Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Battery News

0:00Transcript

0:00Sounds great. So maybe before we start on the topic, just some housekeeping for everyone. So welcome everyone back to the 41 session of Better Evolution. So today we're going to be talking about battery news. So if you're free to join us on stage for any news that interests you this week, for the past couple of weeks, about anything about batteries or EVs in general, there's a lot going on, we know. So, you know, we'd love for everyone to join us on stage to share your thoughts on it. As always, the session lasts for one and a half hour, so we will be ending at 4.30 p.m. CET. And, you know, if you have any thoughts or questions, just feel free to raise your hand. And myself and Sam will be able to let you on stage once we see the notification coming up. And once you're on stage, if you're not speaking, it would be great if you could mute your mic, like what Sam is doing here.

1:00And if you would like to speak, just type your mic twice like so. And then this is going to be quite an interactive session, I believe. So, you know, feel free to join a conversation at any time. And if you wish to applaud to anything someone was saying, just let your mic like so. So these sessions are recorded and available on Battery Insiders on Spotify and Apple Podcasts after the event. You know, feel free to check out some of our previous episodes as well about policies, recycling, etc. A lot of exciting topics on battery, in the battery field. So, yeah, maybe without further ado, we can start discussing about battery news. Sam, would you like to share more about the battery news that we were talking about earlier? Sure, happy to. Yeah, it's really good to be here again. And I think we can see maybe how often we do that. But essentially, we're just scheduling also in all the different talks for the rest of the year.

2:02So I think maybe that's a quite nice thing actually to once a month or so look a bit on some of the news. We can see how this goes. Because essentially with Battery Associates, once a month we're sending out the newsletter. And some of the battery news we found most interesting over the past month. And actually, I'm here at Barrett, who's unfortunately traveling right now. But he's spending a lot of time on this on our team. But also other people are helping him and Amandine as well. She helps him also with editing. So these two really do most of the lifting there. I'm just very lucky to do just some final inputs myself. But essentially, we have a range of different news. And maybe just for sharing. So we also share them for some of our clients. We kind of do a bit of a deep dive on some of them. But I thought it would be nice to also share some insights today as well on this forum.

2:49And then also discuss any other news we didn't cover. Because we have a long, long list of news we don't usually cover. Because just already now I think it's three, four pages. So it feels like it's long enough. There's just so much going on. But essentially, maybe I can just mention some of the headlines. And then if people are interested, we can do a bit of a deep dive in some of them. Because as I mentioned, we spend a bit of more time often looking to them. We have a bit of a commentary as well. But also, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're also welcome to sign up for the newsletter. Or just here on the private message, send me your email. Then I'm going to forward you this month's session. Because again, we sent this out last night. So we sent them out once a month. So if you still want to get the October version, just send me your email in your private message.

3:35Okay. So going from there. So the first news was from Stellantis and LG Energy. Solution to form a joint venture to produce lithium-ion battery cells in North America. And that's for the capacity by 2024 of about 40 gigawatt hours. Going to their goal of realizing over 40% of its sales in the US. And I think it's just very interesting to see. You know, I mean, it makes a lot of sense that automotives are working closer and really trying to, you know, secure the supply of batteries. We see this being quite an issue already in some of the markets. So it just makes sense these joint ventures take place. And also it makes sense that some experienced players, you know, that the automotives trying to work with experienced players. On the other hand, of course, you have lots of new kind of gigafactory announcements. But again, we also had some other news actually this month, which we didn't have in there, where some gigafactories got a bit more criticism about their, yeah, essentially how far is their technology themselves.

4:33Because as anybody who works in the battery space knows, it's not that straightforward to build a gigafactory and do it well. So even for some of the, you know, Asian battery producers who move into Europe, it's quite challenging actually to reproduce what they're doing in Asia. So there's a lot of complexity and you need the right people to do that. So that's why these joint ventures make a lot of sense. And I think it's quite clear there will be many more coming. And also for us, it's quite obvious that, quite clear that there will be many more in the US. Especially if we, you know, just look at the past year, what happened in Europe, about a thousand gigawatt hours of announcement of battery production. So like a massive increase in Europe, want to become the second biggest player in battery space. So they want to produce 30% of the battery supply, I think by 2030. So that Europe is very keen on it. And I think the US will just do the same.

5:19There's a couple of other news in this direction. And if you remember the session we had with James Swift a while ago, he also spoke about this, right? That he assumed the coming year might be the year for the US. It's actually something he said on the Battery Associates Battery Day a few weeks, months back, where I know quite a few of you attended as well. So yeah, so that just supports that. And again, I think there are going to be many more news over the coming months going in a similar direction. Next news is kind of Tesla to launch. Electric cars was for 680 cells. So this is kind of connected to an event they held on the 9th of October, which was their, they called it the Gigafactory Berlin Brandenburg Country Fair, Giga Berlin Fest. It's about 9,000 attendees. I saw some fun videos and I think they did a great show there. There's a couple of interesting announcements, which is also maybe beyond this article we shared here.

6:11But on the one, they showed their new cells. And we have seen them before, but they showed now some of the larger installations of this. We have an image here in the newsletter where you see the cells, how they're kind of put into the car. But also, and what was quite interesting, actually, there was a question asked by the audience about how to make batteries more sustainable. And what is interesting on that one, actually, that, you know, the sort of Edo Musk said a couple of things and it's already quite sustainable. They're using more NFP. So, you know, we're getting rid of cobalt and nickel for most of the vehicles, et cetera, at least for the personal transport, like the personal vehicles. They used NMC, et cetera, more for the trucks. But what's interesting, though, there was a clip in German, like there was one of the lead people from the German Gigafactory speaking there in German. So maybe not everyone got it. And I put this clip also on LinkedIn in case we connected there.

7:05And essentially, this gentleman would say in German that the two things that we really plan to do with the German factory is one, solvent-free production. So a good bit of solvents for, you know, essentially cathode production here, which I think, you know, we try process, et cetera. We have heard about this, et cetera, and that's been planned. But I think, you know, quite doubling down that this is something they're planning for Berlin for the battery production, which is exciting. And then also beyond that, actually, so that's for the slurry production. We also get all the energy from renewable sources or like solar, et cetera. At the moment, they're still installing, you know, gas, like they have like some insulation to kind of get that energy from gas turbines, et cetera. And there are also something else they're doing is, yeah. So I think with the solvent-free thing, I think as far as I know, at least what was my latest status when I spoke to other people in the space, that they wouldn't do actually the cathodes, et cetera, the materials themselves in Berlin.

8:01But they would make the slurry, et cetera, and assemble the cells and things like that. So there's just a bit about Tesla's, you know, development in Berlin. It's quite fascinating. I mean, I'm based in Munich, and it's quite cool to see they're doing really good progress, especially in a sometimes a bit more tricky bureaucratic situation to get through all of the things. So there's a couple of hiccups, but I think they've been good progress. The next news was from BASF and Eswold to partner together to advance battery material research and battery recycling solutions. So it's also interesting to see them kind of working closer together on the R&D on cathode active materials. For material supply and battery recycling, I think there's a couple of different potential reasons for that. We tend to know both of them quite well and be fortunate to have worked with them in different capacities in the past. And so I think, you know, if you know Eswold, it's a Chinese battery company who's expanding quite a lot in Europe right now, and they have a cobalt-free cathode.

