Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - IAA Mobility Munich

0:00Transcript

0:00Then welcome back, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for Battery Revolution, the 34th time. And yeah, we have a special session this week because it's very kind of connected to an event we just many of us attended or many of us have been listening into called the EA Mobility. There's also a quick heads up. Usually Catherine and I are hosting them. But for today, unfortunately, she's not feeling well. So hopefully she's back next week again. But today you have to bear with me. But I'm very fortunate to not be by myself, as you can already see if you're on this Clubhouse app, because there's already some fantastic people on this stage as well and some more on the audience. And yeah, so today we had this idea because there was this big event happening over the past week and it's actually still happening this weekend. But there's a big event called EA, come from German, originally called International Automotive Fair in a way.

0:53And now it's going to rebrand itself as EA Mobility. And I'm sure Roger can maybe also say some more words if you'd like to say on this as well. And yeah, so this event just happened the past week. Many of us have been there in person. But a few of us have attended online as well. There have been many, I think, exciting updates, including not finding really any ICEs there, having interesting panels, which also Roger moderate on batteries as well from my side as well. We had interesting discussions between hydrogen and fuel salts. And just in general, I think it was a really interesting platform to discuss transition from suppliers to kind of different battery technologies to all kinds of different challenges from sustainable transport, mobility, batteries, et cetera. So yeah, so with this, I thought I'd just give maybe a bit of a floor to people here. I know Barath, Mayanna, and Roger, you also have been attending virtually as well as in person.

1:45Mayanna, I'm sure, has some thoughts as well. So maybe we just want to start, Barath, you know, I see you're first on here. So maybe we just go in the order of Barath, Mayanna, Roger, and Miloš. Barath, do you want to kick it off with some of your insights on the past? Yeah, sure, Simon. Thank you so much for this opportunity. So yeah, this IAA mobility is really excellent and has a wide range of audience like automobile industry and also supply chain industry and also batteries because batteries became a very closely related industry with automobile, things like that. So most of the session talked about what is the future of automobile industry and how they are going to transform their technology, how we are going to achieve a climate neutral car or how to achieve mid-zero with the company, with the mobility and things like that. And especially the panel that we hosted, Battery Associated, like one of the very interesting panels I heard on how we are going to achieve the traceability inside this ecosystem.

2:42Because Sarkar is there and you are there and I think so the people from Twitch is there and someone else from the automobile industry is there. I'm not sure who is the particular person. But it's really interesting things are happening there. My particular interest is towards the traceability and also the recycling of the materials because I'm very concentrated on the climate part, climate change part because it's a very hot topic. So still I'm just participating in all the events. It's going still now, but it's a very interesting session. So I hope after everyone's introduction, we can have a cross talk together. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Bharatia. And it's fantastic that you could attend online. I'm sure you actually probably have seen more talks than me, to be honest, because it's so hard if you're in the venue to find some of them. But maybe just a quick addition. So the panel we had was with Circula, which is like a traceability company between London and Berlin.

3:41Then we had, so Luis was from them on the panel. Then we had Stefan, co-founder of TWICE, which does battery data monitoring. It's a startup based in Munich. Then we also had Lisa, who is the head of climate sustainability at Polestar, which is an electric vehicle company in Sweden. Fantastic. Marianne. Yes. Okay. Hopefully you heard. Good. I think for the first CII, the presence, like formally the electromobility of all the companies. I like this point of view because all the companies force to give his best to the electromobility like models. That's one from the OEM side. The other part is our environment from electromobility is also show with the II. And so the charging points and shared mobility, electric shared mobility, and also autonomous car is a prototype autonomous car. But I think I like a lot because this AI, they present like formally the electromobility and how good is for us because electromobility is with battery and we are in the battery revolution like that.

5:03I want to also to put the topic about our masterclass. I like a lot. Of course, I was attended there. Okay. From the other, I was also delighted that we, that the solid-state battery status quo and the way ahead white paper was presented and the AI and also to be one of the co-authors. But what I have been lacking is transparency about all the sustainability of the brands themselves and of the models presented and of the brand supply chain. As a buyer of an aware EB, I want to know the degree of AFG of the model that I am going to buy as well as do, as the, I do not accept that any child labor has worked in the manufacturer of my EB that I want to buy. No. That is one of the lack that is in the AI I saw. No. This lack of transparency. Of course, our panel and other panels are speaking about AFG, but when you are not looking at, hearing at the panel, when you are only going around the AI, of course, there is nothing about this transparency needed.

6:32I think a lot of people need to know, so want to know, want to know about this point of sustainability. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Marianne. Yeah. As you mentioned, also, we had the masterclass, which was really nice because it was really full, like packed on that BatteryMBA masterclass there, which was really nice. And it was so nice to see you there as well, as you, as I also have given a lecture and attended in the past. And then, yeah, but I agree with you. I think that it's interesting. I've gone to some interesting sessions where, you know, kind of OEMs were asked, like, you know, which is the most sustainable? And every OEM would say their own. But, yeah, as you say, the transparency is still quite an issue in this regard. Roger, if you're there, you've been very active, I'm sure, of many things. Yeah. Okay. Hello, everybody. I'll give you an overview. First of all, I think this is a better show than it's been before.

7:32I've been to several IAAs. They're normally too big. They're a giant pissing contest for the OEMs to see who can make the biggest stand, biggest show, who's got the biggest dick. And that's not happened this year. I think there was a restriction on the largest stand you could have. So nobody had a bigger stand than anyone else. What I also liked was that they were mixing it up. You had startup companies, little booths, whatever, in the main holes next to, like, BMW and others. And I think this was good. This was democratic. And I like that. I think also it wasn't just about cars. Obviously, I suppose you could say it's mainly is. But there were lots of bikes. There were lots of other things in there. And I think for some people, that will have disappointed them. They see it as the German auto show, the car show. And yeah, it always has been. But it can't anymore because it's now the mobility event with all of that that encompasses.

8:30So, you know, my overall view of it is positive. You know, could they do things differently and better? I guess they could. But I tell you something, putting on an event during COVID with all of the challenges about who can come and can't come from different parts of the world. You know, hats off to them, I say. Hats off to all the people that worked like Trojans to just make the thing happen. So that's what I want to say first and foremost. I looked around as best I could. I actually listened to people. I know that might sound strange and out of character. But I did because I had three panels that all indirectly are related to batteries. One was called Charging Ahead. So that was about charging infrastructure. One was called the Battery Sandwich. Of course, that is about batteries. With Philip Shane, one of the co-founders of Faircore, one of the new gigafactories being built in France. And then the other one was about the kind of challenge of batteries and hydrogen and fuel cells, etc.

