Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Holiday Special

0:00Transcript

0:00so great to have everyone back on our 44 session of battery revolution i'm super excited today to be doing holiday special just right before christmas so very excited to have all of you guys joining us today um and we're you know we really want to keep this session very conversational and um kind of do a quick recap of what we've done for the past year as well so you know feel free to raise your hand feel free to join us on stage and also thank you um all so much for some of the regulars here that i'm seeing right now getting audience feel free to raise your hand and we will be very happy to have you on stage to join us for the discussion so as with always um just some housekeeping uh you know these sessions last for one and a half hour so if you have any questions thoughts or actually definitely some comments and feedback um for us as to how to uh you know improve these sessions or what are some of your your thoughts about how we can what we can do for next year feel free to uh jump on stage and share with us um and these sessions are recorded so if you have any um more sensitive information i do not want to share just feel free to take it just you know take note of that and once you're on stage if you're not speaking be great if you could mute your mic so that we get everyone the chance to speak and if you wish to speak just feel free to tap your mic great and i think everyone's very familiar with crop house right now as i'm gonna go through some of the newbie stuff um but yeah without further ado maybe i'll pass on to simon to share what we have um planned for this today's session thank you katherine yeah also very excited for it has been too long and it's good to be back and i think maybe just a quick um history if you haven't been in this room before again there are many backers so good to see also good to see you barrett and um and like sandra and peter and adam and inger with many many people and alex but um essentially katherine and i we met now about i mean i guess not 44 weeks anymore but um 44 sessions ago yeah yeah and um yeah we met on here and we felt there would you know there's a space for having a discussion on battery and battery related topics and yeah and since then it's about a year so we have been um hosting about weekly sessions um as amara mentioned earlier katherine and i have been feeling a bit unwell over some like two or three weeks or so we had a break but i'm very excited to have this holiday special before we're all going off then also really coming back next year with even more exciting plans so we're looking forward to talk about this later with all of you as well and get your input and thoughts and for today as you just mentioned katherine the idea that's on one hand to reflect a bit on the past year you know looking you know i think it's a great time always during the holidays to think about the past year and that's one you know on some of the topics we actually covered in this podcast on this couple sessions so we we opened up the spreadsheet if you open up the spreadsheet of the last 20 or so sessions again we didn't record all of them but we recorded about a bit above 20 sessions and put them on spotify etc and um so we're happy to talk about some of these topics because to be honest there's many topics i even forgot we spoke about before and i think that's you know some of them are maybe even more i mean rather than today than you know than ever and then we're also excited to talk about you know other events i see roger just thanks for joining and you know and you are like a um like a treasure of knowledge of all kinds of things happening as many other people are in this room as well we're excited to talk about some you know so your highlights what maybe surprised you this year i personally had quite a couple of surprises i have to share them i'm sure some others might have them as well and then we think about you know what can we expect for the next year i mean it's one of these exercises where we're probably all going to be very humbled and in a year we're going to realize we're all going wrong that's okay maybe we're right on some things and um so we can maybe think a bit about what's going to come for next year and then one other thing is we also really you know katherine mentioned earlier as well we're really happy to also get your input on you know what we can do better how we can improve it we have this idea of adding some more motivators for the next year to kind of you know also a bit less load on each moderator so do less sessions but then keep multiple sessions by having multiple motivators so very excited to have your thoughts on these kind of topics and your input and maybe some some people want to be involved in this as well um during today's session but um yeah and feel free to raise your hand you know happy to put more people on stage if you have any thoughts i want to add anything and with this um maybe i think some people here um kathleen how about do you want to maybe maybe share some i mean you also have to scratch it open i know so do you want to share some of your highlights from the sessions we had from this i mean of course all highlights but anything which kind of sticks you through if you look at the list on the top yeah sure so maybe i would just you know bring everyone through a quick recap of what we've um you know discussed in battery revolution over the past year so towards the start of the year i think we talked a lot about um you know usage of batteries in different types of um uh applications so that include ev tools um you know in aircrafts all the way to vehicles we talked about um you know different sizes or vehicles as well um from commercial trucks and all the way down to really micro um vehicles we talked about vehicle capacity and we had a great discussion also about um cell types of the of batteries and also in terms of pack designs in terms of thermal management um and also about battery data and usage of battery data and analytics of battery data um so that's more on the battery side i think that's what we started off with on the first quarter of the year and to the second quarter we start talking a lot a lot about battery policy battery regulations and uh we had our fit for 55 discussion as well um so a lot about more on the uh on how the world evolves and the the outlook of all the policies in place uh you know across the world to be eu uh asia or north america etc and then we had our better than sessions which are always very exciting um so we actually had two of them uh you know in a year and the first one was you know we had a we had great start us marian was also pitching in one of the better than sessions um so we had great subs joining us and we had a you know a very impressive panel as well of um of of mixed mixture of investors um battery experts etc so uh that was great fun and and definitely some of these setups connected with um our panelists as well and then we had and then we moved on to supply chains we moved on to different applications uh talking about battery safety and we had our battery day um that was towards the uh third quarter of the year we had a battery day and we when we had uh you know great time about talking about it some pre giving some preview and after better day we gave some insights to that as well um and in the last quarter of the year we talked about new and more novel exciting technologies in batteries um so just hydrogen um different types of innovation in batteries um we taught we also did a deep dive on silicon anodes these are all very um technical and very exciting topics as well um so yeah you know really we have touched on a great variety of things that you can talk about in batteries you know we started from the applications and we went down to the cells we went down to the anatomy of the cells and then we went to talk about policies uh we talked about innovative technologies emerging technologies etc so i think we have you know um simon we got to give it to ourselves we we have covered literally you know a whole wide range that you can talk about for for batteries i think it's very exciting and we're definitely thankful for all these speakers joining us as well um you know to share with us about all your knowledge and your insights on these topics so really i think the idea is to to you know build this community of people where we can share our knowledge share our thoughts about these different topics there's just so many things to talk about in batteries and even though we have touched a little bit about all these topics uh you know this this industry just evolves too fast too quickly but there's still a lot of things we need to touch on and there's there's still a lot more that we can discuss over the next year so you know here's we really appreciate your thoughts and your talk and some of your comments on how we can um improve for next year and also some of the things we can talk about um in 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 for 2022 in 2022, what are some of the things you would like us to do, etc.