8:58They're claiming it to be the first, you know, it's kind of a nickel-based, high-energy density, cobalt-free. So it's like a nickel-manganese version, essentially, without the cobalt. And what's interesting here is, you know, I mean, of course, we see now all the drivers, LFP, et cetera, from Tesla and others and Volkswagen. But there will still be, you know, there will be some high-nickel version, it looks like, needed for longer-range performance models, but also for the trucking industry, which is massive. Once this really gets started or other applications, there will be a massive demand. For higher-energy density cells to get the long-range they need. So, yeah, this was interesting to do this development. On the other hand, of course, BASF is one of the big European, you know, battery cathode material producers, and they're expanding quite a lot. I think they had some announcements of some new factories, which we hadn't previously started installing in Europe. So, yeah, it's interesting to see this partnership between them, both of them.

9:59And, yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. And, you know, if you know them well, it makes a lot of sense, but it's good to see these developments. Then another one is on Chile to open a tender for exploration and production of lithium reserves. So Chile will open a tender for the exploration and production of 40,000 tons of lithium. Yeah, essentially, yeah, it claims to regain market share in the effort to meet a growing demand of raw materials used in batteries. As far as, I think, as far as we see, they're not, I think Australia surpassed them as the biggest lithium producer. So they're trying to, you know, come back at them. And that's, yeah, 40,000 tons. It's not bad. Right now they're doing 29% of the world's lithium supply. And it's interesting, you know, to see that the lithium expansion is taking place. There's a couple of new policies, et cetera. And I think there's this magic triangle you might, I may have it from Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia.

10:57And, yeah, I think Chile is quite advanced, not just in that. But also, if you look at Renova Energies, et cetera, they've been pushing really hard. So I think that's nice that these things come hand in hand. So they're from the materials, but also from the implementation. Then automakers invest in battery recycling to meet demand for materials. So there's another one, yeah, another 100 million investment in the cycle holding corporation. There's also Ford. So this was with Koch Strategic Platforms that this obviously cycle. And then you also have Ford Motors announced a partnership with Cycler Redwood Materials. It's part of a $11.4 billion electric vehicle expansion plan. Yeah. So I think it's, you know, right now there's this very little recycled material. There's some of those insights we had in the BatteryMBA, which is a program we actually had to be interested in lecture there recently. And from one of the large cathode producers for batteries. And, you know, at the moment, there's no real recycled cathodes you can buy, I think, at least not from them.

11:59And if anybody knows any company in the world who provides you recycled cathode material, we'd be very interested to hear more about that, especially on a larger scale. I think at this point, it's not really a thing. And if you look at the new battery regulation coming from the European Union, if this gets all approved the way it's planned at this point, actually, you have some really high percentage of materials that have to be recycled. I think, you know, they even want to go for lithium for 80% or so for lithium, even higher and quite strong for cobalt and things like that. So, yeah, there's a massive push from the governments and from the policy side. But, yeah, and then you have now a lot of investment companies, but there's still lots to be done, especially, I think, to really reuse these materials. Because at the moment, I think they recycle them. But I don't know. Yeah, there's no, I think, company who says they have this percentage of recycled material at this point.

12:52And they will have to. So there's quite some strict deadlines coming in the next decade for the European battery regulation. So, yeah, it would be interesting how this is going to play out. But, of course, it's great. This is done. But I also spoke with some miners, and they also see it as a policy push. It's not really what's coming from the industry right now. Okay, then U.S. battery recycling company, battery source secured to 7 million is the investment. So that's kind of connected to what I just said. And then, yeah, you also have this global organization, International Lithium Association, formed to help companies to get sustained with lithium supply. Yeah, so that's another kind of, there's a couple of these, you know, new organizations being announced. So that's five founders are SQM, Genfeng Lithium, AUMG Brazil, ProOctob Limited, and Pilbara Minerals. So there's a couple of them. Yeah, so essentially they have a quite global setup here with the UK and also in Australia.

13:49There's a couple of these new kind of associations and partnerships being announced. There's another one also called Lieb Bridge. It's a public-private partnership for domestic lithium battery supply chains. That's for the U.S. I think that's kind of the idea, you know, to have something in response also what you see in Europe. In Europe, we have, as you might know, the European Battery Alliance, the Battery 2030 Plus, a new planet, and the Farad Institution. And I'm sure there's more. There's actually, I just think there's another B-Planet. There's another one we didn't have in here on the list. Of course, there's also something, the Glow Battery Alliance, which we are a member of. We just had a really exciting, yeah, meetings with them over the last week. And they had a new meeting. And I think there's some interesting insights there as well. So, I mean, there's a couple of different partnerships. And they're going to be, I'm sure, many more. We'll see how many we need.

14:36But I think it's good to see there's one in the U.S. as well, which is kind of going to the narrative of what we had earlier, that in the U.S., you know, there will be a lot of expansion. I think it makes sense to put them together, especially public-private. I think it's very needed. Because as I said earlier, the policy is important. But, of course, as Midos, I'm sure would agree on and say is that the technology actually is, you know, is the crucial factor here as well. So, the partnership between those, I think, is powerful and needed. Okay. And then, yeah, China to cut use of fossil fuel below 20% by 2060. There was another announcement here. So, from right now, fossil fuel use from 60% today to below 20% by 2060. There's a couple of interesting ones there. Guidance laid out a number of targets, including increase in production of non-fossil fuel consumption to 25% of China's total energy use by 2030. Yeah.

15:32It follows, you know, the pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. And, I mean, of course, a lot of these announcements are also probably connected to COP. As you're familiar, it's the climate. It's supposed to be annual. Last time COVID was delayed. The annual meeting to, you know, from essentially the UN bringing all the governments together to bring, like, updates. Essentially, like, we find how the Paris Agreement is going to be implemented and extended. This is happening right now, I think, from today in Glasgow. And I know many people are going there. Unfortunately, I think I won't be able to make it this year. But, yeah. So, there are going to be many more announcements, I think, also for people to follow over the next two weeks. I already know of a couple of them, which are still under embargo. So, there's definitely some announcements happening, which are interesting. But, yeah. There might even be some more than we might even expect at this point.

16:21Okay. And then there's another one. The Indian government launched a thousand megawatt hour battery energy storage system pilot project. So, that's also, I think, going into a narrative of what we had before. I mean, we're quite interested in India. Also, other countries. There's quite a push. India has been quite a push now. Yeah. To increase their own capacity. We had this, I think, this other announcement. One or two newsletters back for some interesting joint ventures there between some of the largest companies in their country. So, definitely some exciting developments there, too. And then also in New York State. The U.S. again passes bill to electrify school bus fleet by 2035. Yeah. I think that's also cool now, essentially, to say this follows the decision to only allow zero emission passenger cars and light commercial vehicles to be sold from 2035 on board. So, yeah. So, they want to do a conversion of its 885 diesel school buses by 2035. It's going to cost a bit over 300 million or 350 million.

17:24And, of course, we can maybe argue, you know, what's the size of that compared to a larger scale. But I think, actually, these things are very important, especially if the governments, you know, as we have seen the same with the Biden administration to say, you know, that they will do this for their own kind of government fleets. I think that's a very powerful step to kind of get things implemented. It can be quite challenging. I visited in the U.S. a while ago in California. And some of the very progressive governments or, like, more local governments who implemented a lot of these selected vehicles in their fleets. And they had some challenges for sure. But, again, I think you also have to find the right vehicle and the right transport. You know, they're essentially the right specifications for the right use case. So, I think they had to try some very small range vehicles for a long range application, which, of course, didn't work well. But then they had some other electric vehicles with longer range and that actually worked quite well for these applications.