9:32And in all of that, I learned actually quite a bit. I learned more than I realized. But the overall thing, just to finish off this kind of overview, my general sense is that the industry absolutely is not ready. It's not ready in really reconciling where we're going with mobility. Keep building great big vehicles, needing great big batteries that need to do 500, 600 kilometers. And all of these things are wrong, in my opinion. And supply chain, you know, another six, another four, another 10 gigafactories at 23, 25, 30 gigawatts a pop. It ain't going to happen. There isn't the supply chain. Matured supply chain ready within this decade to deliver all of that. So, yeah, mostly positive. But some big challenges, I think, you know, in and around it all. So that's my overview, Simon. Thank you so much, Roger. Yeah, and I would love to also hear a bit more about maybe later, if you have to time, a bit more like a deep dive in some of the panels you described.

10:41I'm quite curious to hear from, you know, because there's some interesting panels. I couldn't attend at all. So I'd be curious to hear. Sure. Well, just very quickly on that note, I will. I've already had the link to one of them. The charging ahead panel is up and I can share that with people. So you can just watch it on YouTube. And the other two, likewise. I haven't got the links for those yet, but we will get them. And, yeah, so there'll be open access. That's fantastic to hear. And, yeah, that's similar also with our panel. We also just got the YouTube. So I think it's hopefully we can, you know, share around these links because I think, you know, there might be some interesting points for different people. Fantastic. Thanks so much, Roger. And then, Milos, were you able to see some or do you have some thoughts on the past week? Yeah. I didn't see anything. I was busy with something else. But reacting to Roger, I agree with you.

11:36We are going through disruption. So by definition, there are disruptors and there are disruptees. It means that those old companies which they cannot keep up with the technology. It's technology disruption. It's not environmental disruption or it's not the – it's technology disruption. The disruption is led by the technologies. So those old companies which they cannot build a new technology, this new technology is much different than old technology and old technologies will be disrupted and those companies will go bankrupt. So that's my opinion and the future of the mobility – not my opinion, my conviction. And the future of mobility, I think it's the electric, autonomous and shared vehicles or shared mobility. That's a long-term future. Obviously, we need to go through transition which we are already going. I think, Milos, that's a very good point. And to be honest, I was quite – I think also in the panel we had, I took quite some inspiration from these discussions we also had over the past weeks.

12:53Because as you say, I think the transition which is happening is – I mean, I think one thing I quite enjoyed in this event is that people seem quite aware of the transition. But I think they didn't really seem aware of the extent of the transition, what's happening. I think, you know, people realize, as I said earlier, and, you know, all the kind of presented – all the presented vehicles have been all EVs, essentially, all the ones I saw. And I'm sure there were some Ferraris and some others I heard who are not, you know. But like the dominant, you know, like the dominant presented cars are all electric. And, yeah, so I think, you know, people realize this, but I think they don't really think about how this is going to be, like, implemented. And, you know, as you say, then if things become technology-driven, you know, the acceleration is going to be much faster. But then actually it's more the question how you then actually can enable it, right?

13:38I mean, if an electric vehicle is great, you still have to be able to build it. You still have to resource the materials, et cetera. Yeah. So I just want to say thanks also, Milo, for lots of your contributions because they've definitely been quite also helpful for some of our panels and discussions we had. Brilliant. Yeah, just kind of curious, anybody else, like, you know, maybe Roger, Mayano. And, Barath, if you want to go a bit more depth? I will. If I can quickly say one thing, which isn't me saying it, actually. It's a, I think he's quite famous, a famous German economist called Rudiger Dornbusch, who said, things take longer to change than you think they would, and then things change faster than you thought they could. And to Milo's point and to, you know, Mariano and Barath, and I'm sure your own, Simon, I think the electrification shift has taken, you know, let's for argument's sake, it's been kicked off by Tesla. So it's, you know, well over a decade and a half, 15, 16 years, you know, and some.

14:43And it's taken a long time to get to this point. But now it's the growth is exponential. And I think the big fear for the OEMs is that it isn't legislation that controls the pace of change. It typically has been normally. You know, Euro 5 compliance, Euro 6 compliance, have some hybrids, you know, grams per kilometer. And all of that has kind of given people an ability to plan and imagine what the uptake will be. But thinking of Rudiger Dornbusch's comment, I think this is it. It's going to change faster than people think it could. The only bit that will hold it back, in my opinion, is the supply chain challenge. It's simply the capacity to build enough batteries and to progress and develop the charging structure quick enough. But as to how it spills down into ownership versus still buying big things, you know, and so on and so forth. That's a bit trickier. I'm not quite sure how that evolves, but it definitely will.

15:44And, you know, to my loss's point, we are going to have some big casualties. If you want me to give you a specific and then talk about batteries for a second, because it is what we're all here for. I'm going to say within 24 months, Daimler will be owned. The car part of Daimler, because obviously it's split in two recently, will be owned by Geely. Geely are going to buy Mercedes, in my opinion. But some of the reasons, you know, about change that's coming, et cetera. So on to batteries. What was fascinating was the panel that we had called the Battery Sandwich. So what we got to hear from there, we had a fantastic young student on, Lina, from Sonnenwagen. She's 23. And then we had Philippe Shane, who's, I think he's 54. But Philippe has had an amazing career. He was at Nissan, Renault-Nissan for 19 years. Then he worked for Elon, literally worked for Elon for 18 months. He worked briefly at Ricciardo, which is where I knew him.

16:53He was then in the right of the heart of the Audi electrification program. And then he's a co-founder now of Fecor. So what we were talking about there, about battery chemistries, about supply chains, about pack size, about, you know, a number of battery specifics. I think people will enjoy listening into that session. That was a 45-minute. And we did it in the studio. We got shoved off the stage. I think someone's sort of cheat. They needed to put a big cheese on there, which suited us because some of the stages had noise around them. And when you're talking about things in detail, it's a distraction. So I was quite happy to be in the TV studio and record the thing that we did. I think it worked better. But, yeah, so I liked the show. And I think there was some good detail in there. You know, I can answer any questions as well as best I can. But that's, again, another kind of quick, you know, quick spill.

17:52Roger, I agree with you. And I agree also with you that the largest challenge is the battery materials, building the supply value chain of battery materials. That can slow it a little bit down. We are already on the tipping point. So we are off the S-curve. So it will go very fast. But another point which you made, that it's not driven by the legislator, by the policies, I am saying that I'm also convinced that right now this is a wild factor. Those politicians are hijacking the issue. And they may slow it down because those established automakers, they rely on them to help them to get saved. And with the strange policies, they may prolong their life a little bit with the help of the politicians. You could be right. But I think the groundswell of opinion around climate change and whatever might surprise everybody. If people, the general public, start to get shit scared about both air quality, of course, and extreme weather and climate change.