9:21So personally for me, I think, you know, organizing these topics, one of the exciting things is getting in touch with the speakers of each of the sessions and really understanding what they do and also do a deep dive on the topic even though some of the things I have absolutely no idea about, such as silicon anodes, for example. It's a very, very technical topic, but at the same time, learning a lot through just listening to the speakers. So I think building this community is very important and it's really the value of this exercise and these sessions that we are hosting each week. So, you know, yeah, these are just some of my very kind of thoughts. I would love to hear from everyone else on here in the audience or here on stage. What are some of the things that inspired you through the sessions over the past year? What are some of the things that you would like to see more of? You know, what are some of the things that you have learned throughout the past year, hopefully from, you know, from the industry, from these sessions, etc.

10:31Maybe I can just thank you so much, Catherine, for providing this excellent overview. Maybe I can just add one quick thing. If anybody's listening to this now and it's like wondering, oh, all these amazing topics, you know, can I listen to them anywhere? And you can. So you can. Those are all the topics Catherine just mentioned, which are 27 of them, which is remarkable. All can be found for free on, you know, anywhere where you listen to podcasts. So it can be on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and Android Podcasts and anywhere. And you just have to look for Battery Insiders. So that's where we have the podcast format, where we have all the recordings, as well as a quick reflection each time from Bavia, Yair and myself, where we reflect on some of these sessions as well. A bit of commentary. But yeah, you can listen to all of them for free. And I encourage you to do so. I mean, again, one thing I was going to mention behind each of these topics we just mentioned, there's also always has been a conversation starter as well. Christopher Taylor's on here.

11:24He gave a great one on battery manufacturing. I see what you actually was on the power day from Volkswagen. We had one. Mariam was also talking another one where we talked more about impedance. Just great. And then Barrett has been supporting also on the battery news. We've been doing, Mark has been very present a lot. And I mean, yeah, many other people also in the audience have been conversation starters as well. So just a really big thank you again for all of this. And we're looking for many more in the next year. But as you said, Catherine, how about we just go around the room and I see Christopher first, maybe to Mariam, then maybe Barrett and Roger and Mark. Any thoughts you have, you know, from the past year or either from these sessions, but also beyond, right? Anything you found fascinating, anything which happened in your own career, which was exciting, et cetera. I would love to. Yeah. Thank you, Simon, Catherine. And wow. You know, just look at the top of the screen and you see that it's the 44th episode.

12:19So before anything, I think, you know, well done to both years, to everybody that's been involved in it. Absolutely amazing to consider, to consider like you've met each other on here and then sort of took battery revolution to 44 and then, you know, beyond in the new year. So great achievement. I mean, me personally, you know, I think that the battery industry, wow. Again, you know, this last 12 months, there's been an absolute myriad of sort of announcements, you know, from the UK side, you know, sort of big expansions in Sunderland, sort of Blythe and sort of the gigafactories in Blythe. Ampty, up in Scotland, huge. And then when you couple that with Europe and sort of plans for, I think I've lost track of the numbers of the gigas from, I think the last I saw was around about 36, but it's probably closer. I remember at the beginning of the year, I sort of preempted thinking that for me this year would be all about innovation.

13:28I was completely wrong. It was growth, both sort of from an industry point of view and a personal point of view. So as you're well aware, Simon, this year I completed the BatteryMBA course. Up until that point, I was very sort of tunnel visioned with sort of just focusing on sort of EV and sort of the battery side. And that course really sort of opened my eyes to sort of the wider scope and it set me on a path. So fast forwarded from that, I left a stable sort of battery manufacturer and sort of started with a startup in Norway. And that's been a huge step or a hugely beneficial one. And from a sort of the battery revolution point of view, you know, these discussions have been hugely beneficial. I mean, Catherine went through a massive list there and I'm sure there was some even skipped. But right away from sort of discussions on sort of the industry on silicon sort of anodes, there was a great one on sort of the terminology used in battery industry.

14:55We have that many acronyms and that many sort of different sort of terminology that sometimes if you're not used to it, you can get lost in it. So that was a great session, hugely beneficial. But even just the perspectives, you know, we don't always agree, you know, and we all have different perspectives. So the take that's been given on these has been absolutely phenomenal. You know, looking at the stage with the speakers now, there's some sort of great, greatness on there, you know, obviously, I know Mark from the recycling side and the BatteryMBA. Barrett, we had a discussion earlier in the year and I've listened to some of his discussions since. Roger, wow, you know, a lot of sort of knowledge there in the industry. And I remember one specifically and that was when it was being you were doing this, the story separate of this on sort of the wireless charging in Oslo. So I mean, for the next 12 months, I'm just excited to see sort of what happens.

16:07I'm sure there'll be some exceptional talks on here furthermore. I'm excited to see what happens with the industry. I'm excited to see how these gigas start sort of producing as they develop through. And just sort of how the industry goes. I mean, a big one for me sort of on a personal note was sort of this last couple of weeks when we saw Volkswagen sort of investing in 24M technology. You know, it's new technology to conventional. It's a semi solid stairs. And I'm looking forward to see how Volkswagen and the partnership develops. Exciting years and exciting year and even more exciting times ahead, I believe. I agree with you, Chris. It was interesting to see sort of the growth capacity of battery manufacturing. And what would be interesting also is to hear from Catherine and Simon a lot of your experiences when it comes to policy relating to industrializing these battery technologies. But I will say the sessions that you've held essentially, even if someone is just here to pick up some keywords to go and Google, that's something that is that this that this platform essentially brings brings forth.

17:54Right. So even if you're just listening in and you're like, you know, you pick up on a topic that you have never heard of before and you go and Google it and search it up, I mean, that's that's a step in the right direction towards just acquiring knowledge. And that's how I see a lot of the topics that are presented here. I am here to learn. So there have been a lot of technical topics and 44 I mean, 44 sessions. That's amazing. So great job with that and would love to would love to hear more about, you know, policies and even just some of you guys experiences, everyone on the stage relating to batteries. Fantastic. Thank you, Christopher, Mariam and Paris, would you like to. Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me. It's really a very complete different experience for me, especially getting quality information in the battery industry is not that much easy. And, you know, like I came from I come from India, so I'm doing my bachelor's there in India.