18:14So, and then there's a lot, of course, more, just like in the city, a bit of driving around than you probably can almost take any electric vehicle today. Great. I think looking at this, also a time, 20 minutes in now. I think, yeah, these are the news we had here. And, of course, we also have all the links to this podcast actually in there. So, it's a bit of a, you know, in itself. So, if you want to see some of the past podcasts, including a battery safety, especially in Farag from the last month's deep dive and solid-state batteries, from the battery associates solid side white paper with Mariano, who also, I think, was an audience, and Pooja and Srinath. Yeah. Then we had the battery day summary. But, yeah, I think that's it from my side for today. There's quite a few news. Again, if you're interested in them, if you haven't received the newsletter yesterday evening, just shoot me an email in the private chat here.

19:08And I'm going to forward you this month's version. And otherwise, just go maybe on battery.associates. Then you get a pop-up field, and you can fill in your email, and you get it next month. And, yeah, also let us know if this is interesting for you, these news, to talk about them in this forum, so we can make sure we provide the most interesting, you know, format possible. Catherine, over to you. Thanks so much, Simon. And, you know, thanks for really giving us all the updates, basically around the world, I would say, in the battery field for the last couple of weeks. So thanks for that. Does anyone have, if anyone has any, you know, thoughts to the topic or just things to that, feel free to raise your hand right now to Jennifer on stage. Personally, I was very interested in, I would say, the uptake of RFP sales by the OEMs. You know, Tesla has announced that they would do it for most of standard range cars and also Mercedes-Benz as well.

20:08So these are some of the interesting shifts that we're seeing, you know, given that RFP, Tesla has adopted RFP last year and we're probably seeing the benefits of that, you know, maybe from a safety perspective, maybe from a cost perspective as well. Yeah, so we'd just, you know, like to raise these topics for discussion. And as you know, Christopher and Marlos are now on stage. Christopher, thanks for joining us. Do you have any thoughts? Yeah, hi, everyone. Yeah, I think it's quite interesting what you're seeing there, Catherine, with regards to the uptake of LFP. You know, for so long it's been sort of, the focus has been on NMC. The concern is at the moment for me is there's not many out there sort of selling manufacturers or that I'm aware of doing the LFP. So I think what we'll see in future news is a lot more manufacturers taking up the LFP technology as well. And back to the newsletter, you know, there was a lot of information in the newsletter, Simon.

21:17I think obviously it's sort of, we can see that the shift in the news, I mean, the news coming out and back, you're seeing something new almost weekly. And to sort of capture that in a monthly newsletter, you know, sort of respect to Barrett because it'll be a very difficult job trying to capture all that information and getting it into a newsletter. So great job. And obviously I look forward to the next newsletter also. Thanks so much for that, Christopher. Marius, do you have any thoughts on the topic? Yes. Yes. I mean, I hear everywhere that those giga plants are popping up like the mushrooms. And that's good news. Mostly like the joint venture, like Simon, you said now about Stellantis. But they are not doing their math. They are to the mines. So basically those giga plants are only empty real estate if they will not have materials. So we need to focus on the, I mean, when I say we, the world needs to focus how to build supply value chain, whole supply value chain, not only giga plants.

22:39By building the giga plants, they will not secure batteries for their cars. That's an interesting point, yeah. Thanks for sharing that. We'll see, you know. We'll see. I mean, I guess in the end we'll see, like, who has the best. I mean, it's a price point, right? I mean, I agree there might be some shortages. But then I guess the question is who secures it and who's willing to pay for it, right? Yeah, but what I'm saying is that if you build a giga plant battery, especially with joint venture, it doesn't secure your battery for the millions of the vehicles yet. You need also to secure the mines, processing plants, and then active material production. Agreed. So hopefully we can see some news on that front in the future. But I agree. I think that's one of the big things, right, that this has to be figured out. I mean, Phil, that's what my loss is saying there, you know. Supply chains will make or break these gigafactories.

23:52But, you know, a lot of these companies are not going to sort of building gigafactories lightly, you know, there has to be plans behind everything. So even just sort of getting into the supply chains, this will be – the planning for all of that already begins before the shovel even goes into ground for these gigafactories. But the supply of the material, you know, let's look at this, all these gigafactories will be going after the same supply. And I think that's what my loss is sort of referring to. Yeah, but it takes like two years to build giga plants. It takes 10 years to build the mine. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, starting with some of the discussions that Simon brought us, in Brandenburg, they're actually building a lithium conversion facility, which is Europe's first one, which is actually really great because there's right now none in Europe and two in North America, most of which are in Asia, a few in South America.

25:00So that actually is a pentyl, you know, lithium battery material, hydroxide from that. And he discussed BASF and recycling with S-Volt. Now, BASF has no real recycling technology. It's mostly a very discussion stage. So you hear these headlines, and it sounds as if there's something happening now. There's nothing happening really in the short term, maybe at a very lab scale, but probably not even that at this point. So you have to take all these headlines with a grain of salt because they sound like they're really important, but nothing's really happening. And the other thing, Simon mentioned that New York State was electrifying the buses. Now, New York State actually, there was actually a Korean company that tried to build a recycling facility that actually, because of public blocking, nimbyism, they actually blocked that recycling facility. So it's nice to say, oh, we're going to electrify buses, but to not actually have the source material or allow that source to be made in a sustainable way in your state, it just doesn't make any sense.

26:07So you have to take all these things to credit, you saw. And then the mentioning of Bally Resources, I know that they got some money from Itachi, but I came from grad school in WPI where Bally Resources was founded. They're still struggling in the pilot stage. I mean, they don't have any pilot commercial material. Now, they did publish something saying that recycled material is the same as or better than mine material, but they don't have a process that can actually create that. You know, they're using some pure cathode for one type of battery that's not been piloted. Yes, it sounds great to show this is viable, but they're not actually building anything. And the same thing with Ford and Redwood Materials. Redwood Materials is selling most of their stuff to Glencore, the Black Pass to Glencore. So I know it's great what they want to do in three, four, five years with the commercial battery cycling, but the reality is now there's not been a lot of change in, you know, what they're doing.

27:10And the same can be said for Lifecycle. Their discussions, they even had a battery day Lifecycle. And they, you know, they indicated that, okay, we'll be pricey ways to save away. If you know people who have actually been to their lab, what they're showing to investors, they don't even have a pilot yet for HydraMet. So, it sounds great, paper and the future, but again, sourcing is crucial, as Marlos and Christopher mentioned. And, yeah, those are my thoughts. Yes, in my opinion, that you need to not listen to what they are saying, but you need to watch what they are doing. Because, and especially who is saying, politicians are saying a lot, but doing something else. And, which they are there, like, politicians, like, this week, we consider it news, General Motors. I've heard the news from the CEO of the General Motors, Bara, that the General Motors is the leading electrical vehicle producer in the world. General Motors is the leading electrical vehicle producer in the world.

28:27Take it to your account, yes? And that's from the CEO. Because they count, like, a vehicle in China by cycle, like their vehicle. Or they count, like, the hybrid vehicles, like the electrical vehicles. So, statements like that, which basically look what, here, not what they are saying, but what they are doing. Thank you. Very much agree with you. And I think, yeah, it's very tough, right? And we're trying to, you know, figure out what are the right news and things. And thank you very much for sharing, both of you, Mark and Michael, as well, you know, some of these insights. Because I agree, it's very tricky. But at the same time, I think it's important to kind of see through them, right? I mean, and I agree with you, there's so much hype, et cetera, and the idea is to really try to create a narrative. And that's also, you know, we're very open for, like, suggestions and improvement. Because I think one thing we also have been thinking about is we should do maybe, like, just more two or three news.