19:09And if, you know, within a few years, people say, well, no, I don't want a petrol car. I don't want a diesel car. But, you know, whatever the government, whatever the OEMs, whatever anyone says, if the public somehow, you know, and the public is a very organic thing, if that's what they decide, then the shit hits the fan. I agree with you. I'm saying only that they can prolong their life a little bit, you know. They are dead. They are already walking. Dead men walking. Dead men walking. But they can prolong their life a little bit by the, basically not bribing with the money, but basically convincing the politicians to help them various ways. With the subsidies, with the slowing down Tesla, and slowing down the other battery supply value chain and everything else. Yeah. Yeah, I also think that, yeah, go ahead, Miriam. Okay, Roger, I want to listen to your panel. I think it's very interesting, all the topics. And I am curious about how you get with this 25 months that you say that Jelly would buy Mercedes.

20:40It's interesting. Yeah, well, if you look back to when Li Shufu surprised everybody and bought 10% of Daimler, which was about, I think, five years ago, four or five years ago. And then they bought a little bit more. Two things, really. And, you know, regardless of what anybody thinks about OEMs and the traditional people and the this and that, the other, it's still such a cool brand. You know, they've got Formula One. They've got, you know, there are a lot of really nice things about Mercedes. I've got to be honest. Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's my age. But I do like them. And I made a documentary recently called Motorsport in the Electric Age. And what I discovered in that, because I spent time at Mercedes Formula One and at high-performance powertrains in Bricksworth, which is sort of A&G and the like. What I learned from that is there is a lot more behind the scenes that you don't see about that brand. They have done many more things.

21:43In fact, if you looked at a vehicle, for example, like the SLS Electric from 11, 12 years ago, this thing had torque vectoring, pretty good battery system for what it was at the time, and was pretty ahead of its time. But they kind of suppressed it, and they didn't really use it because they're quite happy making a shitload of money out of, you know, large vehicles with, you know, high specification and so on and so forth. That's where they make their big money. Of course they do. So they haven't wanted to, you know, I don't know how this translates into German, but, you know, turkeys don't vote for Christmas. So why would OEMs voluntarily sort of push a different product proposition that makes less money? Why would they do that? Their job is to make money and put it on the bottom line. Their job isn't to save the planet. Their job is to fulfill the shareholders' ambition of getting a return on investment. And that's sort of it.

22:43But Gili with a broader picture, a Chinese perspective, you know, and whether it's Gili, Li Shufu, or you call it the People's Republic of China, a.k.a. the government, one way or the other, to capture and own a real core German brand would be a political coup, a strategic coup, and I think quite a good move. You know, if you look at the stewardship of Volvo over this last decade or so, it's been exemplary. He's let them get on with it. You know, he's put the right things into Volvo, taken the right things out of it, but he hasn't dismantled it. And so, therefore, I think this could energize Mercedes, quite frankly, and help them speed up and give them a different flavor. But I don't know anything. I mean, I do occasionally bump into, like, Marcus Schaefer is very kind and talks to me sometimes. But I always just put that up on LinkedIn. I don't have much of a conversation outside of what I record and show.

23:45And if I was taken into a confidence, I wouldn't break that confidence. But there isn't anything sort of secret that I know that I'm just sort of keeping quiet about. I like to tell the story, so I tend to say what I know. But, I mean, I wouldn't break confidences. So my suggestion is just me, a supposition. I don't know anything. I'm just saying that's what I think will happen. Thank you, Roger, for your kind words. I think globally thinking is right. Gili has the power of the governor of China. So they give the power. And the move to acquire banks, it would be, I think, perfect for them, no? To do globally like a standard. Yeah, you are right. Maybe. Let's see. You are right that many years ago that the movements downsized from banks is doing. And this last problem with the batteries is also one of the, maybe one of the reasons that they could happen. Thank you, Roger. Bharat. Bharat. Yeah, sure, Mariano.

25:09So one of the cool things which I got very interested in this, most of the companies are talking very honestly. Even in our battery panel, all the industries are telling that, yeah, some kind of bad things are there in the supply chain. And, yeah, we have bad reputation. And, yeah, we do have problem in the supply chain. In the early days, most of the company will not talk about this, you know, real problems behind the screen because they want to safeguard the brand because the PR and things like that. But right now in this particular conference I heard whenever I'm going to all the panels and most of them are talking honestly and they are telling that this is the problem we are facing. We are facing some problem in the supply chain. We are facing this problem here. We have bad reputation. The company is accepting that they are doing something wrong and they are ready to change also. I think this is a very good change in the industry.

26:00Actually, I always say it's not because of something else, blah, blah, blah. It's technology driven innovation. It's true like that. It's technology driven change and disruption at the same time. And people are driving or people are now the customer idea is changing. Now the customer is having a lot of information with them. So they are choosing which car to buy, which service to use. So I think this OEM is getting like more idea about what customers are looking for. And they do have fear that their brand should always come in a green way. It's not about only green labeling that they want to make the car really green. So that's the different thing. I just figured out in all the panels. They are very open and they are very honest. Thank you both. But I mean, also, of course, it's I mean, I think there's some companies are more open than others. And I agree, I think many companies have understood now that they have to be like more transparent.

26:59And like, you know, it's also demand about the consumer, et cetera. I think there's still, you know, lots of improvement, which still can be done. And I mean, of course, some of them make it their mission, like Polestar, right? I mean, they've done these LCA assessments and they made their methodology on like, you know, public, which I think was a big step, you know. But yeah, there's many others who haven't done so. Yeah, one of the very important things, especially from those legacy automakers, you need to separate talk from the action. So don't listen to what they are talking, but look what they are doing. That's true, Milo. I'm really looking forward for the action, but at least we can get words right now. But hopefully I think the market will push him towards action, push the company towards action. One point, another point towards the same issue. Look how much they are talking already for five years. Competition to Tesla is coming. Where is this competition to Tesla five years later or 10 years later?

28:01So they are still talking about 30 cars, 20 cars, 600 models together. Competition is coming, but nothing is coming. So you need to talk, you need to see their action, not their talk. Milo, you say about competition, but on the other way around, I think competition is all the time is good. But the thing is, but the OEMs need to be done. It's not like to be the best. It's like to be more affordable for the people, let's say, and more sustainability. That's from my point of view. And as far as I said, yeah, all the panels from the OEMs tell us more transparent than before. But, of course, as Simon told us, not all the OEMs, but I think they are on the way. And I think from my point of view, I insist in this customer view because as a customer, maybe I can search the information from the OEM in the website. But I don't know nothing about when I go to buy a car.

29:31Nobody gives to me the information about this sustainability from the car that I'm buying. And, of course, if you think about the supply chain and all. And I agree a lot. I agree with Roger that the supply chain is nowadays the problem. Nowadays it's not a problem because there are less, less, less, less cell EVs. But when that increase in the common end years, it would be a problem. But I think, of course, if there is a problem, then it would be change the things. It would be, let's say, more common that, okay, if you want to achieve this in one year and you need three years to achieve it, that would be the reality. You need to go with these three years. You cannot go so quickly. But let's say what we can do, what all the brands can do. But it's a challenge for all of them. That's for sure. Thank you. Thank you for sharing my honor. Maybe also an invitation to anybody in the audience as well as, you know, any woman as well.

