Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Battery News

0:00Transcript

0:00but companies focus focusing on bigger form factors for the batteries. So I'm just curious as to, you know, what everyone's thoughts is to this, and whether you see any interesting news in the industry so far. You need carefully to structure your form, battery, and what kind of battery for what kind of use. Again, this year show us that we are talking about a lot of forms, forms factors only, bigger batteries, but then you see the problem of the Bolt, which is a major problem for the electrical vehicle makers, or established electrical vehicle makers, like the General Motors. So if you are choosing the wrong form factor, it contributes to success of the company or failure of the whole company. You can go bankrupt on that. Christopher, hi, thanks for joining us on stage. Are you joining to discuss on this topic? Yeah. Yeah, one more addition before Christopher you are jumping. This 4680 battery, there is not only form factor, so everybody thinks that it's, or everybody is announcing we are going to produce 4680 battery. Tesla went very carefully to the designing this form factor of 4680. They didn't choose 5090 or something like that, or 4080.

1:31They picked up 4680 because a lot of factors, what is inside of this battery. So their optimal scenario, it's 4680, it's 4680 form factor, but you see one year from announcement and they don't produce it yet. Yep. So it was just a sort of comeback with a count after to what Milos was saying there. And obviously, he's already, he already beat us to it with obviously being very important, not just the form factor, but the way that the battery is built. I think form factor does go into it. And you know, there will be a standardized sort of size that batteries go into, but I think there'll be various form factors. I know obviously Milos used the bolt as an example, you know, for the wrong form factor. However, my own opinion on that is I would, I would suggest, you know, we don't have enough information on it to say what it was, but potentially it was more sort of the quality. You know, what we have to remember is the, the, the battery industry manufacturing these batteries is extremely quality intensive. You know, the quality focus has to be sort of absolute in the forefront of everybody's minds. You know, you, you have got different methods slightly between pouch, prismatic and cylindrical, but actually at the moment to the, to the OEMs even know what type of battery they ideally want, you know? And that's just my thought on it.

3:25Yeah. In the bold, I'm not blaming for form factor. No, I am saying that general quality of the battery is very important, including form factor, but not only form factor. Yeah. Thanks. Hi, Parth. Do you have something to add? Yeah. Actually, like I, I do want to add something because the processing of the battery is also changing because right now we are using some, some process to manufacture the anodes and cathode. Right now we are, we are moving to dry coating and something else like that because many people are constantly doing research and changing the process of battery manufacturing. Do you think it is possible to maintain high quality when this kind of processing is rapidly changing? Is it possible to have quality analysis in a very short time because the research is going in a very fast way? Actually, Barth, I, I know it's opposite way. We didn't change the process, battery production for 30 years. We are still producing batteries by the first generation of the battery manufacturing.

4:41There is 16 step process. We are just trying to make this process for 30 years. We are make, we made this process much faster, but the process didn't change how we are producing the batteries for 30 years from the beginning. So Tesla is only one company which is trying to change this process, but it's very difficult. Nobody else is competing with the, that's why I'm calling it second generation battery. There's one reason, not only reason, but the nobody changed the manufacturing process yet. That's really interesting because, you know, a lot of claims are coming. A lot of research is telling this process is good, that process is good. But I don't know why this is not commercialized because this, I always think about it when reading research articles. And things like that, how we can implement this quality process into the commercial scale stuff. I'm coming to the same answer to, for the, all the questions of the commercialization. The battery, it's very difficult process because it's like the chemical factory in electrochemical factory in the very small scale.