29:34And really then, like, you know, not news, but, like, two or three narratives, essentially, right? And really dig into one story deeper and say, like, is this the way? On the other hand, to be really realistic, we also have to be, you know, honest that, of course, our capacity right now is also quite limited, right? We don't have our own journalistic staff, right, where we could start our own, like, deep dives, et cetera. But I think, you know, maybe it's something for the future. But I agree. I think, I mean, our hope is really to try to create more transparency, you know, provide some more commentary. I mean, that's why I always put commentary. We hope it's useful. I agree. I mean, you know, Milo and Mark, if you, for example, both, it's an open invitation because we also have the blog we're writing. And we would actually like to launch about a blog on average, maybe every newsletter. And if you want to, for example, do a bit more in-depth one, for example, Milo's, for example, on supply chains, and Mark, for example, recycling or so, any other topic you find interesting, you know, would love to have one of your blogs on our website and we get quite some good traffic.

30:29So if there's of interest, please let me know. And we would actually love to have a blog from both of you. Then you can go into more depth in one of these stories, maybe. It should be really nice. Yeah. Yes. I would welcome more from the companies, from the entrepreneurs to, because only the government doesn't build anything. The government doesn't create anything. Government just still are divided to other people. I mean, give it to other people. So basically, by definition, government doesn't create anything. Entrepreneurs, private companies only can do it. So it's a huge challenge in this decade to build a supply value chain. So I like to listen to the entrepreneurs and the companies which they will do something. Yeah. I agree. I think that's very helpful. On the other hand, of course, there's also a limit, right? But what you can see as a startup, you know, you might bring in something and I think, I mean, essentially all the voices, but we need people who know what they're talking about, right?

31:50I mean, I think that's why it's very helpful to have, you know, experts for different aspects and really can like deep dive in and also kind of judge if things make sense or less sense. Goes a bit into the due diligence topic we spoke about last time as well. There's also an invitation for anybody else, like for example, also Mariano, we're talking about battery news. So essentially, you know, from the last newsletter, anything we found interesting in the past months. Also, any news you thought they're ridiculous. You know, it's lovely as well that you had some announcement you think that's absolutely wrong. Because I think that's also important for people to know. So, you know, you can have your favorite, you can have your worst. Anything you really heard about the last month? I mean, there's a couple of news we shared. Of course, there's many more. I'm actually curious if there's anything you heard or read over the past month you would like. Yeah, I had some thoughts.

32:47So I was watching a webinar by Adamus Intelligence, and there's some interesting thoughts they showed there. A company called First Cobalt are actually trying to mine the United States and build a recycling facility in Canada, which is an interesting strategy for that, mining and recycling, which in the long term makes most sense for supply chains. Assuming you have a source of ore in your area. I thought that was interesting. And in that particular webinar, there was discussion of how much recycled material is available. There's obviously some discussion in that, and I know some people would probably disagree that maybe most of that would go to Second Life or some of it. So I'd like to have discussion to go to Recycle Retural. That's great. Thanks so much for sharing, Mark. And I think also, I mean, that's also, it doesn't have to be just, it doesn't just have to be news in this way. It can also be like any of the conferences, because you're right, there have been lots of conferences and like webinars and things over the past months.

34:00So if there's any of them you would like to share, please do so as well. And maybe Mariano, would you, thanks for joining from stage. Would you like me to share some news or some insights from the past months? Hi, Simon. Hi, Catherine. And hi, all. Yeah. Yeah. Last couple of days, it shows, for me, an interesting trend about benchmark minerals. And the trend is that with the negotiation, with the prices arise for the first time of lithium. That's one thing that we covered maybe last month. But it's interesting this, that it changed the trend of the prices. It's also, let's say, a situation about all the supply chain difficulty, all the logistics and all in general about the chemical, also chemical price rises. And let's see how it starts, because hopefully, hopefully the trends not goes up another time. But nowadays, there is this information about the price rises from benchmark minerals. I think it was nice. It's what, 27 October, the information from benchmark minerals.

35:22And I think it's interesting to cover also, because if we think all the time, the battery prices, let's say, it's going down. Okay, if the technology allows perfect, but on the other hand, we need to also to see how difficulty nowadays is on the chemical part of the, let's say, the base of the batteries, the chemical part. And also the prices from aluminum, from copper and all, it rises. And I think it's also interesting to cover in the battery field, also with the supply chain and all. Thank you. Thank you for sharing, Mayanna. That's true. I mean, there was a bit of a news about if anybody has any more insights, if the battery prices are going up the first time. From a mere tier standpoint, I think Bloomberg is going to publish something soon, or Bloomberg NEV. But yeah, I'm curious if anybody else has seen more, that would be interesting. Maylos? The price, the pressure on the prices of the materials, becoming reality because of the, because of the, that's what I'm talking always about.

36:48If you need more material, which you have available, the prices go up. And like the price is coming closer, battery cost is coming closer to the raw material cost, proportion of the battery price, battery cost, and the less technology cost. So it's going to be more difficult to lower the prices down if the material prices are going up. So it was easy, relatively easy when the battery was $8,000 per kilowatt hour, or even 10 years ago when it was $1,000 per kilowatt hour. But when the battery cost is like $100 per kilowatt hour, and your cost of the raw material is like 90% or 80%, it's impossible to lower the price, the cost of the battery. So talking about battery materials and pricing, I had a thought. But if you're willing to pay premiums on recycled battery materials, you know, for example, Apple will pay a premium. But there's nothing to source this point. But, you know, they will pay a premium. So that's what you think about.

38:06Yeah, thank you. Thank you for sharing. I think it will have some different effects on the pricing. That's great. Asim, thanks so much for joining. We're talking about our favorite battery news or anything we found interesting in the battery space in the past months. Is there something you would like to share? Do you have some ideas or questions? Yes. Sorry. It is very interesting. We had a discussion some days ago regarding this. And someone was asking me, do you expect the prices to go down? As everyone is saying, it's going to go lower and lower. And then my answer was, like, I don't expect it to go down. I expect it can either stabilize or go up. Because we are reaching really the edge of this price gap between that you want the pack price to be the same as some of the sales. As close to that point. And we are quite going in that direction. And the same question also for energy. Like, do we expect that we'll get much more energy soon?

39:17And my answer was, I don't expect it to happen unless we have a big breakthrough that will change. So, it's very interesting to see that the prices are going up for the same. But I'm wondering why now? I mean, what changed? I mean, compared to one month ago. I mean, I hear about a lot of OEMs going to joint ventures to create their own battery factories. But why now? This is something I am interested. Is it, like, related to, like, energy problem? Like, I don't know if everyone knows about there's a problem in energy and electricity all over the world. And it's because of natural gas problem and a lot of other problems. So, I'm not sure if this has an effect and justice will drop when this crisis will finish. That is an interesting point for me. Thank you very much for sharing, Basim. Aziz, thanks so much for joining. Do you have some thoughts on this topic or any other news you saw in the past month?

40:17 Yeah, hi. Hi, guys. Hi, everyone. Thanks for inviting me on the stage. Now, I was reading on this new patent or invention from Australian University of Newcastle about one substance or material that can store energy. I don't know if you have heard about it. I haven't. Yeah, it's a kind of material. It consists of aluminum and graphite. I can store energy that's generated from renewable sources. Actually, I was reading it yesterday. I thought maybe someone has read about it or have any... Yeah. I didn't hear about it, but what do you mean? Or do you mean some other... No, it's a material. It's a product that can store energy. But I don't know what's the concept because they... It seems that a new concept because they have... They have made or filed a patent for it. But I'm really not... I think it's from Newcastle University in Australia. Maybe you guys can look it up. Thanks for maybe Aziz. If you find it, please send it to me or someone to ask via the private message.