30:56I would love to bring in some in if you would like to, you know, ask any questions or contribute anything. If anybody else saw something about it, maybe have any questions on the outside, you know, what has kind of been announced. You know, any questions maybe also relate to, you know, any of the topics we discussed on sustainable batteries, et cetera. So I'll also invite some of you. I'm sure we welcome everyone to come on stage as well to, you know, ask questions or contribute anything. Okay. Ingo is coming. Perfect. Hi, guys. Hi, guys. Thanks very much. Yeah. Great. Roger, I might chime in on your bold statement here. I think what I haven't been on the IAA. I'm just reading some articles around that, listen to some podcasts, what was coming out this week. But what I see for one instance, Mercedes is splitting up the company and the truck company and the passenger car division. And that will be done, I think, end of this year or beginning next year.

31:56That will be finalized. So as you said, the car brand, it's only half the size afterwards. Maybe the share price will be up a little bit more, but it's still feasible, I think. And what they presented about the smart or the predecessor of the smart here that will come up next or past next year, we see that Geely is doing quite a lot in developing that. And the portion they do in engineering is quite big. Another observation I had is about the battery strategy of Daimler. They are a little bit in a mess with their partnership with that didn't work from them for the EQE. They announced or presented here, but the first engineering samples they got from them were bad in quality. And so there are rumors that there are hard talks with other companies like Northworld or whomever to talk. Can we make a partnership with you, build a battery factory and go on on that? And so, for instance, Northworld is telling them, hey, guys, OK, we can do that.

33:10But first, it's our first factory ourselves and our cooperation with Volkswagen. And then you might be the third one and that might be in 2025 or something beyond that. So the supply chain is really still an issue and in the battery field, for instance, more than in every other area. And then I heard a third statement interview from Herbert Deese. So he was talking with Pat Galsinger from Intel. And he made him also visible on the chip shortage here for silicon chips that still will persist the next one to two years. So the supply chain to manage that is key to really succeed in this transition. Not only now, but the next two, three, four years. Absolutely. Yes. Ingo, you know your stuff. If you add into that what their market presentation was about three, four weeks, four weeks ago, five weeks ago, where they outlined how many more battery factories they were going to make, where they're going to make them with more announcements coming on.

34:24I interviewed Mark Schaefer, board director, with those comments. Things like Ola saying charging is a responsibility of governments, is a responsibility of city authorities, is a responsibility of a group of people. And I'm thinking, well, that's great. Have you told them? Because that's not kind of what's been happening. So that was one thing. And then in regard to supply chain, if you look at some of the developments and positive ones, for example, they have a strategic partnership now with Albemarle, one of the biggest suppliers of lithium in the world. Funnily enough, two weeks after Testa announced that they have a strategic partner with BHP, another one of the biggest mining companies in the world. So, you know, the things are moving on and changing. Your point about Ferris is a very good one. And I think now this is the problem. If you take this as the decade of change, if you look at the normal gestation of building a battery factory and ramping it up, is anything between two and four years.

35:32And even if you know what your battery factory is, and you've got your two, three, four billion euros per factory ready, you're still not going to have it up and running for at least three to four years, which takes us halfway through the decade. So if you start to kind of do the numbers and just look at where legislation, public opinion, a host of other things will come together. I mean, it's quite a headache. But, you know, that's life. You know, they're in business. But with the current dominance of Asia in battery manufacture, everybody on this call knows who they are. You know, they're the here and now people to develop and build and progress and deliver the batteries. So one of the slightly challenging scenarios for the European and American OEMs is that if market demand for EVs dramatically increases, ahead of capability to deliver the electric batteries for the electric vehicles, there's only one thing people are going to be buying, Chinese OEM vehicles, because they're the only ones who are going to be able to make the batteries, you know, and they'll be first in the queue.

36:44So we're not just Chinese, of course, Korean as well, and a few others. So, you know, it's a very complex. But if you start to look at it in detail, you can kind of make sense of it, but kind of come to a conclusion and a timeline and your own sense of what that strategy might be. But if there's one thing above all else, because I've spoken a lot, so I'm just going to come to the point, this is now all about collaboration. Nobody can do this on their own, but everybody has to find their little gang to be part of and will only be through being part of that gang, a gang that you will survive. Anyone who tries to do any of this pretty much on their own, dead in the water. Thanks, Roger. I think Ingo and Mayana might have something. Yeah, great, great, Roger, what you said. And the third area is about the software in the car. It's the third area where everybody is struggling somehow and to join forces and make the right cooperation.

37:54Not every OEM is able to do all that stuff by themselves anymore. Agreed. And Mayana, did you would like... Yes, Roger, this collaboration is needed, of course, to ensure that the electromobility is... The only thing that I... I always let before that not few... It's a few companies owns all the knowledge of the... Let's say of the electromobility, let's say Bosch, Siemens, and not that much companies, but then I think it's not the best way. I like the way that I saw in EII because I saw lots of little startups, companies, they grow. And I think that's the way because they give more democracy, more organic democracy about the knowledge of the common areas. Not that the only... The biggest company supplier from the OEMs, they have the knowledge, but the key, I am with you, is this with collaboration. Without collaboration, it's not possible to go quick. If every brand does it self-develop, it develops itself all self, you have more than... You don't achieve what the regulation is already in place in the body manufacturing and also in EVs.

39:46With that, in five minutes, I need to leave. Thank you for the panel. Bye-bye. Yeah, you are right, the collaboration. I am saying that supply chain, by definition, it's the chain of the links together, you know. It means that those links, they need to cooperate together because it's... Electrical vehicles, electrical vehicles, supply value chain is complex. So it requires a lot of companies and collaboration in the supply value chain. Thank you all very much, Mayanna, for joining. I know you also have the EAA as you speak, so thanks so much for being with us. And yeah, I think we also have some new people like Kumar and Tushan. Yeah, hi. Hi, Simon. Thanks for inviting me. And I have a question to all the panelists here. So we are talking about the supply chain of, you know, the battery tech in the entire industry, EV industries particularly. So, I mean, I want to ask a question in terms of, you know, the innovation ecosystem in the battery space.

41:04Where is it going actually? Is it going from battery swappables to, you know, sort of electrified roads? We see, last month, I saw some article wherein, you know, there has been electrification of road in Sweden, you know, and it sort of solves the problem of, you know, charging infrastructure issues related to the battery. And probably it will also cut down some of the pain points in the whole supply chain ecosystem for the battery industry. Where do you see this innovation is happening? I mean, and where it is going? And will it be able to solve the pain points in the entire battery space? Yeah, innovation is everywhere because it's technological disruption. So, innovation is everywhere. Innovation is in battery. Innovation is in the battery materials. Innovation is in the electrical vehicles. And that's what my another point is to those established automakers where they are going to produce those batteries in millions competitive, sorry, those cars in millions of the units. They don't build the new battery, new electrical vehicle planes.