19:03But after joining Battery Associates, I came to know about a very different perspective of the battery industry. And I successfully got into my master's program in Italy. And even though in my master's course, we don't cover a lot of electrochemical and concepts which are very specific for the battery industry. So what I learned from Battery Associates in each and every talks in this clubhouse and also their blogs and their white papers and their meetings. And I'm also in the battery community and working there as an intern. So the various experience which I got through these sessions is unmatchable with any other things. Even I went to a lot of academic conferences where I can't get information which is completely business, like has commercial perspective on it. So mostly academic conference will have only the scientific perspective, whereas these talks covers the commercial perspective, business perspective, as well as the research and academic perspective. It really helped me to grow in the career in energy industry.

20:01Thank you so much for it. I hope like a lot of exciting announcements and a lot of exciting news coming up in the battery industry. I think this trend will pass on to at least near at least a decade. So I think Battery Associates will be a good influencer in that particular community and create good impact on various people like you create an impact on me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So, what's that? What's that? What would you like to? Yeah. Hello, everybody. Seasons greetings wherever you are. I'd also like to congratulate Christopher on his MBA getting qualification in anything takes time and an effort and commitment. So hats off to you for doing that, Christopher, and anyone else who's done likewise. I particularly enjoyed the follow ups to battery events, you know, battery days or power days or whatever, just to help people and to listen to other people's perspective on what have we just heard? What might it mean? What could happen next?

21:08What could happen next? Because, of course, you can see a ton of that on Twitter or here, there and everywhere. But to get it from people who understand chemistry, to get it from people with skin in the game and to listen to experts. I am absolutely a generalist, not an expert. It has been invaluable for me. And then the other thing that I've definitely enjoyed this year and I would definitely like to see more of next year is to try and qualify the relationship between charging and batteries. So as the world embraces electric vehicle capability and commercial fleets, passenger cars, two wheelers, you know, let's never forget, there are lots and lots, millions of two wheel electric vehicles. I'm keen to understand the relationship between the choice of battery chemistry and the type of batteries and the charging infrastructure, because I think there's a very interesting dynamic in how that will work. Put simply, if we had a huge, you know, ubiquitous, reliable charging infrastructure around the world, it would completely change the complexion of, I think, people's sense of I want a 300, 400, 500 mile battery.

22:24I think at the moment that sense of the need for ever more, ever bigger batteries is because of the pretty poor situation with charging in most countries. You could say every country. So, yeah, I'm keen definitely next year to get the flavour of the relationship between charging and battery chemistry. And I'm very keen to just, as we've spoken about quite a few times this year, you mentioned supply chain, Catherine, earlier on, is to reconcile the ambition of all these gigafactories with the upstream capability in whatever particular resource we're talking about. For that to happen and for us to have a better geographic balance, you know, the geopolitics of where we are going with batteries in particular is incredibly dangerous, you know, dominated by five cell suppliers and Asia over and above Europe and America. And, you know, hats off to those that have made those investments over this last decade. You know, you can't, you can't knock that. That's, that's called being smart. But it does create an imbalance, which, you know, geopolitic, political terms and many other terms is potentially a bit tricky, potentially even dangerous.

23:39So, yeah, I guess that's my kind of quick sort of reflection on the year. And like a few have said, you know, look at that, 44 episodes, all of that specialist stuff and all of it up there for people free. It's extraordinary that you give up your time to do this. I dip in and out of things. I'm not pretending to be, you know, one of the key people in this. I just sort of pop up now and then. But, you know, Catherine Simon and a number of others. Wow. You know, hats off. Thank you for all that you do. It's very, very helpful. That's, yeah, that's, that's me. I'm done. Thanks, Roger, for those very kind words and also for the suggested topics. I think charging is definitely a very interested, you know, very well interested topic in battery revolution. A lot of us, you know, talk about charging infrastructure swapping. You know, it's a good suggestion that we definitely do want to see more of that next year.

24:44And as long as supply chain with all the gigafactories popping up, I think that's a, that's definitely a topic that would gain a lot more interest and a lot more focus as well next year. So thanks for that. Thanks for my suggestions. Those are very helpful. Mark, would you like to go next to share some of your thoughts? Yes, I'd love to. Thank you, Catherine. My journey to this clubhouse group is through actually cold call, basically by email Simon about, you know, my six nine months ago with us part of the Idaho National Laboratory and just trying to understand the ecosystem of the battery industry. He was kind enough to actually have a web call with me as really helpful. And with that, I joined the BatteryMBA program and the battery associates and recommended that I, you know, listen to this clubhouse podcast. And, you know, it's been a really exciting experience to both be part of the BatteryMBA program, to be part of this clubhouse group, such that, you know, I can share and understand some of the challenges to this revolution.

25:58And some of the exciting things happening is not only the increase in, you know, obviously, demand for batteries and supply chain for things like cobalt and lithium, but sort of the diversity of experiences when people from different parts of the world are having difficult discussions. Because it's one thing when people make, you know, you say you see a webinar or you have a press release and someone makes a statement, but to really have experts flesh out some of these difficult questions. This is really helpful to the industry and, you know, obviously Simon, his group is by associates. They're focused on better education. That's something that's very essential to understanding how things are happening because things are changing in real time. Excited to me is that, you know, governments have made all a big commitment to decarbonization and their cars, for example, and maybe it's 2035, maybe it's 2050. And we need that education. We need those relationships to really make that happen. So it's great to have that up top and the government sort of make that declaration that really need people who understand the market and understand the challenges.

27:20And this group has really helped that. I really like the discussions, the fact that, you know, we can flesh out those challenges. Obviously, many people like Christopher that got our MBA, go talk to them, really, you know, farm relationships are important to me. And I'd like to meet more of them. And, you know, at some point, you know, obviously with COVID situation, it's challenging, but I'd like to meet people in this group actually in person to actually, you know, further the relationships. Obviously, my background is in the recycling. I'm very interested and concerned about supply chain because, you know, as Roger said, how are we going to meet these gigafactory supplies? You know, we don't have a way to meet those supplies at this moment. And I'm curious and interested how we're going to get there. And this is something that experts and conversations really help lead that discussion. So what's valuable, I think, to this podcast is in the new year, we can have people who maybe are more supply chain oriented to see the connection between the vision, the dream, the actual practicality of getting there and asking questions of people who actually understand that to see how that's possible.