42:21Because I don't know any about it. So I think we would need a bit more information to help on some insights. Yeah, I didn't hear about it in any of the shows that I saw related to energy or cells or technology. So that's interesting. I would like to see the pattern as well. And also, I also shared with you, just as well, there's an article from Shep on one of our listeners. But you had to stop out, Panthea. But essentially, it's an article saying, are Recycle TV batteries as good as new ones? Yes, a thousand times yes. That's an interesting article. And I saw it more before. But we're curious, right? Or anybody else with their thoughts? Also for you. I've seen the article from you now, a few seconds ago. And for me, there is no difference between the materials from the mine or materials from the recycling. Because those materials are purified. It's only the question of the cost of those materials. Whatever is less expensive, whatever is more expensive and availability of material.

43:40Like we, this decade, there is minimum material available from the recycling. The problem of the recycling companies to have enough battery to recycle. Mostly, those recycled batteries today, most of the batteries is not absolute scrap. It's new scrap. It's new scrap. Basically, it's new batteries which they are not confirming to the new batteries produced which they are recycled. So basically, the yield of the battery in the battery in the factory is very low, especially in the beginning. So, like 50% of the batteries in the beginning, they cannot go to the cars. So they go back to the recycling. So, like we will go to the more, to this decade, and especially next decade, more batteries will come from the absolute scrap, from absolute batteries. In fact, that will increase the visibility of those recycling plants. In fact, from quality of the material point of view, I don't see why they should be worse than materials from the ground, from mine. I agree with Milo's. By the way, I saw this data, a form of it about four years ago, because I went to WPI, I was a PhD student, and I saw this. But what has happened in four years, there's still no commercial facility or even pilot facility fully functioning that actually creates these materials in an economic way. So I'm not surprised by it because I've seen the data, for the same source before. But again, they're using some sort of ideal cathode material, not real waste or real in-life batteries. So it looks great, and I believe it, but where are the economics? And we may have another discussion four years from now, as I saw the data four years in the past, to see if they actually have a commercial facility.

45:51Yes, I'm saying the same. This decade, the recycling is not going to be big, mostly recycling, the new batteries. Next decade, it's going to be relatively big, and we can climb to maybe 10% of material recycled, and then 20%, but it's still the bulk of material will be mined. It's interesting, right? Because you have, as I mentioned earlier, with the European patch regulation, you know, there's essentially going to be a push with the regulation front, and maybe it's not even that viable, but it will be pushed for it. And then I guess the question though is, right, the costs will come to the consumer? Can they cut costs another way? So they'll be interested. Yeah, despite of the push from the government, you cannot cheat on the technology. You cannot push for the technology. Technology, it's taking its own course. So whatever you can recycle by the technology, new technology or existing technology, you are going to recycle. If you cannot recycle more, you cannot recycle.

47:13Because this legislation, Umacor, which is the only functioning commercial battery recycling facility in Europe, will have to shut down because they don't recover enough of the lithium. So, yes, I mean, you need the technology. You shouldn't be shutting down recycling facilities because at this moment, maybe the lithium station doesn't take effect for another three or four years because it doesn't meet the standards. So, um, I'm all for technology, but you shouldn't be shutting down recycling facilities. Yeah, you see what Mark is saying right now. That's what I'm saying. The most of those politicians, if they don't know what they are doing, uh, those, uh, those, uh, um, regulations are counterproductive. So, uh, this recycling facility would be working maybe on the 50% of the, um, or 60% of recycling, uh, uh, uh, recycling, uh, recycling, uh, recycling, uh, recycling, uh, material, material. But now they are working on zero because it's shut down because of That's interesting. Thank you. Going now is the people on the panel. So we have this article and which was mentioned by Aziz. Does anybody, does anybody have any more thoughts on this?

48:38Yeah, I'm just, I'm just actually reading it there, Simon. It seems to be a, uh, uh, sort of a thermal brick. Uh, so it's storing thermal energy. The article that's shared says, you know, they can last for about sort of, uh, 30 years. Uh, Well, it's mainly sort of the, the target that the, the see the target and there's, uh, power stations to, to move away from sort of coal energy. Uh, uh, and I need to have a bit more read of it, but the, the, the block at CIS weighs about six kilos. It can, uh, it contains stored thermal energy about one kilowatt hour per block. Uh, uh, but they're declining to stay at any projected prices on the block. Yeah. Yeah. Those technologies, I mean, they look nice, nice on the paper, in the articles, but, uh, like we know, the battery is very complex or storage of the energy is a very complex technology. And, uh, we had only several breakthroughs in, uh, during the last, 220 years. So, uh, those are for, uh, good for the amusement, but not for the reality.

49:53I am skeptical. Yeah, I, I think I am on that one or two, Milos. But what is the use of this? Uh, I didn't get this one. What is the use? Is it to replace the battery in, in automotive? Or that is just only the storage? No, it's miracle technology, which doesn't exist. Yeah. Looking at the article, I presume, uh, in its current form, I don't think it would be sort of automotive at all. Uh, the look at it sort of, uh, using them for, uh, or when they're coming to decommissioning, uh, coal power stations by looks, from what I can gather from the article anyway. I didn't even read the article. I just hear it from you, from Aziz, from you and from Simon. And, um, I don't, I don't want to force myself to read it. Okay. I think we, we didn't get too much excitement about this one, unfortunately, but, um, yeah, any other articles anybody has for free to put in the chat or write them to us?

51:15And maybe that's also another thing we could try, right? If there's anything you have seen, um, any other, you know, news or something, you wonder, you want to have some other people getting their thoughts on it, please shoot them our way in the messages. And then we can try to dissect it a bit as well. I think it could be a fun format as well. Maybe we can think maybe next time, maybe the after newsletters, but also people can notice it. I'm not sure if it's, it's, it's, it's not exactly battery only or electric only, but it's on the also economical. Like you see now a lot of, um, uh, vehicle, car manufacturers going for, uh, IPO or, or several ways or several forms to the stock market. And all of them are going at the same time while we have like cheap shortage, uh, we have, uh, cheap shortages and we have other, other, other problems in the way. And we can see that Ford and someone, someone else, I remember who had like losses or not lost, but like a decrease in, in, uh, profitability this year because of the shortage.

52:12But still we hear about Rivian and Volvo cars, they already went to the stock market and they are still going to stock market. So I don't know what is your view on that? Is it like, if you are a CEO of a company like this, would you go now and go to a volatile market? And you know, you are working with a technology where you can have a bad day and this can hit you really bad in the stock market. How do you see that with the technology companies, specifically companies like Rivian, Volvo cars, and others are going in that direction. And also Polestar is going in. So, uh, you reminded me another news from this week. They asked CEO of the General Motors, Barra, uh, that why, uh, General Motors has the problem with the chips and why, uh, basically production of the, uh, cars, it goes down. They are blaming it on the chips shortage and production of the Tesla cars goes up and they are not blaming it.

53:25Obviously they are not blaming it on the chip shortage. She didn't have the answer. She said that she answered stupid way. She said, the issue is more complicated like that. Like we wouldn't understand. We normal human beings, we don't understand the issue. And she does because it's very complicated. That is an interesting answer. Yes. So one company, uh, uh, is growing production of the cars each month and another company, major company even much bigger than a hundred years old is, uh, uh, blaming the, uh, issue of the production of the cars going down. And, uh, when they are asking her direct questions, she is saying this issue is complicated. More complicated. So it seems to me like the, uh, those established automakers, they have what to blame their, uh, uh, production, uh, of the ice cars, uh, going down on chips. Yeah, I'm wondering, can it be because Tesla took a lot of, uh, cheap design and production in-house? Yes, because that's normal. I'm saying that, uh, if you are, uh, uh, any business, uh, if you have a problem, you are trying to solve it.