42:33They can, plants. They cannot produce them competitively in the old plants. And where they are going to take battery from? They are not building the new battery plants. They are just creating joint venture with existing battery plants where they are going to take the material. So, they are only, for me, they are only talking and trying to prolong their life, but they are not innovating. They are not creating this new technology. And this new technology innovation goes very fast. So, electrical vehicle of the five years ago even is not an electrical vehicle today. and it is not so simple to put to the combustion engine vehicle the battery and the motor instead of engine. I think that makes sense, actually, because, yeah, definitely it is a very complicated space and to figure out all the elements to be pieced together before it actually takes the shape of and obviously the adoptive nature of various jurisdictions also matter in this particular space. So, I am working on a new software developed by an Indian inventor in the battery technology.

43:56So, it is also about health monitoring and sort of asset management and tracking. So, that is why I was interested in knowing about how the technology is evolving and where do you think the smart road concept would go from here on. Thanks, Milo, for the explanation. It was nice having a discussion. Thank you, and Barath, did you have something to say? So, hi, guys. So, I agree there is a bit of a problem with the supply chain, as Roger mentioned, and everybody is agreeing on, especially with 4.1 terawatt hours by 2030. There are so many joint ventures and having so many promises saying, okay, look, we will supply your batteries, but then, you know, look at the supply chains, they are not ready yet. So, if you look at the lithium, yes, we have plenty of lithium, but when it comes to mining and then getting battery-grade lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide, it will push you at least seven years in the time frame. Even something simply like graphite, so we know mostly nowadays we use at least 50-50 for artificial and then natural graphite.

45:30The switch is more towards natural graphite. And by 2030, at least 60 or 70%, but then if you look at even graphite mines, all the graphite mines are completely different, so you have to do all the testing and verify and it takes at least five years for this process and now lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide prices are all-time high. So even though we need a lot of this stuff, the prices are getting higher and then we are getting tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 products, so sometimes maybe the supply might go to a tier 2 product, it might be inferior batteries and if you put them in your vehicles, you can't predict what would happen, so there are some fears going on. With this push, the price is even higher. Can we get to the price that we want because currently it's 125 per kilowatt hour, the pack level cost is and then we are looking at least to bring it down to 85 kilowatt hour by 2030, would we be able to reach this target with these prices going up with the supply chain issues?

46:49So I think we have to solve those problems and it is not easy because most of the money is not going towards the supply chain and it's going towards the electric vehicle part development but hopefully let's hope that there will be more money in this supply chain. Yes. Yes, I see the whole challenge positively. I see like the huge opportunity. So we will solve the problem and the opportunity will be ceased by some companies. So the opportunities lie in the building supply value chain and building especially the battery material supply value chain and I'm convinced that the companies will seize this opportunity and they will make a lot of money on that. From the point of view of the established automakers, some of them will survive. Especially the brands will survive like Roger said, maybe the Mercedes brand will survive. They will survive through acquisition. Only brand will survive. The companies will die. The plants will die. The workers will be fired. But the brand will survive.

48:15Established brand. new companies will be born. Because that's the disruption. Disruptors are disrupting existing technology. I do want to give a comment on the strategic partnership move. That's true. Because all these oil and natural gas companies have tons of money in it. I just want to mention one good example. In the previous clubhouse session, Milo asked me when India is going to have the next gigawatt manufacturing industries. Reliance is strategically partnership with Saudi Aramco. It's one of the world's biggest oil and natural gas company. Right now, Reliance is partnering with BP to create a national level charging infrastructure in India. All these oil and natural gas companies understood their business is going to change completely within two or three decades. Right now, they are moving this money towards acquiring new technologies and finding that they are ready to start investing in the mining industries also. I became a fan of Myzlo stock because he always stock on the point. Especially finding these raw materials is quite harder right now.

49:32I think this complete transformation will happen much faster than we are expecting. Right now, all the governments are preparing the country to electrification because it cannot be done because we already have this oil and natural gas infrastructure in India. If you say electrical vehicle it is easy to buy it. a lot of people are facing tons and tons of problems in driving it, the roads and the electrification system, the power grids. It is not only just vehicle, but automobile and some pumping on fuel, gas, something else like that. But electrification is a different concept. But the acquisition is happening in a very large way. So I think something will happen but very fast than which we expected. Thank you both. Thank you much for sharing. And then maybe also Pierre, you understand? Yes, hello everybody. Thanks for having me. And also, first of all, thanks for sharing your impressions and your opinions on the EAA. I want to come back quickly to the point that Roger made earlier.

50:44I think there is some topics that go in the same direction. I know we know all the arguments of the supply chain and the critical material part and who is going to build the batteries. We discuss it very often. But when I look at Tesla as an example, they have like 18 billions of cash on the account. They sell cars like hell. Why don't they build two more gigafactories to spit out Model Y, Model 3 or whatever? Why don't they build additional battery factories and decentralize it in different countries? I think personally, it's exactly this point that they could at the moment, they have the money, they could build gigafactories quicker than they can secure the supply chain and increase the volume in the supply chain. That's my hypothesis there. I think it's quite obvious if you look at the different sectors and the different OEMs, what they are doing. And there is a second factor to that equation and that is talent. It's not enough to have a supply chain of materials, it's also very crucial to have a supply chain of talent.

51:58And I think we are at the point that the market is being sucked empty with the specific talents you need and this will also need some time to increase and boost up that supply chain. I would like to answer this question because when I'm writing an article I have a contact in China, a professor over there, he explained to me that this kind of battery innovation ecosystem started in China more than 20 years before. The Chinese government has a very strategic view on acquiring these things and making this ecosystem and creating the talent source within the country. So it's also policy driven in China maybe, but as per your suggestion it's not only about money. Even a very good company can raise millions and millions of rupees within a night. If four of the great chairmen sit together they can raise millions of money, but it's all about control. The controls have different parameters. Geopolitics is there already. It has a lot of things. It's not only about money, it's all about controlling.

53:07Right now Asian peoples are controlling the supply chain. To put it in a figure wise, 70-80% of the battery supply chain is controlled by one of the major players in Asia. I would say it's not only about the money, it's about the geopolitics also, but the diversification of Tesla, why they are not manufacturing it. from that itself, you can understand they can't control the supply chain because they don't have control over geopolitics. Here we have both government and also the brands working together, but it is not going to happen in America or Europe. It's a different part, whereas if you talk Asian countries, it's completely a different geopolitical strategy. From my experience and understanding about the ecosystem. Barad, don't believe this Chinese professor. He's telling you Chinese communist propaganda. That didn't change, didn't start in China. China is hijacking the innovation. China is dictating the policies and they are trying to win geopolitical issues and all the professors need to say whatever the communists is dictating the state.