28:42So I want to thank everyone for participating and supporting and I look forward to more discussions in the new year. Great. Thanks so much, Mark, for the suggestions. I'm definitely looking forward to more exciting topics next to us as well. Sure. Hi, Katherine. Hi, Simon. Well, I mean, just a quick reflection of my last year. I personally think that 2021, besides the pandemic, has been a very charged up year because of the learnings that we've gotten out of the whole battery space itself. And I would like to say that battery revolution or even even to a matter of fact, the battery insiders podcast, which is a part of the battery revolution, has been my go to podcast every single time that I've missed a clubhouse room and would want to listen to what has happened. So that's my plane every time that I've missed a lot of the 44. So I've not really missed though of the 44. I've probably been there for about 15, 20 of them.

29:52But definitely, I mean, the learnings have been very strong in there because of the podcast of the episode as well. So a lot of learning, a lot of good connections. And definitely, I foresee a lot of business connections as well, primarily because of the whole battery revolution clubhouse group itself. And a quick look into the next year. I mean, I definitely think, I mean, EVs are going to be an extremely, extremely, extremely hot topic the coming year. And one of the, one of the biggest things that I see, at least from an OEM perspective would be companies would look at moving away from ownership to usership with different models. And that is something that I foresee that 2021 would, sorry, 2022 will bring in to the EV or even to the battery space itself. Thanks. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for that insight. I really like that moving from ownership to usership idea or, you know, the way you conceptualize it. Actually, I do look forward to seeing more of that as well, or that kind of business model coming up in 2022.

31:05So very excited for that too. Alex. Yes, sure, Katrin. Thank you for having me. Hi, Simon. Well, I have to listen to your podcast. I have to listen to your podcast, to be honest, because I was popping in and popping out of your room during the weekends. It was always very enriching in terms of discussion and also the network. For me this year, I learned a lot about not only batteries, but also about the critical raw materials, as I had the privilege to work on the EU critical raw materials strategy. So it was a little bit more than just batteries. And I'm still looking forward, although we finalized the debate on policy side. I'm still looking forward how it's going to develop in the future. So for me next year, it would be good to engage more in what you just said, Mark, and also Dweek about sustainability, re-usage, you know, the paradigm shift from using to from ownership to sharing and to burden sharing of the batteries and the raw materials we have already in the circular economy and to enhancing the circular economy as such.

32:12But in terms of the zoom, it was a fantastic experience, always very inspiring, always very enriching. Also, the network of people was always very friendly, open minded and encouraging to learn because I don't come from the field. I'm not an engineer. I'm from the policy side. Without the particular background in batteries and in lithium and in chemistry engineering. So for me, it was always very complimentary to the job I do on my daily basis. So huge. Thank you to you, Katrin and to Simon from that and keep on going. And, you know, my housework now to listen a little bit to the podcast to see what I miss during the weekends when I was not there. But stay tuned and please continue doing the great job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for coming with Alexandra. Hi, Doris. Welcome. Here I am in Austria. I'm more in the field of electric mobility and energy. And for me, it's important to see how much the field of batteries growing and to get insights.

33:35So also through the group when I can listen to you. So I find it great what you do. So such a lot of thanks also from here, because I think for the future, it will be a very important thing to know more about by Doris. Thank you for sharing Doris and thanks for being here as well. And everyone, thank you so much for sharing all those really kind words. You know, I think it's yeah, it's been, you know, it's been an exciting journey. I think it's kind of crazy to think it has been almost a year. And we are also just for you, Alexandra, anybody else is interested in some of the past episodes. You can see them. I pinned here the link if you want to do that. And that's like you can also put your email in. Then we notify you every time we release some more podcasts as well. So happy to, if you want to fill this in, that works. And otherwise, again, you also find the links on there for Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.

34:34Maybe also just one quick plug at this point. I might also put the link in there later. If you have an iPhone, I know not everyone has it. But if you have it, then feel free to also rate, please, the podcast on Apple Podcasts, because this can really help all things. I see some people signing up. Please, please fill in the Apple Podcasts, because special reviews, I think, can really help with, increasing the reach, essentially. And I know a lot of people find this Clubhouse sessions through the podcast at this point. So please, yeah, if you want to give us a rating, please do so on Apple Podcasts, and it can increase. And yeah, again, I see lots of signups coming in. So that's fantastic. Catherine, what do you think? Should we do a bit of a, is there anybody else who wants to join? Well, Catherine is maybe just off right now. Maybe internet, or she's back. Yeah, what else would we like to talk about?

35:22I know there's many other topics. I would love to talk, I mean, Roger, I think you gave a great hint, same as Dvick, about these two topics of charging, and then also the move of, you know, ownership to using of electric vehicles. I'd be talking about these topics in more depth. I mean, we have about an hour. So, Roger, maybe you want to kick us off on this topic, maybe? Yeah, I know Dvick's, we just exchanged a couple of messages. So he's doing some, or has done some specific reporting on that. So I'd love to hear what that's about. But listen, I've had the view for the longest time that mass adoption of electric vehicles will just be a disaster. And that's the reason why we're talking about that, because it doesn't tackle the fundamental issue, which is utilization of a very expensive asset. So since the beginning of the automotive proposition, the car, we, yeah, we've had to, we've kind of had to own them.

36:17But, but along the way, lots of cultures and countries have shared assets better. If you look at one particular statistic, one particular metric called the motorization per thousand of population around the world, you have just these extraordinary variances, like 840 cars out of a thousand owned cars in America, about, I think the latest one I saw was about 200 in China. It's about 25 in India, you know, and that's obviously a reflection of many, many things. The dynamics of an economy, culture, population, population density, lots and lots of things. But nonetheless, what I think it illustrates is that, you know, the car cannot be the only answer. And owning a car has been an incredible luxury that we can ill afford now going forward. And especially when you put in the context of the shortage of battery supply material, you know, theoretically, if we're trying to shoot for making 80 million cars a year, all with a typical, I don't know, 60 kilowatt battery pack in it, if you do the sums and add that all up, it ends up being a crazy amount of resource that, you know, 10% of the time is going to be utilized and 90% of the time not.