55:05No, not only Tesla, uh, there are a lot of Chinese companies, which they are growing production. There are a lot of startups, which they are growing production. So if you have a problem, you are solving it. It's already more than one year they are blaming on the cheap shortage. And I wonder how much is cheap shortage, uh, problem and how much is problem that those ice cars are not anymore competitive or they don't want to. Yeah, I mean, I, um, all the companies are affected by the, uh, cheap shortage, but, uh, and yeah, everyone, including when I work as well, we have the same problem, but every company, they try to fix it in their own way. So I'm not really sure what the Ford or General Motors is doing with that kind of problem. I mean, I don't know how they deal internally. I mean, just to put that into perspective as well, it was only a few days ago where I think it was announced Tesla had hit the trillion dollar market cap, you know, so they're obviously doing something very well.

56:39I mean, I guess the echo on that as well. I saw a headline the other day about, um, you know, the Americans buying Teslas and not EVs. And I thought, what does that mean? Um, so I, I, I read deeper into that and basically what it means is people associate Tesla with, you know, the brand name and all, all that with something cool, um, something that that's environmentally friendly, et cetera. Um, but they actually don't know the, the, you know, the, the impact of EVs itself. So, uh, and there are the articles basically, basically saying that's probably going to change with ICEs, um, not being as press competitive anymore. So, as what Michael was saying earlier. Yeah. But what matters to me, for example, is that why other companies, why big companies are not moving properly? Why are they just waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting? And yeah, it's fascinating for me to see how these big giants are not just moving properly. Why aren't they taking it seriously?

57:58I don't know when they will take it. It's very difficult to take it seriously because it's classic disruption. In the history of 10,000 years of the civilization, all the disruptions are, uh, are done the same base. So there is no one exception. Technological disruption, which that's what it is. It's done in the S curve and disruptors are disrupting the existing companies. And it was never done differently. Never the disrupt, the company can disrupt itself. So it's, uh, disruption is always coming from outside. It means that the new companies, which they are deploying the new technologies, changing them to the tools are pushing the existing businesses, which they cannot deploy those technologies out of the business. Yes, but I mean that, I mean, I joined this world, maybe 2016. And since then I see it's very clear that it's the OEMs needs to act and act and act. And I believe that people who are managing this company, they should have much better vision than me.

59:16So why aren't they moving? That's what's puzzling me. Why don't they move? I mean, it's very obvious. Yeah, they cannot move because I said they're being disrupted. So they are, uh, uh, the new companies and new technologies are pushing them out of the business. So they go to the destruction. It means that they go out of the business, they go to the bankruptcies and the plans be, are being closed and the people are being fired. And the new companies are hiring them and the new companies are big because they cannot rebuild the system. They cannot rebuild the companies. They, uh, some of them, which they will. So basically they are coming from defensive position. They want to save themselves. And it's difficult. Okay. From, from the, Mark, from the perspective, uh, from an OEMs, uh, Milo, I know that you don't encourage the legacy, uh, OEMs that, uh, you think that the legacy OEMs would, uh, uh, let's say closer and come with Lucid and Tesla and all and all.

1:00:34Okay. Okay. In, uh, I can say my perspective because I was, uh, many, many years, uh, working in, in Seat, uh, through Volkswagen. And I can say you, uh, at the moment that we have, uh, 10 years ago, uh, Seat Altea electric. First of all, it was banned from Volkswagen. They, they didn't want that Seat was the first leader from the electric field. That is one of the things. And the second, it was not viable because the battery, as, as we know, it was, uh, pricely very high. That's one, uh, I say 10 years ago. And, and the second, uh, point that also, uh, Volkswagen has his, his own leaders. No, it, if you think about how for the Volkswagen group comes with the electric. It was through Audi because it was the premium mark, uh, from the, the global, no, from Volkswagen group. It is not that. And, and the other very, very important thing that there was this threat about, it is interesting.

1:01:45It is a viable, uh, paying the penalty, the penalties through Europe and, and the penalties that is, uh, that we know that it's, um, uh, millions that, uh, Tesla now have in his own. That Volkswagen and other, uh, OEMs legacy needs to pay about the penalties from, from the CO2, no, from the CO2, uh, carbon footprint. Then this was this, this time, uh, let's say five years ago that they, because, uh, uh, Bassem, no, was thinking, ah, why they didn't go before, uh, before now, no? Okay. Okay. One is it was business. Uh, first of all, they, they see the penalty. They prefer to pay the penalty. They say, okay, if I go with the, with, with the electric car, that was one of the, the, the, the option to pay before paying penalty before going to. And also this disruption, as Milo say, this, the electric disruption is, is, uh, critical, very critical that the disruption from, from the, from the, from the electromobility coming also with the, with the COVID pandemic.

1:02:58It's also one, one thing, but, and the, the other very, very important point that we also cover many times is the supply chain, no? If, uh, for the disruption, you need to have a supply chain. And nowadays, uh, if you are not vertical integrate, uh, OEM's legacy have logistics, perfect process. Also good quality, but, uh, it's not vertical integrate like, uh, Tesla and, uh, many new startups is coming. No, let's say if you had to have, uh, uh, uh, uh, a battery supply chain. Uh, CATL or via, uh, B-A-Y-D or Barta or other, other possibility forms from, uh, before that, let's say 10 years or five years ago, it would be easy for the legacy OEMs to go to, uh, to the, uh, to the, uh, to electric, no? To the electric mobility. Let's say for me, it was, uh, first of all, pay penalty before going. That's, uh, my, my view, of course, it's, it's, it's, it's wrong. Of course. Now we, we see, no.

1:04:08And also this change about, uh, the legacy OEMs, uh, are, let's say before five years ago, there weren't as digital. The digital from the OEMs was from Bosch and for other OEMs. And this is, uh, one of the problems because you have all the, uh, all your electronics with a supply chain, with a supply chain, let's say Bosch. And he has, uh, if Bosch is going, uh, let's say, oh, what can I say? If Bosch wants to go in the same, uh, a chip that have nowadays Tesla, they lose money because first of all, he needs to expend a lot of R&D. And second, he don't, uh, uh, I say five years ago, you need to pay a lot of several, uh, chips that needs the, the car. If you want to have, uh, all in one, uh, if you, if you could know that, let's say, uh, then, uh, uh, Bosch would, uh, also, that is a big supplier would also lose some, uh, some money.

1:05:18You know, my opinion is, it's one lesson for Volkswagen, uh, say that it was not the first because, uh, Volkswagen banned. First of all, was Audi coming with the electromobility. That's because it's the highest brand, the, the, the premium brand. And second, uh, this vertical, the, the, the lack of vertical integration. No, thank you. I have some thoughts about, um, the phenomenon, the article to discuss. So, you know, I live in Nevada. I'm on the border with California. I'm about to cross over to California, my bicycle. And Tesla, they created a company on doubling down on EV vehicles, meaning they're going to EV or bus. There's no other option for them. And in doing so, they sold a cultural phenomenon of electric vehicle being sort of a, a luxury item, a cool item that had high performance. Now, the rest of the EV vehicles in the United States are seen the same way as very small, high mileage cars are, which is very sort of negative.

1:06:33You know, they, yeah, they are, are EV, but they're slow, they're tiny, and they're not cool. Now, the phenomena is different in Europe because of the, the different situation there. So, um, because of that, that's why people want a Tesla. They don't want a, you know, they want a car that can go from zero to 60 in three or 2.7 seconds. They don't want a, um, a Hyundai that can go from zero to 60 in eight seconds. It's just not cool. It's not, it's not a indication of, uh, that's why consumers aren't picking them. Now, um, Audi, they may even have better products, maybe better technology, but they, they became, they didn't focus upon the same way that Tesla did. They didn't double down the same way. So that's why consumers, you know, and, and things may be changing with the new Kia, which is maybe more high performance, but that's why consumers haven't chosen non-Tasla EV vehicles. Yes. Uh, what you said is right now, uh, right.