54:28This only do mind You might be right, Marlos, but do not underestimate the Chinese centralized system of handling topics. I was in contact in another technological area with Chinese researchers over a certain point of time and I was quite astonished for the specific topic. It was about composites. They came from a centralized institute with maybe several thousand people and one part of that was composite. I don't remember the proper number. Maybe it was a thousand people. Centralized institute. These thousand people were not really engaged in doing research. They were rather engaged in coordinating, managing and controlling all the institutes below them doing the stuff. the numbers there on that point is if they concentrate on the topic, no matter whether they hijack it or not, and honestly, I don't care because I'm not like the economic business guy. I'm very interested in the technology to accelerate. I don't care who accelerates it. And if they concentrate on it, they have large levers, large money to concentrate on it, and they can make a big step forward.

55:46And that is good for the overall picture for me to get away from the classic oil-burning economy. Yeah, I'm saying the same. I am saying that the China is, they have the centralized government, so they have the totalitarian government, socialism, communism, so they are able to do it like that. But when I'm saying, I'm correcting only one point of the bar, then, that's this innovation, because he said innovation, the professor told him innovation started in China, and that's not true 20 years ago. And that's not true. Yeah, yeah. Innovation doesn't, does it matter? Does it matter? It matters, yes, it matters. I mean, who invented the car? Who invented the car? You know, it doesn't matter anymore. The race is on, and the best players will win, and I also do not share a strict black and white view, like all the OEMs are dying. I mean, maybe their current products will die, their ice products will die, that's obvious, but they also innovate, they have technology.

56:58They bring out decent cars already, like an Audi, each one GT and stuff, attractive cars. And I think the normal car buyer still will have this brand loyalty or will be guided by emotion. And he will not care whether his Audi e-tron GT or a comparable car or a ID.4 is maybe charging like 5% slower or has 3% less acceleration. There will still be brand loyalty in my point of view. So they will not just die. Exactly. I said it, maybe I have put it in a wrong word. It's not about innovation, the scalability issue. China really solved the scalability issue because you always say scalability is important because many people created this lithium-ion battery. The Nobel price is not only from China, but China solved the commercial scalability issue. I think they also have a significant hold in the market. That's my point. My important word here, Bharat, I think you have put up a very valid point. lithium-ion was not developed in China, but the way they have scaled it and dominating the lithium-ion production is very commendable.

58:15But in terms of innovation also, if you guys have not heard, there's a company in China which has come up with sodium-ion battery now. And they are going to scale that technology up to a certain level that they would be dominating and because they are the first innovator in this space, so they will also be dominating sodium-ion batteries in the future. They have just planned to make it on a large scale by 2023. It's a very short term for such a new technology to come in and acquire a bigger space. Exactly. we had a very brief discussion with Milos also. Yeah, Milos, you're carrying on it. Yes, the sodium-ion technology, it's 50 years old technology. It was never commercialized because it's not so easy. So, it's not yet commercialized. We will see if they will succeed or not. I wish them to succeed. Yeah, for you guys' information, we published a white paper on solid-state batteries. It is there on our website. If you are very keen on understanding the concepts, please look onto it.

59:25And we are also going to write new white paper on maybe probably sodium-ion and something like that. We are deciding the topic. So, feel free to read our blogs and white paper. It is there on battery.associate.com. Sorry, battery.associate. Thank you, Barrett. Yeah, and it is actually a very interesting topic. As you said, so like LFP versus sodium and things like that and bringing a bit of light into that. It is something we have been discussing. And then also, I mean, actually, there has been quite a lot of interest also for solid-state batteries at the EAA. Quite a lot of companies asked me about it. So, if you are interested in this topic, as Barrett said, you can go on our website and you find it under media and you can download there. Kumar, did you have something else? I just wanted to bring it up. It is the same company which is the leader in lithium-ion battery production. I think they have made a deal with a car manufacturer in China to go for the PO for the sodium-ion batteries.

1:00:32And I think they are going to sort of announce it in a few days to come. I think it was in July itself that they announced that they are going to use this in automobiles. Exactly. In CATL actually, they announced it. Yeah, right. Like I said, I wish all the technologies would succeed because I like the new technologies. The battery technology is very difficult to commercialize. There were four major breakthroughs in over 220 years. Depends a bit on what you do. Yeah, Simon, go ahead. Sorry. I just want to say, I mean, I agree with you in general that it's very tough and slow, but I think there have been actually been a few, quite a few innovations actually. I mean, it depends on, I'm with you, I think if you depends on what you really call a breakthrough, but I think there is progress happening, but yeah, often it's slower than what people expect from a scientific standpoint. Yeah, I'm talking about breakthrough, breakthrough, not evolution.

1:01:35I mean, new technologies in the button. Kumbar, Pierre, did you have something else? No, so actually, I mean, about five years back, we worked on a project, it was a white space analysis for one of our clients in Norway. I think it's smart green technologies based in Norway or Denmark, I guess. So they wanted to, you know, sort of find out what are the white spaces where we can actually go and innovate something in the battery technology. And at that point of time, we went through a lot of patents and also non-open literature and we sort of suggested that sodium-ion could be the next big thing and here it is. I mean, it's just a finding that I'm sharing with you that was done five years ago on a simple study that we did for one of our clients. Here we are. I mean, it's already out by the Chinese company. Simon, I didn't have to add directly to the topic just right now.

1:02:48If you want to, I could maybe I just have one quick thing just about command and your peer group. Because I think it's an interesting point what you bring up command. On the other hand, it's always like, you know, it's interesting because yeah, I mean, predicting sodium-ion has been for a long time. I also actually started research eight years ago on sodium-ion batteries. And of course, if you expect it all to happen, same for magnesium, aluminum, all these kind of things. But you're right, right? I mean, one smart strategy, of course, is to always say what might happen. Some of them will definitely happen. So not to discredit your work, and you probably had some good insights there, but it's also, I think, tricky right? Because it's so hard to predict these things, and I think you can have some good guesses. But even like two years ago, I would have predicted that LFP would come back in the scale. At least I didn't see it coming.

1:03:35Many people I know didn't either, and Milus, you maybe. But yeah, so it's tricky with these things. Milus, did you want to add something? Otherwise the sodium is already Okay, Zimone. Dium is not out, so Dium is not gone. So Milus, you've been cutting out. Do you want to try to I'm not sure if we can hear you, Milus. He's breaking up. I'm breaking up, so I will talk later. Sounds good, Milus. Pierre, would you like to go next? Yes, at this point, Zimone, I would like to add a hypothesis, which might lead to follow-up discussion if you allow. It's also related to battery supply chain in this case, for sure, in the topic, but there are many other factors. As was earlier said, it's a multifactor space, it's very complex, but let's just take the view of the supply chain of the battery. I think this is a personal hypothesis. We have a time window, and this time window is closing within the next three, four, five years for new companies in the battery supply chain, for instance, but also in other areas of battery electric vehicle industry to get into the market.