5:56So basically battery, battery cell, it's probably, it's working almost 24 hours, like the electrochemical factory. So it's very difficult to, to change it. So that's why we had only a few changes over, over 220 years. So we started with, uh, uh, uh, uh, 18, in 1800 with Alexandro Volta. Then we, we had like a three major changes over 220 years, lead acid battery, nickel condium battery, and the lithium-ion batteries, and, uh, several small changes. But you can count them on one or two hands. Uh, so 220 years. That's huge. That's a very small, very slow change. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you so much for your insights. Thanks, Linda and Ingo for joining us on stage. Um, Linda, do you have any thoughts or comments to add? Yes. Hi, Catherine. Hi, Simon. Hi to everyone else on stage. Uh, yes, I do. I, I think earlier on, I met, I heard mention of circularity and so far as batteries are concerned. Last week I attended a presentation where a Swedish battery manufacturer, we're talking about their lithium-ion, all batteries, and they are developing technology, which they want to use for recycling their next generation lithium-ion, all batteries.

7:43But of course, um, as they explained, it will be, they can't test it now. It'll be after 10 years when the batteries come to their end of life. Um, but irrespective, it's still interesting to see what people are trying to do in so far as the circular economy and, uh, recycling is concerned. So, um, I thought that was some interesting news, but that was for EV vehicles. Um, my focus is batteries in power projects and off grid projects, but not as a central component as part of the energy mix. Still, I'm interested to know, um, what those applications would possibly mean for the, um, energy sector. Thank you for sharing Linda. Um, fantastic. Yeah. I don't know if anybody has any other thoughts on it. This topic, I mean, circularity was really, it's a big topic for sure. And I'm not sure if you, um, if you want to follow, we also have a podcast as well. Um, we call battery insiders. Um, and, um, yeah, so we actually had a session last week with Tillman Valle from systemic.

8:49And actually last week's topic was, um, sustainable EV batteries. So we spoke a lot about circularity and he's quite, I mean, he does a lot of work on it. So he's an expert on it. So maybe we can also just, um, suggest if you're interested in this topic to have a look at battery insiders on Spotify, Apple podcasts, et cetera. And we always put all the free sessions. And we also have like a little video on YouTube. So I'm not with you on LinkedIn. If you look for battery associates, so they find a interview you might enjoy as well. So it's definitely a really interesting topic. And thanks for sharing that. I think last year also show us, uh, Katrin, you were talking about past 12 months, uh, the news. So, uh, past 12 months also show us that how, how we move to, uh, forward in the recycling of the batteries technologies and, uh, recycle battery recycling companies. They kind of prove us that it's possible. It's possible 95% of the battery, uh, materials, uh, they are able to already recycle.

9:54The problem is that, uh, uh, quantity of the batteries, like the supply for, for the recycling, because right now it's not enough. This, this process is not economical because they don't have enough batteries to recycle. But that will be a next 10 years. We have still time to perfect those technologies and to deploy the new technologies. And, uh, uh, when the next decade, the, uh, volume of the batteries will come to the recycle that we will be able to recycle them. I think that, uh, Milo's is correct that there isn't really a large quantity. Obviously there's certain recyclers that are buying up all the stock and trying to, um, maybe, uh, example, medical materials, buying up all the stock and trying to produce a, a mat and installing that mat to maybe, um, other secondary groups to actually have operating income. Um, um, so it's just a challenge because now it's not really economic, but there may not be stock available. If you don't get your recycling puppy on the ground 10 years from now, uh, because they're trying to buy up future stock.

11:07A lot of these companies of this black mass from say, um, battery manufacturers or, or scrap for battery manufacturers in order to, um, prove the legitimacy of their process for future. Um, and I think this is following up with Linda said, I think Linda mentioned a process recycling lithium iron phosphate batteries. And if I, if I heard her correctly, and that's a big challenge of lithium recycling lithium iron phosphate batteries. I know that there's some technologies or at the laboratory scale for that, but that's really a big challenge to make that economic because, um, lithium iron phosphate because of the chemistry and the, the value of just merely the, you know, separate the lithium, the iron, or reconstituting the, the cathode from that is a bit challenging. So, um, you know, I, I can speak more, but that's, uh, my thoughts for the moment. Yeah, I agree with you, Mark. The, uh, recently we are talking about deploying or, uh, producing and using more iron phosphate batteries in the, even in electrical vehicle, but, uh, vehicles, but the challenge is that, uh, is more difficult to recycle iron phosphate battery than economically than, uh, the nickel.