1:07:36It's like, I'm repeating myself many times. It's technological disruption. The disruption is driven by technology. What I mean, this technology is different technology. Much better technology. Uh, and, uh, the established automakers, they 3D like defensive, from defensive position because Tesla is doing electrical cars. So they want also to do electrical cars. Uh, and they, uh, basically they 3D like the combustion engine cars. And we will put, uh, instead of the engine, uh, electrical motor and the battery. And, uh, we have electrical vehicle. That's not what the, uh, the technology is today. Technology started like the, uh, Tesla started like, uh, whatever years ago, like the, um, like the electrical vehicle. But today the, uh, Tesla and other, uh, other new electrical vehicles are electrical digital vehicle. So you don't find any buttons or something like that in Tesla. Uh, basically they are designing them from the first principle, like the new technology, which is uncomparably better than the existing technology. So it's not environmentally driven disruption or some government regulation driven disruption.

1:08:59It's technological disruption. And that's what many, uh, uh, auto, uh, established automakers, legacy automakers, they don't understand. Yeah. And then, and then they wonder why the people, they don't want to buy their vehicles. Uh, they are waiting rather for Tesla's, uh, uh, and then they are blaming that we cannot produce those vehicles because, uh, of the chips. So why Tesla is able to produce all the vehicles, what the people, uh, not enough vehicles, what the people want to buy. So basically they are, if they would have the parts, they would be able to, and factories, they would be able to even to produce more and deliver more. Um, but, uh, demand is higher than the, uh, they have the, uh, basically production problem, not demand problem. And, uh, establish automakers, they have demand problem because nobody wants to buy those. Thank you for sharing. And so it seems like, um, Catherine and I got dropped out, um, in between. So I just have to update my app.

1:10:29Maybe the same happens to you. So I think, uh, you explained a bit right on the vertical integration and things like that. Um, the vertical integration, um, you cannot vertically integrate it to whole, whole industry because you would be, you, you wouldn't. Uh, that's not free market as a government, that centralized organization, which, uh, which, uh, doesn't work. I mean, for never work. So you can vertically integrate it only to certain, to certain, uh, steps, um, because the supply value chain of the, uh, electrical vehicles or even established automakers is very long and very complex. So, uh, but you are able to manage supply value chain. So right now the, uh, uh, supply value chain of the established automakers, uh, legacy automakers is already matured. So what they are doing, they are just assembling those, uh, uh, those vehicles in the assembly plant. They are calling them even assembly plant. And they have tier one, tier two, tier three, uh, suppliers. So, uh, in the electrical vehicles, because it's new supply value chain, you can vertically integrate it, but, uh, when it will be more and more mature, uh, the vertical integration will disappear.

1:12:04Uh, and, uh, basically free market will replace that. My loss. And that is one of the beauty about electromobility, because if all the countries want, they could have electromobility. And that is one of the beauty that you don't need so huge, uh, uh, let's say supply chain, uh, then the, we encourage, uh, because, uh, I, uh, I, I was also, well, I am also in battery storage. We encourage this globally that first of all, you need, uh, to have to learn about all the, the, the battery and all the electro mobility. And second to build his own China is going there. Oh no, China is leading India is going there. And we, we will see several, several countries going in the same direction because it's one of the beauty about electromobility. You know, the idea is not that you, um, yeah, in, in, if every country wants, uh, the only, the only step that you, of course, in the supply chain, one of the, the, the thing, uh, one of the topics that it's, it's very important.

1:13:26And we see nowadays is this material, no, you, it's a material intensive, uh, let's say the, the battery. And it's one of the, the, the topic that, uh, it could be in the, in the next years, uh, also one of the, let's say, bottleneck. It could be a bottleneck, no, but I, I will thank you. Thank you, Mariano. It's not, it's not even if, uh, it will be done. Uh, uh, it would be, uh, everything perfectly organized and we wouldn't have this challenge of the materials. I strongly believe in 10 years, we would have demand for a hundred million electrical vehicles. So a hundred million electrical vehicles, electrical digital vehicles would be produced and supplied and zero, uh, uh, combustion engine vehicles would be, would be produced. So countries which will, uh, focus on the building, the private businesses, uh, the private businesses building the, uh, uh, supply value chain in the, these electrical vehicles will prosper. And the countries which they are not focusing on the, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, electrical electrical, uh, uh, supply value chain will not prosper.

1:14:50Because, uh, we, we, we have this challenge of the material because of the mines and the processing plants and so on takes time to build and many, uh, trillions of the dollars to build. I believe we will have shortage of the, uh, uh, uh, we will not have a whole, uh, demand is like, will be like a hundred million. But we will not even produce a hundred million vehicles. We will produce only like maybe 80 million vehicles. We will still need to produce some, uh, combustion engine vehicles because of the supply value chain, but eventually, we will produce hundred million vehicles per year. Maybe it will be like 32 or 35, and then we need another 20 years to produce, each year hundred million vehicles, to replace the fleet of the vehicle. replace the fleet of the vehicle. Two billion vehicles we need to replace from a combustion engine to electrical. Thank you, Milo. Another topic that for me is also very interesting and I can send you some news.

1:16:04It's about, of course, this COP26 from Glasgow. If they ensure to... have the 2050 carbon zero, this 1.5 degrees, or they ensure, let's say, more and more go deeper about also coming from the ASG view, the environmental, social and governance, and coming with some news that would be interesting. I think it's nice to have, if you have some news, what do you think about it? That's another disruption. Again, another mistake, what a lot of journalists, a lot of environment, a lot of governments, they don't understand. it's also technological disruption, even bigger than transportation disruption. So it's not environmental disruption. We are not doing it because we want to... we want... because of the climate change. Climate change is not a problem. Climate change is symptom of the problem. the problem is energy. And the problem is how we are producing the energy. And so we are harvesting... I call it reinventing fire. That's why it's my club, what you can see. So basically, we are going from fire age to fire free age.

1:17:41And the process already started. You can call it energy disruption. The process already started. And it's already inevitable that process will be done. It's just the question how fast it will be done. So it can take 100 years. It can take a minimum 30 years. I'm doing from morning to morning, nothing else, just accelerating the process. So basically, we will do it very fast. We will do it in 30 years. The problem is that everybody is part of the process, like 7.8 billion people. So everybody can part... can realize the process and speed up the process. or slow down the process. Unfortunately, politicians today, they are the largest problem, not solution. Because they hijack the issue of the climate change. And they are using it for the political purposes. And during this... their agenda, they are slowing down the process instead of the speeding up the process. Hi, I have some thoughts about about the ESG process. I was listening to a webinar by Fish Market Intelligence.

1:19:00They're talking about lithium ESG issues. And how, for example, in China, most of the lithium converters, they're not giving ESG data. So they don't have no idea the viable footprint of A, that lithium conversion in China, which probably is coal powered and not beneficial. But rather than wasting their time, seeing what China is doing, a focus should be on electrification. I mean, because these are actually things that can be done, technological solutions, rather than have people who basically want other people to make sacrifices for themselves to feel better about these ESG issues, rather than realize that the solutions are actually technology, whether it's basic grants, national laboratories, or, you know, new startups. The focus is all in the wrong place. And it's, as Miles said, a distraction. It's not leading to actual solutions. And so we need to focus on actual solutions, ignore people who talk about ESG. You don't understand, look, you can't tell people in Congo to stop mining, you know, cobalt, and that's their slave labor and, and, you know, things like that.