1:05:07Whether it is people with new batteries, whether it is people with new vehicles, I think there is a time window that closes within two, three, two to five years round about this decade. Why? Because now we are starting to see this growth. If I visit France this year and I visited last year, you cannot imagine just how many Tesla Model 3 I saw compared to last year. And we see it everywhere. We are coming to a tipping point and we will have a harsh acceleration which is really, I think, contained by the ability to build out the supply chain on the battery side. That's my personal opinion. And any newcomer who doesn't make it into the market with a viable product, which he is already selling and where he at least makes a minimum profit on it, will not make it once this acceleration has really started through. Because then, to my understanding, the market will be divided between those newcomers that have already reached a critical mass, a critical economic liability, and the survivors of the old players who will again divide this market, access rights to mining, patents, and relationship with governments, support, fundings, they will divide it up again.

1:06:32So anybody who is too late, my hypothesis is maybe the next five years, will have the same problems that Tesla had 15 years ago when they started with the Roadster. They will have exactly the same problem because the market will be distributed and the players will be established. Hypothesis, what are your thoughts? Awesome, actually. It's a kind of a narrative. I'm just enjoying the narrative. So let me put on an Indian perspective because I usually closely work, always see Indian automobile manufacturers, how they transform from things like that. for example, if you can see now in India, one of the largest sales of electric mobility is startups. All the premium companies like Pata, Mahendra, and these guys, they don't know whether they can go into this electrical mobility system because they have not done proper R&D in the previous times. So startup is dominating. Now those companies are investing strategically in the startup so that they can also take profit out of this thing. So my concept is that what you said is exactly going to happen.

1:07:41If these companies are not going to come into the market in the upcoming, let me put it in this way, maybe not five years, maybe in this decade, maybe before 2020 because the time will take some difference. You know, sometimes it is very fast in Europe, it is super fast in US, sometimes it is very, very slow in India, Asia, like that. It depends on the ecosystem and the fluidity of the monetization and things like that. Let me quickly add to that, please, sorry, Milos. Yeah, I think you're right. I was a little bit like Western Europe, US market egoistic. I was rather having in my mind the map of superchargers over the world. the Okay. And today, the automotive in Europe, but which make a business case. So you're fully right on that side. Yeah, I'm saying that this window opportunity is a little bit longer, like at least 10 years, because it will last during the time when the production of those vehicles and supply of those electrical vehicles is exponentially growing.

1:08:59so it will grow exponentially at least for the decade, because we need to produce, and we will produce 100 million vehicles per year. So right now, this year, we will produce about 4 million electrical vehicles, maybe a little bit more, pure electrical vehicles. I'm not counting hybrids and plug-in hybrids, because those are not electrical vehicles. There is combustion engine bullshit. So battery electrical vehicles, we need to produce them at about 100 million, means that we need at least 10 years to run by production exponentially, and in this time, there is room for the new entrance to capture the market. And also, during this time, innovation is exponentially, I mean, there is the electrical vehicle is changing dramatically, and it will take another, also this decade to change it. So companies which are coming with new innovation, new technologies, they are able to capture this new market. New market, I'm not talking that they need to steal it, they need to capture this growth, basically, they don't need to compete, and that's why they are able to enter the market.

1:10:33Exactly, Milo, so I recently had a talk with one of the very good people from the automotive industry, one of the legacy automotive industry in India, I asked him, you saw Europe is putting a lot of fight on this battery and things like that, but you guys are very cool and sitting in your office and just looking on them, what's your thought, guys? So he casually said that don't worry, we will definitely go electric after 10 years, some startup will come in some parts of the country and they will look for funding, we will invest them and we will acquire them and we will take the technology and scale it in our brand name, so it's so simple, we don't want to burn the money in R&D. Something like that is happening in different parts of the world, but it's from a very senior person, but it depends how they do business, right? They are making one mistake those established, huge mistake in the companies who are talking to like that, we will be able to acquire them, they will not have money to acquire them, because their money, they will not be able to be profitable, so they will not have money, they are very confident today because they are controlling the market, but they will not have money to acquire them, money will run away.

1:11:47Yeah, maybe. I mean, let me put this Milo's and Bharat, I mean, Bharat, if you're saying this, that there are big companies who will want to invest, it's actually happening in India itself. The first company making sort of scaled production of EV scooters, if you must know, Ether Energy, they have an investor, you know, Hero Motor Car gave them, I think, 84 million, I think, not 84 million, but somewhere close to 100 crores, you know, to run the show. I think they have already invested in them, and probably they might acquire them as well. But the move is happening very fast now. I mean, there are companies who are not wanting to spend in R&D, but they just want to acquire them at some point of time. Yeah, they are very casual, yeah. That's right. I just want to add to what I think the window of opportunity for new is on which side of the technology a specific company is working on, for example, a company that's working on any consumer product, that's finally assembling the breakers.