37:33Now, that being said, obviously, it isn't quite the dumb asset that an internal combustion engine car is, because you have a battery in there, which potentially has a connection to the grid and from the battery, you know, both ways, they've got a grid, grid to vehicle. So there are aspects and elements which are different and better than the internal combustion engine, apart from not having pollutants and stuff. Nonetheless, you know, the fundamental issue we have to tackle is the low utilization of an incredibly important asset. And therefore, I think the dawn of connected autonomy, shared and electric, all this stuff, whether it's all four of those things or three of those things or two of them together, depending upon the geography and the location, is the only way forward. And I think it reminds me of, and forgive a cliche, because, you know, it's not clever to use cliches, you should be a bit more imaginative, but, you know, necessity is the mother of invention.

38:33That's the one that springs to my mind. The necessity is a certain finite resource of minerals and mineral processing and battery capability. And just, you know, space, you know, just, you know, anyone who goes to China or anyone who lives in China knows what the density of even that relatively small ratio of car ownership means today in Beijing or Chongqing or Shanghai or, you know, wherever you want to be. So we've just got to think completely differently. So, yeah, Divac, I'd love to know, I think you've done some research or you've got some research on that. That, rather than me mumbling on, you might have some metrics or some specifics that are a bit more interesting than just opinion, if you've got that to hand. But, Roja, I mean, whatever you say is not a mumble. I mean, there's so much of value in all that you say and definitely that comes out of experience. And, yeah, and it's good to again connect with you.

39:35And, sorry, Roja, you did mention the fact that too many electric cars is detrimental for the climate conditions. And I'm completely with you. But the right amount of cars, which when not utilized, can be utilized because of the fact that it's connected, makes the proposition of having vehicles being much lesser. Now, even when you talk about a 60 kilowatt hour battery pack and gives you about 300 miles of range. Now, presumably, about 20 to 30 miles is what is being used to get from office to work. Now, sorry, from home to office. Now, the lag time which is there, that's the time where I strongly believe that innovations will come in. Today, when we look at it in the US, I mean, Porsche has their passport program. GM has their OnStar. Chevy has their, sorry, Citroën. Citroën has another pay and use kind of program. So OEMs are getting there. And then there are the likes of, there are the likes of Turo, the Get Around, which is also trying to solve the same problem.

40:49So there is the OEMs, which is now developing the software, which is eventually going to make the vehicles quite adaptable for utilization when it has not been utilized, which means you've actually gotten another vehicle off, which another consumer had to buy to use it in that off peak time. So I personally see the move, whether it be 2022, with newer business models coming in. And I, for one, have strongly believed that three key areas is what is going to define EVs. A is data. B is your battery technology, whether it be at a pack level or at a cell level. And C is your go-to-market strategies. So I think these are the three key areas which is actually going to define winners in the EV space. And if people are looking at not ownership, but usership from the get-go, I think that's a strong incentive for a win. I hope I made sense, Roger. Yeah, yeah, absolutely you do. And like I say, around the world, you know, some of us bang on about all, you know, shared ownership, high utilization.

42:02Isn't this the future? Isn't it a good thing? It's been the current. It's been the present. It's been the past in some countries and cultures for many years, typically in the West. The truth is we've become incredibly greedy and selfish. And now it's coming back to bite us on the arse. And so I think there's a lot of reflection that has to happen around the world. Someone said to me the other day, and I'm sure this is wrong, but it was a bigger that jumped out at me. When we talk about, you know, the epic transition to electrification, blah, blah, blah, it's only like 3% of the world's population own a car. And so, you know, it's not like the EV is just going to be the savior of the planet. There are so many other things which are related to the need to change aviation being one of them, shipping being another one of them, agriculture, you know, tons of stuff. So I think on the one hand, yeah, we focus on batteries.

42:59This is battery inside us. We talk about electric vehicles. So we should. But I think it would also be quite interesting to consider some of the other applications that can come out of understanding batteries that are outside of just the automotive industry. Of course, the obvious one is renewable energy storage. But I mean other fundamental kind of uses of the understanding of chemistry. And one thing I just would leave everyone with as a suggestion is if you look at, you know, trying to just grapple with this whole thing of, well, how do we, how do we, how do I manage with my life? How do I manage with the life of the life of the company I work in or the community or, you know, the whole world? Just trying to get your head around all of that. If you look at a thing called drawdown.org, D-R-A-W-D-O-W-N, drawdown.org is an astonishing piece of work from people all around the world that basically quantifies what is the issue of carbon in the atmosphere?

44:06How did it get here and get there? How do we get it either back out again or stop putting it up there? And it ranks all of the, you know, the contributing factors. I think they measure about 80 metrics and they rank all of all of those. So, so I think, well, of course, it's good to specialize and focus on what we know, talk about batteries and electric vehicles, et cetera. I think, you know, going into next year, it would be good to just try and look at a few other angles for where some of our knowledge and experience can feed into some of those other key areas, you know, like air conditioning and maritime stuff and agricultural stuff. But yeah, Divic, I'm completely with you on car ownership and utilization. So, so we're definitely on the same song sheet, my friend. Thank you. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I appreciate the high level discussion of batteries trying to make more, trying to, from a technical perspective, decarbonize.

45:16At the same time, we look deeper from a higher scale. So a lot of philosophical scale, look at maybe, you know, obviously utilization, infrastructure, way of life. Initially, more EV batteries were actually put more CO2 in the atmosphere because of all the mining, supply chain issues, manufacturing. So as much as we like to say, this is an answer. We also look at things like, you know, this, you know, obviously I'm a cyclist. I've been in Europe. So maybe we have to have more car free areas. Maybe we have to cycle more. Maybe we have to live a slightly different way of life because we're all passionate about decarbonization. We're all about passionate technology, but sometimes there's more simple solutions that don't require advanced mathematics, infrastructure to actually solve these problems. So, yes, batteries are a solution. Neuralization is a solution. But looking at a larger scale, how do we live? Do we really need the car to own at all times? We use it 5% of the time.