12:24Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Two, two salts on more recycling today. Every car has a acid, uh, lead battery and this recycling of these batteries, it's still a mess on a worldwide scale. So all the recycler should really look, all the regulators should really look what we missed and did wrong. And did wrong in lead acid battery recycling. As these still land in Africa on, on some recycler, uh, landfill or in, we have millions of children with, with high lead, uh, in, in their blood because these lit, uh, acid lead batteries aren't recycled correctly. And the percentage of, of the recycling isn't still where it should be. So the regulators should really look what they missed here and do that better in the future. And all the companies to do it to make the process really circular environment or economy and not a dumb state, which it still is at the actual situation. So we should really look what we missed with lead acid batteries and do it better now with these, uh, lithium-ion batteries.

13:44So we will have really high amounts in the next five or 10 years. And afterwards that we don't end up in the same mess we did in this context up to now. Another point I had about what you said, Milo's 4680s and so on the dimension. The dimension they just said, yeah, but Arthur, what you said is right. Uh, they are doing this dry coating and that is a new process and it needs to be stable and it needs to be stable and high speed and so on. And that's in my point of view, the issue why they are delaying the release of, of, of these batteries. Tesla, as you said, Marlos, it's one year ago, it was announced. If you make, uh, these batteries now, you need to test them. Even if you have the special tests Professor Dan developed, it takes time to really test it. And it's a mess. If you realize five years later, as GM do with these batteries, uh, then you are really mess.

14:39You need to have the stability of the processes. Um, and that takes time. So breakthrough process that won't come. It's really incremental processes. 1%, 2% here, 1%, 2% there. And then the total industry moves forward. But I don't believe that we will have to break through moonshot technology in the next three or four years. And the final thing, I think the, uh, the blade battery, I think BYD announced that. That is also an interesting technology. They have, uh, not the small cells like Tesla or the other ones do have big ones, these batteries. And due to the chemistry, they have inherent security. So they don't burn like, uh, the nickel based one and so on and so on. And that brings down the cost to really down the cost. I think even more than, um, Tesla does it with their way. Um, and they are good enough. They are good enough. Uh, the iron phosphate batteries. And you need only the high density, I think for the sports cars and the very high range, but for a standard car, that will be good enough.

15:48And the stable and cheaper technology. Thank you for sharing Ingo. And I think Christopher, did you add another point on this? It was more so on the, the recycling, uh, recycling. So when we're talking about recycling, we always talk about the batteries and you know, yeah, the batteries we make today. Potentially it'll be 10 years before we say them or even further, but actually there's a, there's another issue as well. You know, there's the, the recycling of the production material up until it becomes a battery. Uh, you know, so all processes will create an amount of waste. Uh, I remember watching a webinar where they talked about sort of the, the, the global waste for, from this production, you know, and this is going to be a lot bigger, uh, certainly in the short term, uh, over the, to before the next 10 years when the batteries start coming in. So, you know, when we talk about recycling, we need to understand, it's not just about the end of life batteries as well.

16:57It's, it's about all the production material materials that are wasted within the process, uh, or become waste for some reason within a process, uh, before it even gets to that stage. Well, this is a follow up to Chris. Um, so I was actually, um, curious other than the, the metals, which, um, obviously can mostly be recycled. I know that lithium iron phosphate, recycling that scrap is, has a highly negative value. I mean, it requires a large towing, um, amount for, for someone to take that, that scrap. Um, what other materials other than the metals, you know, in terms of like, um, are, are not recycled well? Maybe it's the binders, maybe it's the plastic. I'm just curious, Chris, um, that you're involved with this need to be improved upon. So I think, you know, you, you know, when you start breaking the battery down, uh, and you start talking about the, the, the manufacturing process. If you look at what the manufacturing process is, it's, it's creating a stack or a jelly roll, be that a cathode, an anode, uh, and a separate material.

