of course, as you say, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's something which is present for that. I think it was interesting to also have these conversations about, you know, what happens when things go wrong. And of course, they're not that many overall. So that's why they, they get all sort of attention, you could say, I mean, it's a lot of ICE, you know, accidents, et cetera, also happening. I think it was also quite interesting to, to kind of think about even like, you know, how to, I mean, also like this, I think some of these things, right, which are like, you know, legacy of change or like, you know, issues when you, when you change your systems, right. For example, the fire extinguishing, right. From EVs and how to do this, right. And there, I think the, the conversations that I was talking about, or Suyam was talking about having no special foams and different, you know, I think there's some different technologies, but in reality, you know, normal, it seemed like, you know, normal kind of fire extinguisher, like, you know, trucks, whatever, they don't have these, you know, advanced, let's say, you know, chemicals or whatever you can use to, to be the most effective. So they will just use water, right. Just to cool it down the system. And it's also kind of interesting, right. How things are going to change because I'm just personally thinking, right. Where, right now, of course, it's a small percentage if you're not living in Norway or some of the other ones, but of course we know, if you look at the better regulation in Europe, but also the U S you know, with Europe saying 2030, you know, 50% new of the new sold cars should be non-emitting same as, you know, to the, in the U S and then 100% and 35, you know, in Europe, you know, of course this will change a lot. Right. So, I mean, later on, essentially fire extinguisher, you know, like, or like these kinds of trucks, I think they will have much more, you know, optimized and specialized, you know, solutions for how to fire, like, you know, how to turn off electric fires and things like that. So I think that's just also interesting to think like how these things have, things have to be adopted, right.

7:05Not just like one thing. Okay. Now let's make, you know, the battery safety can be, of course, that's important one, but there will always be cases when things go wrong. Right. I mean, it's just from accidents. It's, you cannot prevent it, right. Even with the most advanced AI or something, you know, something crazy can always happen. And so then to kind of think about what should be in place for that and how this can transition. I just find this really fascinating to be trying to understand this entire system change, which is happening. Yeah. It's interesting the point you raise about changing systems and how there are always, you know, these are some legacy concerns that come with just when you change the system. I think it'll be interesting to see how we proceed with how battery, how continued battery growth, like manifests itself in like safety standards. It's something that I've definitely been keeping an eye on. And yeah, I think I, you know, you mentioned the US and Europe and I too, I'm only really familiar with those, and with those regions, um, standards around these, around battery management.

8:14So I'm curious, I'll have to make note of that curious about if anything exists anywhere else, as far as guidance goes. Um, but for the most part, it does seem to be a continued work in progress. Yeah, no, I agree. And I think it's, um, yeah, no, I think it's, it's, it's kind of interesting how these things are going to change. And I think that's one of these things I'm just wondering, you know, in a year's time or so, you know, if we look at these topics, will they become like more relevant or less? And I think it's, it's, I think battery safety is one of them, I think, which is all going to be sticking around because also when you bring in new chemistries and things, right, where we're looking at solid-state, you've been looking, you know, at, um, you know, like lithium metal and all these kinds of things, right. And that's also brings in, on the one hand can bring more safety, but also more, you know, issues again with newer chemistries. And so, yeah, I just find interesting to also think about how, how this might, you know, the relevance of this topic might develop over time.

9:14Well, I think that that puts us in a good place to talk about what we're going to discuss next week. So do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about that? Yeah, no, absolutely. Now, next week, we're looking forward to a exciting, also conversation starter again. So next time we have with us, James Frith from BNF or Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and he's going to talk about developing regional supply chains. So he has a bit of a different take on, I think we had some chats on supply chains before, but he teased to me, he has a bit of a different view, which is always my favorite because then we have actually some real discussions. So yeah. If we do join us for that one. Sounds like a plan. Sounds good. Speak soon. See you next week. Talk soon. Bye. Bye-bye.