46:30And these are important things to discuss. Do we really want to live in cities that require us to commute 30 minutes to an hour a day when there's opportunities or cities where you can, you know, bike 20 minutes to work? So, this is an interesting discussion. I thank you, Roger and Vivek for bringing us. Do you have any questions about the future? No, it's cool, but I'm thinking that I'm biking. I don't use a car, but my bike is electrical one. So, nevertheless, I need a battery on my bike. So, you know, here goes the circle. But of course, we have to influence and reshape the world we live in. And this can only happen by common action. But I was actually thinking to ask Simon because last week I read something on the news about Vulcan Energy that they tried to do in Germany, lithium that, you know, CO2, free lithium from thermal sources. Have you heard something about that? Do you think it's feasible in the long term also in Europe and not only outside of us?

47:39I think the company is called something with Vulcan Energies. Hold on. Yeah, no, you're correct. I think they're called this way, yeah. No, it's exciting. I mean, it's, I think you can see quite a few of these companies now, you know, coming to place. And I think, you know, I mean, it's still somewhat early in some ways, but when they got, I think there was like a spree of announcements over the last two weeks or so. They have like pre-orders now of quite a few, like kind of, few companies committed to get the lithium supply from that side. I think it has an interesting, you know, interesting approach. I think they went public through a SPAC. I think they also have now a lot of pressure to actually, you know, like to make things happen. I think, yeah, it's kind of, I think it's kind of reminds me of the session we all said with James Frith, right? Like about the localized regional supply chains.

48:30If you haven't heard of this podcast, I can definitely recommend it. I think it was an interesting one. So James Frith is the, he works at BloombergNEF and he leads some, you know, the battery topics there. And he has lots of knowledge about supply chains. And I think what's really interesting then to talk about that. And I think personally, I believe there will be, especially if you look at the European, you know, battery regulation, right? I think there's quite a push and effect for, of course, if there's a limit on emissions you can produce, it also puts pressure on the supply chains and how much emissions the supply chains can produce. So I think there's room for that, but I think there's still challenge to do it better than other ones are doing it. More cost effective as well, which I think is a, or like, or at least a cost parity or not too much expensive, because this is of course always an important aspect as well.

49:18But I think, Roger, do you have maybe? Not specifically on that, but I mean, thinking of some of these innovations, again, thinking of next year, I think applications like aviation and shipping and maritime in particular, and how they might innovate and change sort of quickly. I saw somebody I know, a guy called Stephen Fitzpatrick, who's the head of Ovo Energy in the UK, launched the electric e-VTOL company, Vertical Aerospace, on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, actually, yesterday. So when you're seeing really credible technologies and people going to market, looking at getting investment on the market, and having to then, obviously once they're public companies, report on a regular basis, what are they doing? How is the business operating? A bit like, you know, since Tesla now for years, have to do that. I think that's where, over and above some of these companies that pop up, and it's seemingly exciting initially, but it kind of doesn't seem to evolve. I think the more companies with innovation that literally come to market, go into the public market, I think that's where we're going to, yeah, see some real exponential growth next year.

50:41But can I quickly share with you a little project I'm on at the moment? It's this year still, isn't it? I must remember, it's still this year. Earlier this year, I made a documentary called Motorsport in the Electric Age. I decided to spend a bit of money and make a nice documentary using a proper filmmaker about my view about motorsport and electrification, particularly Formula One, if I'm honest. And I did that, and I didn't want to do it to sort of go and make money. I didn't have illusions of grandeur or anything. I just wanted to make a really nice quality piece of, you know, content, so to speak, you know, give it its basic name, to pop up on LinkedIn, which I did. And I'm doing the same again next year, but I'm making, with a bit of help from Simon Moores, a documentary called In the Midst of the Global Battery Arms Race. So part of that will be going out to America early, well, as and when I can, early next year, probably going to Nevada, if I can fix it up, I think I can, going to Redwood, a couple of other companies, and down to the Atacama Desert in regard to, you know, supply chain and lithium.

51:52And also Graphite, there's a company in Phoenix, Arizona, I have an association with that's, I think, quite interesting. But to put together a kind of quick sense of the state of the here and now of the global battery arms race, some of the stuff we've been talking about earlier and in many of the episodes we have, and make it into, yeah, short film, little documentary, hopefully make it look nice. So, you know, film it properly. But just capture that moment in time, some of the companies, some of the personalities, and the core issue of, you know, how do we make this all stack up? So, along the way, certainly I will be talking to you, Simon, you know, and Catherine and others, about perhaps some ideas on how that happens. But like all projects like that, ultimately you have to think about it, talk about it, and then have to get on with it and do it, and not just sort of, you know, ruminate forever.

52:48So, yeah, I just thought I'd mention that if that's okay, just to sort of run a little advertisement, so to speak. But I'm going to do the same thing again, put it up on LinkedIn for free. I'm not putting it, you know, I'm not making things to sell. I don't want to do that. So, anyway. Thank you, Wojnar. Yeah, I think personally I'm very excited for seeing that. I think, as you said, I think it's an exciting time and it's nice also to have these snapshots. I think either, you know, with the abilities you're making, but also, you know, I mean, there's other people also in the room here doing podcasts and things. And even with these podcasts, but I'm excited to actually listen to them in 10 years time and see what has happened since then. I think it's going to be exciting to kind of freeze this on time. Just one quick thing, because you also mentioned earlier the project drawdown. I put it as a link up here.

53:35Yeah, thanks. If you don't see it, you maybe have to refresh your clubhouse, like, you know, pull it down and you can get the links. So, yeah, if there's anything else, I'm trying to put in links if you mentioned something, which is worth sharing. So, yeah, just quickly, I thought I'd mention that. But we also have Ajun joined us a little while ago. Anything you would like to share? Any highlights? Any thoughts? Yeah, I, you know, I'm actually, you know, I just joined very late today. But, you know, one observation I have is, you know, in a lot of markets, the adoption of electric batteries for transportation is happening, not in the passenger vehicle segment. Especially here in India, we see a lot of two wheelers and three wheelers. We see electric buses coming in much faster than the four wheeler passenger segment. So, I think, you know, I'd like the audience to also shed light in different forms of transportation, which is, you know, transitioning to electric.