18:06So there you've got sort of a number of different materials. You know, you've got your, your, your copper, your aluminum, you've got your, your, uh, active material, uh, as you, as you'll be aware, Mark, obviously it can be difficult to sort of separate the active material once it's quoted onto the, the collectors. But then also you've got sort of your, if you're talking about sort of the cells themselves, you've got your, uh, your housings, whether that's sort of the cylindrical, whether that's the prismatic housing or even sort of the, the, the, the pouch laminates, you know, uh, then once you start moving past the cell phase and into the modules, uh, it'll all depend on how your modules get all put together. You know, there, there, there, there could be some form of metal casing or not. It could be plastic casing. It could be PCB boards, uh, within the modules. And then once you start moving onto the pack, uh, you'll have sort of buzz bars.

19:04Uh, you'll have sort of the, the, the metal pack casings. If it's metal, you'll have the, you know, obviously the technology for casings is moving forward. So there's different materials there. So I think it's, it's not an easy answer. To give you there, Mark, uh, you know, from a recycling point of view, what's easy and what's not, not easy to recycle. The easy parts will be where there's processes already in place for it. So where there's sort of non-coded metals and there's already, uh, items for it, but, you know, you would, you would expect them to be sort of processes already able to handle them. The, the difficult ones, uh, it'll be the ones where you've got the material that's quoted. Well, for example, uh, Tesla claims that they have recycling process, which recycles 100%. And I'm pretty sure they're not recycling the binders, the plastic, the electrolytes. I think that's, uh, and I, I'm not seeing anybody actually showing that stuff is really recyclable.

20:04Maybe at best you can use it for heat energy, but there's not really a recyclability or any sense to any of that type of material. Yeah. On that one, uh, Mark, obviously I know your background, so I'll take your, your, your comments on that one. Uh, knowing the, the industry as you do. Thank you for sharing Christopher, Mark as well. Um, fantastic. Just look at the times, maybe just kind of a bit of a reset of the room because yeah, we were almost a bit over an hour now. So today we just have a session where we don't have like a conversation starter as we often have, but today we want to do one of these things. But today we want to do one of these community sessions, which we really enjoy. We know people from, from, you know, like our community essentially can speak more as well. And on these sessions, um, we, you know, to, we like to address different topics and today we're addressing the topic of battery news.

20:57So we are talking about like, you know, what are your kind of highlights of the past year? And the context of this is that we have our battery day coming up on the 23rd of September. We're going to summarize lots of the news from the past year. And we're also going to do a bit of an outlook. What are some of the trends we kind of expecting? And we also, you know, want to make sure we don't missing anything. So we are really excited to hear all your thoughts and maybe also just one quick thing to say. So we have a newsletter now, um, called battery newsletter and, um, I have done two versions now. And also Baris here on the panel has been really heavily involved there, work on this and a bunch of other people. And, um, essentially what we do in this is summarizing some of the most relevant industry news every month in the world of batteries. And we have been sending two of them so far.

21:38We will keep doing that. And, um, yeah, I think it's also a really nice way to kind of trying to dissect this. And I think, you know, some of the news I mentioned today already in there, like the Biden announcements, but I know also of the European developments, but also all these exciting developments all around the world. You know, India was mentioned earlier, but all around the world, we can really see lots of momentum. And so, yeah, you know, this is also an open invitation again to anybody listening in right now, you know, if you want to come on stage, I see a few familiar faces. You really welcome to, to come in. It's a, you know, it's a friendly group as you can tell. And if you want to ask any questions or share anything you found interesting, you want to share with others, please do so as well. We've got about 20 minutes left and yeah. So it tends to be getting quite busy often, but let's see for today.