1:13:17I think they are going to have time in the market because of their capability to invest money in startups. So I think the window of opportunity for new entrants as TV manufacturers is going to be faltered. So maybe 2025, 2026, you know, the window where you start new startup and hope to be acquired by the bigger companies. But on the technology side of things, being a battery startup, I think the window is much larger, maybe going into 2030 or possibly even longer because we're still not pushing that 400 kilowatt per Instagram margin. I think there's still a long way to go for that technologies that will be I do want to point out articles written by Gil Pratt in the USA and lining out their future they say that their investments in the battery space are quite high but they also want to earmark what of their effects for later in the decade when battery technology is more developed than they want to earmark one for more energy dense which is available today and do not want to go the LSD route that's a decision that they are making so there will definitely be case for battery technology companies by well into 2020 I don't think we should put ourselves to all the companies that have spacked in the last year or so in the US the other market exactly yeah I wanted to make the before the point which I was interrupted by my connection so you said that sodium-ion batteries you predicted five years ago that they will become reality and now they are reality where do you see them like the reality I don't see them like the reality they are not commercialized yet for 50 years they are saying about sodium-ion batteries they are going to be the reality by the cattle announcing that they are working on the sodium-ion battery there's not commercialization yeah I do want to add one point that's true because I have been to some battery assemblers not even I don't want to go into the complex battery chemistries even in the assembly part I think it's a long way to go if you go and see in the Indian market not only in India if you go to African market Indian market Indonesia some South Asian market the quality of the packages that they are doing is comparatively US or US it is completely cheap it has a lot of safety issues they don't have proper sealing they don't have proper connections they don't have any fusing mechanisms even the battery management system has tons and tons of issues and the thermal management system there is no such thermal management system in the battery pack even it is used in two wheeler and three wheeler which has high loads of electricity so yeah it's a very long way to go even in the assembly level I don't want to go into the complex chemistry level even in the assembly level it's quite hard to scale to develop a fruitful prototype or a product yeah that's true I completely agree I think it's going to become quite fantastic thank you so much everyone and yeah we also have you know about 10 minutes left or so so time flies by as usual I think that's a very interesting discussion we're having about the different challenges and opportunities one thing I'm also kind of find me fascinating to kind of think about what might happen in a year's time or so do you have any experienced and skilled group here on the panel maybe if anybody wants to say some of what they expect maybe we might be talking about in a year's time on the next EA mobility I'm just curious if you have any thoughts and be brave enough and maybe you're right maybe you're wrong I think at this point it doesn't matter yeah I have one prediction that most of those I see in this decade so old technologies old legacy companies obviously they will be pushed out of the business only my estimation is only like 20% maximum they will survive the legacy companies but also all those many of those technology companies especially in the battery space which they want to make batteries but they are not making batteries I have another prediction for them most of them they will also not make it means that those multi-billion dollar companies which they are trading right now on the stock market and they don't have anything they just want to have something they will also go bankrupt because the battery industry is very complex industry and very difficult to crack the battery like I said over 220 years we had only few breakthrough technologies I do want to add one thing a lot of money is going to battery software battery technology company I think this not only depends on the automobile industry I think tons of money should go to the software industry because it's all about IoT and things like that I think battery analytics company will get acquired by many of the corporates and tons of new startups will arrive but it will also go to million dollar valuation maybe I may be wrong but it's my prediction no you are right software is big issue especially AI especially the toward because the future of the vehicle is the electric share mobility and the autonomous so it's a lot of software especially in the autonomous part thank you yeah so yeah so I in terms of battery technology I believe lithium metal is already in the horizon by 2030 looking at like QuantumScape's data especially on power sales it might enter a really high-end EV market very niche but still it will be in by 2030 I'm pretty sure that you might see at least few vehicles and then Tusham do you realize I respectfully disagree with you totally so do you realize that generation zero of the anode was lithium metal so scientists were working for 20 years to be able to commercialize lithium metal anode battery lithium-ion battery based on the lithium metal and they were never able to do it so those scientists which they received Nobel prize for the discovery of the lithium-ion batteries only the graphite intercalation was commercialized in 1991 so it's very very very challenging and I my humble now it's opinion but educated opinion the lithium !

1:21:57the lithium medal will not be commercialized especially not in the large scale maybe some niche market but not large scale deployment of the we will not see in 2030 like the not even well I just to give some clarification I mean I don't think there's how much of the market is actually going to be lithium metal is a very risky business I think QuantumScape just had a presentation yesterday showing coupling of lithium metal with LFP cathode and you know if you're going by the analogy that lithium metal did not work in the past so it will work only on a limited basis in the future remember that the very first automotive cars were originally electric and so it took over 80 years 70 80 years into the 1970s and 1980s for electric cars to actually become a viable reality so I mean it definitely has a future and given that we have progressed with all of the other understandings and all of the other technologies surrounding batteries I think this framework for lithium metal to succeed can happen over a much shorter timeline so I would say keep an eye on it but I don't think there's any reason to dismiss it I'm not dismissing I said my educated opinion and I'm not basing my predictions of the future on the past I'm just considering all the factors how the industry needs to grow very fast how much money we are investing to building the giga plans on the established technologies commercialized technologies and so on and so on so I'm taking all the factors to the account when I'm saying that I'm not saying that lithium metal eventually will not be cracked but I'm saying that we'll be able to produce those batteries in volume in this decade that's certainly a very valid concern I think this decade yeah that's definitely an accelerated timeline theoretically that's the best so remember that one of the Nobel Prize winners that you mentioned you know Sam Whittingham is on the board of one and there's other players in the market a little bit of more optimism there at least on the technical standpoint whether it will be commercialized yeah but I'm very pessimistic and I'm very skeptical about QuantumScape despite all those scientists which they bribe them with the money to be on their board I would I would like to add two more points for this one year or one or two year views or moonshots I quickly I just wanted to say with the historical battery vehicles I think that's right what you said when they started and when they really came up with new tech stuff but I don't think with your conclusion on that topic but I just wanted to get rid of that maybe we can discuss later for the next 12 to 24 months I have two moonshots or one moonshot and one thing which I think will be quite maybe they're both moonshots the first one is I think we could maybe see some collaboration starting finally between Tesla and their technology and OEM I'm always wondering why no OEM can jump over their proud or can just put their proud aside and think clearly technical and approach Tesla for some collaboration and some topics they could benefit a lot from that and I hope we might see something like that in the next 12 to 24 months and the second one moonshot still waiting for the cheap affordable lower spec grid kind of battery for large grids we must not use those expensive high-tech batteries we are developing at the moment in the automotive industry they should not be used for grid and stationary applications for stationary application it doesn't matter whether your battery is twice the weight at the same energy and power or twice the volume I'm still waiting for that cheap scalable next generation battery tech to push the grids forward that's my two moonshots for the next 12 months second I absolutely agree with you and the first one I totally humbly disagree with you so there is not going to be established legacy automaker which they will collaborate with Tesla on transferring their technologies to the established automakers Thank you Pierre and Marlos and everyone else as well who gave their thoughts do you have something to add Pierre?

1:27:58No let's go for the 12 months as you moderated and then maybe we can go into side discussions or next time second topic Pierre I totally agree with you they will have troubles to save themselves it will go very quickly for them south it means that they will have a lot of troubles to survive fantastic thank you very much and I think that's good because now we have different opinions on some of these topics so we can actually as you said Pierre and Marlos we can actually check back in a year's time or so and see what has happened since and I'm sure something's going to go faster something's go slower so it's not going to happen at all but I think one thing is for certain it's going to stay an exciting year ahead as it has been so far as well with this I think we might want to close this session because it has been one of ours we have been here before we do them every Saturday at this time from 3pm CET to 4.30pm CET or whatever time that is in your different time zones we also record them as you can see off the top of this room for our podcast called Battery Insiders so you can find them on Apple Podcast Spotify and also on Battery Insiders dot com and yeah if you enjoyed this please follow this clap as well on the top Battery Evolution so you get notified future sessions feel free to also follow all the panelists from today and all the speakers thank you very much for being here and sharing your thoughts and insights and as you know on this app that's a great way to follow each other on here to be notified and yeah with this we're going to have another session next week we don't exactly know yet which topic this is a bit of a funny month for many of us because there's so many conferences at least I'm in conferences for the rest of this month but I'm sure we're going to find some nice new topics as well as new exciting speakers we've got some lined up later for the month so if you know anybody who would like to do a session before please get in touch with Catherine and myself and hopefully also Catherine will feel better again for next week's session with this thank you so much everyone for being with us and see you next week bye bye bye