54:34And also, what are the opportunities in that? You know, thank you. Thank you for sharing, Ajun. I think it's a very important topic. I think there's a lot of different ways of transportation and all things depending on battery. So, also energy access and topics like that. Is there anybody else's any topics? I mean, earlier, we also spoke about the sharing and we started talking a bit more about the, and the charging, but I'm just curious also a bit more on the, maybe something, you know, even like, you know, across different modalities, right? I think, you know, you just mentioned other vehicles, but like scooters, I feel like, I mean, I guess that's more 2019, depending, I guess, where you are. And like all those little scooters, but I've seen a lot of, you know, uptake, I feel over the past years, also like increasing. I mean, I'm, you know, based in Germany where you have like, you know, scooters where they're also carrying to becoming larger.

55:42So you had like the small scooters, people would stand on and like mopeds. And now they're going also into larger vehicles. I think it's kind of interesting to see also there, all of these things being connected. And I guess also always the idea to, you know, move to least, you know, the size of a vehicle for any given use case. So curious to see if something are going to move on this as well. But is anybody else has any thoughts? And we're in development. Yeah. So I just want to share some basic information because I also come from India. Like I can see the difference between what is happening in the mobility in the Europe, because when I come to Italy, I came to know how this mobility works here, how the mobility works in my country, because here the fleet, you know, most of the buses are electric and mostly in our particular country, most of the buses are still now running in petrol.

56:33So it's not about only the battery, it's about the charging infrastructure. We have written a blog about how charging infrastructure can rapidly increase the adaptation of batteries. It is already published in Battery Associates blog. So it has varied because when I'm studying different economies, it's purely about the charging infrastructure. Initially, many, you know, like many, many states in India, not only in India, let's say Africa, Indonesia, Philippines. These countries have a very weak, you know, power grid systems, which cannot provide quality output of currents in like maybe it can it can provide a very stable charging, but rapid charging facility may not be possible with the power that's available in many countries. Even in UK, the country and now the highway is going to invest around some millions of rupees in purchasing stationary storage systems to provide the rapid charging power to the rapid charging technologies. So I think this adaptation of EVs by the people, it particularly depends on how they feel the confidence with them, confidence with the ecosystem, confidence with the infrastructure.

57:38Then one day it will come to the, you know, this people transportation. Initially, definitely it will be like the buses and it will be like in some energy storage application, mostly government dominated, like they will provide the funds and the providers will provide the buses and things like that. If the public is ready to buy it, definitely we want to have a very good infrastructure, not only the charging infrastructure, the service infrastructure. You know, in India, most of the two wheeler companies are providing services like changing the missions and servicing the repairs of the mechanical vehicles, even a very big brands in India. I don't want to mention names. They are finding a lot of hard time in providing quality services at the right time at an affordable cost, because if something goes wrong in electric vehicle, it's you want to find a very quality people to work on this electric vehicle. And also you want to find the right raw materials and right components.

58:32It's quite hard because the supply chain is under construction right now. So it's not only about, you know, not only about the batteries, it's about the complete ecosystem, because it's the previous two wheeler industry or the automobile industry evolved for hundreds of years. But right now this electric transformation will take some time. That's for sure. Initially, the public transportation will go into this kind of transformation. And then once it is established, the various components of the ecosystem is established, the people transportation, the people will start to buy electric stuff. This is my idea after reading a lot of articles in the meantime. That's my view. Thank you. May I just add Simon? So Arjun, two parts to your question. Two parts of an answer to your question. In India, I'm based out of India, so I can tell you, it's probably not only India, it's probably the rest of the world as well. But wherever you end up seeing more number of kilometers to be traveled, I think that's where EVs suit best.

59:41So clearly, I mean, when we look at it from an Indian context, you also got the crux of it when you said it could be buses or even what Barat said, it could in Italy, it's all about the buses. Or it could be about two wheelers or it could be about three to four wheelers, which actually carry cargo goods. That's the first segment what I strongly believe in India would take off. And also, Barat, to the point that you mentioned about serviceability, I'll just give you one example about where we've kind of worked on. Now, I mean, even if there is a problem with the vehicle, we'll get to know that the problem is going to come in in the next two to three days. We measure not only about the battery, but even the hum of the motor is something that we measure. And just the change in that hum is where we're able to even say that, you know, there would be a problem.

1:00:33So majority of it is moving to prognostic rather than or preventive rather than a post-mortem onto the problem itself. So that's where, I mean, again, coming back to the same point, you know, things are moving one step at a time from ownership to usership. Thanks, Ananda. And things from ownership to ownership to usership are also in smaller villages or in smaller villages. Or in smaller places, by example, in lower Austria, the region of Austria where I live, we have in the meantime more than 100 electric car sharings, which are not in big cities. So it also works on the countryside. That if you move that also with politics, you get more subsidies for this in Austria, then it will run and the people will take it. Because I think also for the young people, it's not so important for them to have a car. It's important for them to have mobility and that's it. I agree. I would just like to echo on that as well.

1:02:11I think a lot of, when you see a trend of people, you know, moving away from owning cars to more keen on a concept of sharing car sharing. I mean, this is probably beyond EVs, but we're just looking at business model in general, that even here in Asia, we're seeing higher adoption rates definitely for on demand car rental. And so because it's becoming so convenient right now that people are moving away, shifting away from a need to own cars. And instead, they can just rent one on the road and just, you know, return it wherever they wish. So definitely, I think the concept of moving from ownership to usership is already happening. I would love to see more of that, you know, taking, taking place more on a larger scale in 2022. And, you know, just wanting to explore this topic a little bit further, do you, what do people think about this happening from the business perspective? So say, for example, for businesses, instead of owning cars and owning vehicles to deliver their goods, et cetera, you move towards renting them and, you know, pay as per kind of like a car sharing concept.

1:03:55I'm not sure whether this is something that people see it happening more often or is it already happening? I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on that too. But, Catherine, I think, I think we need to do a complete room on that. Agreed. And no, and it's, it's quite evident out there, right? I mean, just look at Uber's stock price. I mean, it's at about $39 and Tesla's at about $9.55. I mean, there is that inherent competition that's going to come in. I mean, what were they doing? I mean, they were taking a dumb vehicle and making it smart by connecting it. Now, I mean, when you have fleet on the ground, it becomes, I mean, Tesla can just come in with an OTA and tomorrow Uber is completely gone. So, I mean, I, I, I, I mean, I, I'm completely game if all of the other games are doing another room completely on this. Yeah, for sure. That this is a very interesting topic because when I'm talking to the mobility, mobility enthusiasts here, we always just talk about the business case studies.