22:22And otherwise, I'm maybe just going to go maybe also from, from you, Christopher. You know, just kind of coming from a manufacturing standpoint. I'm not sure if you know, remember much about what Tesla was announcing, maybe it was for you, you, Milo's or anybody else, you know, like about a year ago. Do you have like any updates on it? Do you feel like, you know, anything where you kind of feel now this actually is kind of entering more, let's say the industry of manufacturing. Just curious if you have any thoughts on that, what has been kind of proposed about a year ago. Yeah. Obviously I have. Maybe he's away from his phone and it happens. Or he has a bug. I had a bug before I couldn't hear people. So maybe he does that. My little feet to jump in while Chris. Yes, I think the process, the one year prove us from announcement of the, of the battery day of Tesla that. Like Elon Musk is saying many times, it's thousands of times more difficult to, to bring the, from laboratory scale to the volume production, the, any invention in the battery.

23:42So, but they are progressing and the question is not if, but when it will be done. So basically they are already at about in the processes. They are in 90, 90% of the processes they have done. They are missing like a, they are getting some problems in the 10% of the processes. And those processes are not scientific problem. Those are engineering problems. So, it's the question of the, when they will tweak it, the machinery to be able to produce it with volume. Because you need to realize that they want to produce at about 10 times more batteries on the same line, on the smaller size line, on one line, 10 times more battery than the processes today. So, this process is, this line go very, very, very, very fast. And so you, you don't have room for the mistakes. You have zero room for the mistakes. So, how I understand, they are already building the, I mean, obviously it's in the, in the three money in the cut the road, it is, what they call pilot line, but it's a big pilot line, it's 10 gigawatt hours.

25:10And in the Berlin, based on the same technology, and battery plan in Texas, based on the same technology. So, next year it will be done. Maybe it will be done already, it is, yeah. I would welcome some questions about it. I'm just kind of curious, if you, do you remember like all the different things which are kind of coming? So, I think the form factor, so I guess that's like, you know, the form factors like the tablet's design as well. Then silicon. I'm just trying to remember, we had this nice overview. Just curious from your... I remember all five factors, but I don't, those two factors, I didn't take them seriously already in the beginning. When they go deeper into the materials, like the silicon or lithium, I didn't take them seriously already on the battery day. Because it's jumping two, three stages vertically, you know? So, the three most important factors for me is the tabless battery. It means that the battery is tabless.

26:27The second, even more important factor is the dry battery electrode manufacturing. And the third one is that this battery will be a structural tech in the car. Those three factors, I am positive on them. It's just the time when they are able to... And they are going by the Tesla speed. So, one year is a short time to be able to solve them. It looks like they need like one and a half year, half a year more. But they will be done with all three factors, all those three factors. The silicon, silicon is very, very, very difficult factor. And I don't think that it will be done in five years. And lithium is also a difficult factor. And I don't think that it will be done in the year term. Thank you for sharing this. It will be interesting to see. I mean, I know the silicon is a contiguous topic, but there's, of course, a lot of bullish people on there as well, thinking it will be quite some progress.

27:45Silicon I know relatively well because I invested now. You know, I mean, my firm is in private equity investment. So, we own now, we invested to one silicon technology company. So, I know this subject very well. It did very well. Brilliant, yeah. I imagine so. It's good to have the inside scoop. Brilliant, yeah. Just kind of thinking, Christopher, are you back by any chance? Or are you still... Yeah. Are you back, perfect? Yeah, I'm back. Obviously, I just caught what sort of the last part of what Melos was saying there. I think he made some good points. I think that from sort of my side, I'm very keen to see how the structural cell goes because although it has... There's issues there, you know, in the design of the cell itself. There's also issues when you start putting a cell as a structural point in the car because then potentially if it's structural and you can't remove it, depending on where it's placed, then does that then create issues where if you've got the cell in the car that can't be removed, it then becomes a scrap car?