1:20:10But you're not going to stop it by telling them what to do. You have to create an electrification solution. Maybe it's more recycling, maybe it's more mining, probably more mining long term. But that's... Yeah, you need to understand the system. You are right, Mark. You need to understand the system. And many of those solutions are trying to keep the energy on the same level that we have today, or a little bit growing energy, because they are trying to suppress the energy consumption. Yes? Energy usage. It doesn't work because it's... Energy is closely related to... Energy usage is closely related to human prosperity. So today, we are using about 53 trillion kilowatt hours of the useful form of the energy per year. In 2050, in 30 years, we will need to use at least three times more in order to secure human progress. If we will not... And there's not the... That's out of the question that we will not use. Because tell it to somebody in India that he cannot have a better life tomorrow than he had yesterday.

1:21:27Or tell it to somebody in China that he cannot have a better life tomorrow than yesterday. So you are not able to stop the human progress. Whatever you are a politician, you can stop it somewhere in the... Like, if you are somebody like the Taliban for maybe 10 years, but you are not able to stop it globally for 7.8 billion people. So we will use the... Three times more energy. So at about 150 trillion kilowatt hours per year. So if you would use it like we are using today, with using fire, we would waste... Today we are wasting for each unit of the useful form of the energy, three units we are wasting. Three units... The waste is basically in the exhaust because we are using the fire. So we are wasting today 122 trillion kilowatt hours. So we would waste like three times more, which is not sustainable. That's why we... And I'm repeating also this energy disruption, it's technological disruption. Technologies are converging right now that we are able to change the process of the...

1:22:49uh... harvesting energy using fire, but... to fire-free. Basically we are building fire-free electric culture, and technologies are building, private companies are building, government cannot build anything. So... Thank you, Mylos. Thank you, Mylos. Uh... yeah. Uh... that's right. The energy... Uh... it's one of the topics and... uh... technology disruption that are coming. One... one of the ideas that... uh... one of the lectures in the BatteryMBA give us, uh... is... the idea that having all connected, no? That was the... let's say, uh... a happy idea, all the global connected. But if I see some regulation in Asia that they are not open, they are, let's say, close, and they want to be, let's close, with a lot of percentage of coal, the... the... something needs to... to be done. It's okay. Uh... the... the needs of new energy is coming, of course, but, uh... it's not that... from my side, it... it would be easy in one part of the world, but it is not that bit easy in other parts of the world, no?

1:24:19That's... uh... let's say... let's see, we are there, because the battery field is also related to renewable energy. I assume that energy storage is... it's... the perfect partner for... for... for renewable energy. Uh... that's... and... uh... hopefully we are in... in the... in the... good trend to... to go and... and having this... uh... uh... 2050, no? this... uh... energy... the technological disruption about the energy that you say, Thank you. Yes, one more point... the... is not renewable energy. Renewable energy is part of that, but a very small part of that. So it's a whole system. So basically, I divide it for the three plus one group of the technologies and companies which they are dividing, and they are deploying those technologies. So there is a group of the technologies about electrifying everything. So in 30 years or 50 years, if we will be slow, we will electrify everything. Means that everything will run on the electricity. Those are... those are companies like Tesla, the new electrical vehicle companies which they are electrifying the transportation, electrifying the... uh... houses, heating of the houses and apartment buildings and so on.

1:25:46Then... uh... the second group of the technologies we are building the new system. What I call Electronet. So which is like something like uh... Internet of electricity. New system distributed, decentralized, uh... and so on and so on. And those are like the AI technologies, software technologies, but also hardware, hardware technologies, which they are also converging in the same time. Those are not the technologies which we need to invent. They are already invented. We just need to deploy them and take advantage of them, the... that we have them already available. And the third group of the technologies are... The technologies, what I call Fire 3 power generation. It means that Fire 3 renewables like the solar and the wind are part of that. But also nuclear, new generation nuclear is... there is nothing wrong with the nuclear. So we... those Fire 3 power generation technologies together with Electronet and electrifying everything will enable to build Fire 3 electric future. But there is one technology missing in all three of them, which is most important technology of this decade period.

1:27:04Because you cannot electrify everything without storage of electricity. And batteries is dominant technology. So battery is the key for electrifying everything. Battery is the key for the new system. And battery is the key for the Fire 3 power generation. So battery is the most important technology of this decade. Not AI, not the... the robotics or something like that. This decade, most important technology, practically more... most important technology is battery. Thank you, Myles. Thank you so much for sharing. And looking at the time, we are already getting to the end. And as usual, the time flies as well. And yeah, but I think some interesting thoughts. Thanks so much also everyone for contributing your thoughts. Also additional news, not just what we had shared in the beginning. It was an interesting discussion. And I'm looking forward to have future discussions on, you know, some of the... of what's happening in the battery space. But also have these deep dives in some of these topics as well.

1:28:14And now just looking at the end of today's session, that's also going to be a great chance to have a bit of an outlook. What we can expect for some of the coming weeks. Because as mentioned earlier, we have now the next conversation starters and the next topics lined up, which is, I think, also good for us. And to have a bit more relaxed, so we don't always have to think about who we're going to be next. So essentially at the next weeks, we are pretty much... We've got some amazing speakers. And the one which you can already see if you go on battery evolution. So there's also an invitation for everyone who's listening, who might not be subscribed yet, or is following the group or in the group. It's a member of battery evolution here on Clubhouse. If you click on the top of the house there, you can follow it. And if you click on it, you already see the session for next week.

1:28:58It's going to be on hydrogen versus batteries. And I think that's also very much, you know, I think upon popular demand, because we had a couple of people in the past always ask about hydrogen, etc. And of course, you know, often we're like, okay, but like, you know, like personal vehicles, etc. That doesn't really make sense. But of course, there are also some other applications where it makes sense, where it can make sense. And so we're very fortunate to actually have Marie Francine Lagadac with us, or Lagadac with us, who is a true expert on this topic, because she actually comes from the battery space. So she did her PhD in Switzerland with Nyssa Wood. And then she did her postdoc with Towerskorn in France. So she really has done a lot of battery research herself. But actually now she went to Switzerland with ETH, I think at least ETH, or at least at the university to lead the hydrogen network there. So she's now on the other side.

1:29:48And she also published a paper, I think might have been a year now, in Nature on the applications of hydrogen and batteries, and really providing some really in-depth analysis where things make sense for either. And I think actually brings in a very interesting balance, I think, in her own career, but also in her work. And she's also an advising board of Battery Societ. So we know each other really well for quite some time. I'm very excited to have her. So yeah, next week, please join us all. And also, if you want to spread the word, you know, I think we had a bit of lower numbers now, maybe than some in the past. I think we want to get up the numbers. I mean, the podcast is quite popular. I think we're almost at 5,000 listens, but also maybe in the live session, because I think it's really nice to get more people to join us. Also for maybe less represented backgrounds, people are new to the battery space, have this really interesting engaged discussion.

1:30:33So just an invitation to you. If you want to spread the news, I think we're going to have some flyers prepared for the next week. So if you're not connected on LinkedIn, please connect. We can share them there as well. And yeah, with this, Catherine, do you have any other words? If you're able to speak, but I also appreciate you have been under the COVID jab. So if it's not great, that's fine as well. We can close it for today. Just a really big thank you again on everyone who was part of the panel, Milo, Christopher, Mark, Mariano, and Basim for sharing all your insights. It was really interesting and we're looking forward to see you again next week. Thanks everyone. Have a good rest of the weekend. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you everyone. Bye-bye.