Battery Insiders Reflection - IAA Mobility Munich

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. Good morning, Simon. How are you? Very good. How about you, Bhavya? How are you doing today? Doing well. Very excited for Battery Day. More excited that you finally got to go to an in-person conference. IAA Mobility, congratulations. Welcome back to the German, I would say automotive industry, but I think we have to go with mobility industry because from what I heard, it wasn't just cars. And that was part of the conversation we just had with the larger group on Clubhouse. What do you think about it? Absolutely. I 100% agree. It was really nice to actually meet some of the people from Battery Evolution and from Battery Insiders actually in person. Yes, our teammates, finally. Exactly. We still have to meet, Bhavya. Yes, that's so true. I hadn't even thought about that. But yeah, it was really, really great from this aspect, but also it was really interesting to, I mean, it was 400,000 people, so it was a big event. It's interesting that this is possible now.

1:14But yeah, I think beyond that, I think it was really nice to see kind of also how the industry is moving, right? So I mean, on the Battery Day with Battery Associates, we had quite a big panel there on the main stage on batteries, but also did the BatteryMBA Masterclass. And one thing also, which kind of really stuck with me is one is the great interest, because now you really can see that all the suppliers, all the OEMs, et cetera, are moving and have to move. And that's also kind of was, I think, quite nicely highlighted by no ICE car being presented or no fuel cell car. Oh, really? Very cool. So it's only electric cars there. And I think that's also kind of, you know, it's quite a clear signal, you know, if the biggest automotive fare in the world or like show in the world only shows electric cars, essentially, and electric mobility in general, and also, of course, bikes, as you mentioned, and things. And it's also important, you know, all these different ways of mobility. But yeah, I think it was a very clear, you know, very clear, you know, demonstration in a way. And I think there were maybe some hyper cars, you know, some, you know, so maybe there were some fossil fuel cars in there, but in the main stage, et cetera, anything which you would buy as a normal consumer, there was no, nothing else than electric. So I think this was an interesting observation. What do you think?

2:29There was a point made during our conversation about wanting a truly sustainably produced car, you know, looking at labor, looking at critical minerals, I think specifically looking at child labor. What were your thoughts on that? Yeah, no, I think it's a super important topic. I mean, our panel, so the panel we organized was together, we had like the guests we had on or the panel speakers were, I'm Luis from Circula, who does traceability for, you know, battery supply chains. Then we had Stefan from twice, looking really on the usage data and like, you know, research data. And then we had Lisa from Polestar and, you know, electric car company who was one of the first, or maybe the first one really to make public their LCA, you know, like, and they're also how they're doing it, not just the numbers, but also their methodology behind it. This really came up, right? Because the topic was from the ground to reincarnation and in a way it was like the sustainability battery panel, right? So, and this definitely comes up and I think it's also something, you know, which is very consumer driven, which for a good reason, because as a consumer, you know, I mean, as a company, you should be ethical, but even more from a consumer side, right? I think it's, there's more kind of demand, but also because we now actually have technology to make these things more traceable, right? I think in the past you could hide better. And I think a lot of supply chains at times have been more messy, but now actually, you know, there's more pressure from consumer side. The only way where we can enforce it, because now you actually have technologies and, you know, you actually have tools to make these things more transparent. And yeah, so I think that's something as a new kind of era we're entering and it's demand on the consumer side, but also on the policy side, and now actually the tools exist to make these things more transparent.

4:20So I think, yeah, it's a very important topic. It's a very timely topic. And yeah, it's something I'm sure we're going to talk more about in these sessions as well. Do you think that, well, of course, you know, battery day by nature is going to be a sustainability, sorry, sustainability oriented conversation. But do you have any sneak peeks for us on either topics or people who will be joining panels who will be able to shed some more light on these topics? 100%. For our listeners to get some insight, a little intel. You should definitely all join on the 23rd of September. Go on batteryday.info. There you find the link for Hopper in the platform you're using. And the first panel is really literally about sustainable batteries. And that's again, what we have on there, Northvolt, you know, the heads, like some senior people there. We have SYSTEMIQ, we have Circulor, a bunch of companies and amazing speakers on the sustainable battery side and battery passport. But we also have panels on solid-state batteries and like, you know, feature technologies, material side. We have training diversity panel. We have a panel on battery data with three of the leading companies in this space, twice, political diagnostics and voltaic. So yeah, join us. It'll be lots of fun and hopefully to see all of you there.

5:35And to wrap up one more time, what date, what time and when? 23rd of September on online, everyone can join and go on batteryday.info. And yeah, it's free, you know, just join us. It's going to be lots of fun. And it goes from 1pm CT to 9pm CT. So hopefully, you know, people in Asia as well in the US can join us. Perfect. We love a great global event and looking forward to it. Looking forward to joining you, the rest of Battery Associates, and I'll see you on Thursday. See you then. Bye-bye. Bye.