29:06Or would it be a structural form where, you know, the whole battery will make up the structure of the floor and it'll be bolted in very similar to today's technology? I think it's an interesting one. Yes, you are right, Christopher, and I want to point again. I believe Tesla will solve very quickly those three issues. It means that dry battery cell manufacturing, dry battery electrode cells manufacturing, the tubeless form, and the structural pain. And other two issues which they introduce on the battery day, it will take them longer time, or maybe they will not solve it ever. So, I think there's still going to be some interesting news and will be interesting whenever they're going to do an update on some of these things. I'm sure it's going to be a great surprise when they do. But, yeah, I think something we can look forward to. In the meantime, hopefully, some other companies will do some similar announcements, because I think it's always interesting to get some idea of where they're going.

30:45Yes, the other two, if you remember, they want to produce lithium from the mine from Nevada, from the clay. So, lithium is coming right now from the two sources. There are three primary sources of the lithium. Lithium brine, lithium rack, like the mined lithium, lithium spudumin. And the third source is clay. But nobody is producing economically from the clay the lithium today. So, what Tesla introduced, that they will produce lithium from the clay. They have new technology. And I know details how they are working on those, how they are progressing in to be able to produce from the clay. Maybe they will solve it, but maybe not. So, that's lithium. We are using today two sources of the lithium, and they wanted to use the third source of the clay. The silicon. The silicon, they wanted to use metallurgical silicon, like the cheap silicon, just to be able to simply process it and then coat it with the ionic polymer coating. And that basically should solve theoretically the problem with the silicon.

32:06But it's not so easy. So, this one, I think it will take longer time. And there were some speculations that they are talking about the full replacement of the graphite. I don't think that they were ever talking about full replacement of the graphite. They were always talking only about addition of the silicon to the graphite. So, they're going to go to the graphite. Just further up to Myles' point about the clay deposits in Nevada. I've spoken to the SACR past people. And they claim it's much less energy intensive for their particular processing method. And since the clays are sort of a highly weathered form of spodumene, it should require less energy for processing. Now, of course, I haven't seen that process. They do have some patents and all that that are available. But they claim it's highly competitive in terms of lithium products and price. So, if they can help, if they have a less energy intensive process, they can definitely undersell and be an effective battery material from the clay.

33:20I don't know about Tussle's process. They've been a lot more secretive rather than other than attacker paths. So, I'm curious to see that. Fantastic. Yeah. And I think, I mean, it's interesting to see what's going to happen. Yeah, especially from the raw material standpoint. If people who haven't been at the session, two weeks ago we did one on regional supply chains. And Myles was there as well. But we also had a conversation starter from Bloomberg Neff James Frith and talking a bit about the supply chain topic as well. And it's, yeah, I think it's kind of interesting to see, you know, how companies move into this more. I mean, other companies I'm aware of, you know, like BASF is quite involved in some of these things, some OEMs like BMW as well. You know, there's, and I mean, I've talked to some other big battery companies and, you know, the kind of how to secure the supply chain is a big topic, especially in Europe, right?

34:16That's kind of the new battery regulation, which is kind of proposed by the European Commission has some new kind of things which have to be fulfilled by battery users, supply chain wise, especially for the European supply chain. So definitely interesting area to watch and we'll see, I think, you know, if companies can localize it, if they're able to, as you said, develop their own processes. Also looking at the time, I mean, yeah, Myles. Yeah, I wanted a little bit bigger picture, general picture to voice one view. So for last 30 years, we have the first generation lithium-ion battery and we went tremendous, like through tremendous development in the three directions. We know to produce them today, much cheaper, cheaper way. We are, we know to produce them in much bigger scale, giga plants and so on than 30 years ago. And we are producing it in much better quality, various factors of the quality, energy density, faster charging, safety and so on. So I believe next 30 years, we still have the room next 10 years.

35:32We have still room to the development to go in all those three directions. And that's in the first generation batteries. So there will be plenty of first generation lithium-ion batteries. But I also believe that Tesla will start next year, not this year, they will start next year with the second generation battery. And that will be also, that will also go with the tremendous evolution in this next decade. So the similarity means we will have two, because of the volume demand for the batteries, we will have the first generation, but much improved. And second generation led by the Tesla, and we will see how it will go over the decade if somebody else will produce also, based on their license or based cooperation with them, on the second generation battery. I'm not talking only about form. Form is almost not important for the 680. I'm talking about second generation lithium-ion batteries. Thank you for sharing. Also, thank you Siham for joining us. Are there any news you found fascinating this year or any outlook you might have from the coming year?

36:53So you're very quiet. Hello? Can you hear me now? A bit better, I think. Let me try to fix it. And maybe someone else wants to go, and I can go after. I think we're kind of almost at the end. So in case you want to jump in, but maybe also before you come back, I can also just say a few quick words about the battery day, because we've been also teasing it a bit. So again, we're doing quite a bit of work right now to summarize all the companies from the last year. And I think there's a couple of things you've mentioned, but there's also more. You know, I mean, I think especially on the global landscape, there's so much happening, which is very tough to kind of keep an eye on anyways. And I think we really try to make it nicely put it well together. And then also these outlooks I mentioned, there are going to be a couple of interesting panels as well on a range of topics on solid-state.

38:01We're also going to launch a solid-state white paper from battery source. It's next week, which we have been working on for a while. And I think it's going to be enjoyable as well, maybe for some of you. We're launching it during the EAA, but we're also quite heavily involved. And yeah, so, you know, maybe also just one thing, if you're interested to attend battery day, you know, it's free for you guys. So just go on, you know, on battery day dot info. There's a quick form you can fill it in and you get more information in the next few days. So, you know, we'd love to have you all there and have this dialogue there as well, you know, on a nice platform and even have a chance to see each other there because they're going to be a video function. So we can do that as well. And yeah, maybe, Sriram, would you like to try it again? I don't know. Yes, I think it's already better.

38:53Okay. One of the things that I've noticed since September last year is that OEMs are investing in their own battery supply chains. I think that's actually quite recent, you know, starting with Tesla, then GM made its partnership with LG. And then Volkswagen has its own partnerships and with multiple companies. And I'm wondering how that's going to develop over the coming years, whether we're going to have massive suppliers like CADL still continue to exist or will they all rely on their own supply chains for all their battery supplies? Especially now with LG entering the ion phosphate battery side of things. I'm wondering if the importance of battery manufacturers that are not tied to any specific OEMs are going to go in a different direction. I think the, what you said, electrical vehicles like OEMs, yes? They are investing in the battery supply value chain. I don't think that's true. They are just talking about it. They are just investing, creating joint ventures with the battery producers for the Giga plants, not for the materials.

40:22Giga plants is not supply chain. Giga plants are only plants. Those are only Giga buildings and they don't have materials. So, and they are coming from defensive position because they need batteries. So they think they can solve the battery problem with the investing or creating joint ventures with the battery manufacturing to produce basically dedicated Giga plants to produce batteries for them. But they are not investing money to the supply chain. So, to rid the impact of the port, that there are efforts made, a lot of their dependence on cobalt and also know exactly where their cobalt came from. And I think some of these efforts will be followed by the other OEMs. I hope so. From point of view of the shortage of materials for the batteries or investment to the battery supply value chain, the cobalt is least important problem. Cobalt is a problem, a geopolitical problem, created, created, created, created, which is very politicized problem. So, cobalt is a geopolitical problem. Cobalt is least important problem from the access to the enough battery material.

42:11So, the other battery material, like the lithium, nickel, manganese, graphite, and others are much more important than cobalt from the quantity and the quality point of view. Cobalt is least important than cobalt is important only from the environmental point of view, from the policies point of view, and the geopolitical point of view. We have enough cobalt. The problem is that it's in DRC and they are claiming that it's produced by the child labor and so on and so on. So, the countries are trying to clean up the DRC from the bad mining practices. So, basically, that's geopolitical problem. I think the efforts made, Cobalt was just an example, but the efforts made to own the entire value chain, I think, would propagate throughout the industry. Or at least there is potential for OEMs to attempt to own the entire value chain, right from the materials all the way to recycling. Attempts will be made. We just have to wait and see how successful they are because we don't have, you know, even Tesla right now doesn't own the entire value chain at the moment.

43:36So, we would have to wait. Yeah. Sriram, I think they are only talking and they are not doing anything. Look at their action, not about their talk. But on the other side, I don't think that it's feasible that somebody can control the whole supply value chain. Look at the other industries. So, this company would be like a hundred times bigger company than the largest company in the world. So, basically, somebody needs to mine those materials and it cannot be just a vertically integrated company. We are not hundred years ago when US Steel was able to vertically integrate the whole supply value chain. I agree with my loss on this one. You know, to own the full value chain, you would have to be absolutely huge. And, you know, I think it's an impossibility. If you're talking about vertical integration in smaller parts of it, then, you know, that's been happening for sort of the last sort of 10, 13 years. If you look at when Nissan first set up, you know, it had a joint venture going.

44:46It had its own battery business. A couple of years ago, it sold the battery business. You know, but then you've got other companies who are obviously, you've got like say a V-Dub. You know, they're sort of making agreements with Northvolt and others, for instance, potentially. It's regular in the news. So, you know, it is some level of joint venture, as Milo says, but to own the full value chain, I think it'll be impossible. Yeah, look like the problems of the Tesla. Even one step, vertical integration for the battery. So, vertical integration to the older other three steps. There's mining, there's processing, and there is processing is very difficult. Everybody thinks that processing is simple because it's just adding value to the mine materials. No, it's more like specialty chemical processing, like pharmaceutical processing. It's so complex and so difficult. And then you have the active materials production. So, nobody can, in my opinion, that's utopia to go to build vertically integrated company. You could do it 100 years ago.

46:08But even, not 100 years ago, 120 years ago, even 100 years ago, you couldn't do it. Thanks so much for that, everyone. Sorry, Mark, please go ahead. I was just going to agree with what Milo said. Yeah, I mean, I don't see Tesla becoming a mining company, which would have to be to attempt to meet some of their demand, which they couldn't even. And, yeah, I don't see them buying up nickel mines and cobalt mines to be fully integrated. And merely by recycling, they're still not going to meet their demand for their battery materials. So, yeah, I don't see the vertical integration as really makes any sense, for example. Thank you. Yep, thanks so much, everyone. As always, the discussion towards the end of the session is always, you know, very engaging. So, thank you so much for your active participation. And with that, we've come to the end of the session. If you're interested in what Simon was mentioning earlier about battery day, feel free to contact him about it.

47:13And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We're also always looking for final sort of speakers to join us, as always. So, you know, if you're interested to speak on a certain topic or if you know anyone who would be beneficial or contribute to battery revolution, please do drop myself and Simon a message on that. And with that, I'll pass on to Simon to close the room. Thank you, Catherine. Yeah. And, as you said, it's always, always fun at the end. And, yeah, I just want to say a big thank you, everyone, for joining us again today for a bit of a different session, you know, but like, yeah, as we said, beginning without having a conversation start up, but really trying to have a nice discussion about all these kind of updates, et cetera, we've been having in the news. As usual, you can find all the recordings on Battery Insiders on the podcast recordings. And, yeah, you know, also, as I mentioned, Hans-Pater in the beginning, the EA Mobility is happening next week.

48:12And, yeah, if you're interested to attend in person or online, let us know. And especially as battery associates, we've got a bunch of, not too many, but we have a couple of tickets, though, from, you know, we get because we're a creation partner on the battery topic. So, if you're interested to attend, you know, and you have been involved in these sessions, and just let me know about me, like a message tracker in here. So, reach out to me on LinkedIn, and I'm sure we can help you out. So, yeah, it would be cool to see many of you there. We're going to have a battery panel there on the Thursday, and we do a master class on the Tuesday, but unfortunately, the master class won't be streamed online. But, yeah, with this, you know, thanks, everyone, for joining again. And I'll see you or we'll see you in about a week's time. See you then. See you then.