1:04:58You know, the, the, the car is not only a mobility solution, which can also act as a power supply to the home, which can also act as a charging unit for some other mobilities, like for two wheelers or for other car. If you have a fully charged car and things like that, it's not only a mobility solution. It's a mobility solution. It's a mixed solution. I recently read an article like saying how we, how the car can help the grids to make the strengthening of the grids. It's, I think it's possible in Europe, even in India, let's say the people say like in the developing countries, most of the power grids are very weak. It is not maintained properly. I don't know how this grids is going to support this electric transformation without having a proper grid facility, how we are going to do it, but it's possibly you don't want to have a very established grid facility. If you have an electric car in your, in your home, it's like, it's also having a capacity to store.

1:05:51So that's a different concept. Like there is, there is not only one business model. I hope electric mobility, electric car can have 10 to 12 business models. I think it will be a very cost effective and most successful product of the year, not maybe for the decade. Let's see how the business model comes out in the demographics and the different demographics of the world. Thanks Bharath and Divac. I've already penciled down these topics in, in, in the Excel spreadsheet assignment I have for capturing all the topics. So definitely do something that we'll be very excited and very happy to talk about next year. And we should connect offline on this to schedule sessions for this, you know, in the next coming weeks in 2022. That'll be great. Maybe also one quick thing just to add here, which I think is an interesting topic, because I mean, this topic of V2G, right? Because of grid, it's something we also spoke about this year and I think multiple stages as well.

1:06:54And I think now, I think just like 20 hours ago. So I mean, Volkswagen is talking about it a while, but now they're also in the latest update is that they're going to edit to the functionalities of the vehicles through an over the air update. So I think it's getting more serious. And I think there's going to be, you know, multiple car makers playing in this area. I think this could, of course, have massive implications. And I think they've been talking about it, you know, all the storage capacity you get through the electric vehicles. Are these things going to be used in the grid? So, in following to what Alexander said some time ago, this is sort of changing the topic. But I'd like in the new year to be more discussion of new technologies, the viability, the technical viability, the scalability. I think there's important things because there's a lot of technologies which have very high evaluations. Obviously, discussion of Vulcan energy and geothermal lithium has a lot of promise.

1:08:02But using something like DLE can be challenging when you have, you know, colloidal silica. And silica actually exhibits reverse solubility, being at higher temperatures. Silica is actually less soluble. So you have to deal with the high silica. So as exciting as that technology is, the decarbonization is, actually scaling that and economically producing that lithium may be a big challenge. It has not been demonstrated. So not just, obviously, just the Vulcan energy, but all these other companies. I'd like a deep dive in some of these technologies, obviously the battery chemistry, anode, calphode, solid-state. I'd be interested in these discussions. Yeah, that's great, Mark. Definitely that is what we are going to do in this upcoming year, I hope. And for me, it's also exciting to understand about various analytical techniques that which we are using, like the battery data analytics, or what Diviq said, preventing the battery than working on the problems after the problem is happening in the battery. Prediction of the malfunctions in the battery and the electronic system is very, very important.

1:09:21So I think this is a very big market where many OEMs and many companies will definitely look into. These kind of things, it should be very more interesting to look upon. Because I don't think that a lot of companies doing this job, and not only in India, not in the various markets, and especially battery analytics, because I think battery associates, also we are working on this battery day competition. I think from those competitions also we can understand various models, how to predict the life of the battery, or we want to find how to predict the malfunctions in the battery in the current situation than making it happen inside the battery itself. So that's my view. I just want a lot of idea on it. So I think we can also plan some topics on it. Thanks for the suggestions, Mark and Barath. Yeah, I think definitely it will be very exciting to do some deep dives on these topics as well. I think we really touched upon them this year.

1:10:24We would love to see more of that in the coming, especially with all the D specs of these up and coming new technologies you were mentioning earlier, Mark. So we have, you know, coming towards the last 15 minutes of this session. And, you know, this is something that Simon and I would really like to do for this session is to get all your feedback and thoughts as to how last year's progress. I think some of you have already mentioned some of your comments, which we really appreciate. But in the coming year, we would love to see more moderators. So I think we tried some sessions where we had different moderators, you know, and and that really brings different flavor to the session. Which we would welcome and also different contexts so that we have a whole variety of different speakers as well to engage us on these topics that you've all mentioned earlier. So, you know, if you're interested to be a moderator or if you know anyone who would be good moderators, or if you would love to hear from anyone, as far as the speakers as well, as well, please feel free to drop Simon or myself a message.

1:11:33And, you know, we would love to hear your thoughts as to who we should reach out to, to invite them to these sessions. I think that would be really greatly appreciated from myself and Simon. I mean, Simon, would you like to just share some of the thoughts that we were discussing earlier on how we foresee 2022 to be for Battery Revolution? Happy to Catherine. Yeah. I mean, as you just mentioned, I mean, as you know, now we have done 44 of these sessions and we spent essentially 44 of our Saturdays. Of course, not the entire Saturdays, but I mean, Catherine is, you know, in Taiwan right now. I'm usually in Munich. So, you know, for me, it's the middle of the day for Catherine has been late in the evening, night time. And, you know, it has been, has been all fun, but also realized that can be quite a strain. We're thinking about, you know, that we want to add on also some other moderators to kind of alternate.

1:12:32So one idea we have, for example, that Catherine and myself would do one session a month together and then we have some other moderators. For example, we have two more moderators. Then we have, you know, essentially two sessions a month. So alternate every two weeks. If we have six more moderators, we could do every week as we have done this year. So, yeah. So I think we're just thinking about this. We're also thinking about, you know, we have talked already to some people in the past since people have been also kind of mentioned that might be interested in that. And from different time zones, for example, in the US, Canada, which also allows, you know, maybe to have some sessions which are running more friendly to these times. I mean, I think at the moment it's usually quite early for, especially for the people in California. So, yeah. So we're just thinking kind of like, you know, to kind of spice it up a bit for the coming year, bringing in more some moderators.

1:13:19That's also the functionality now on the, I think you have like leaders and some interesting word for it on this app. So, yeah, just it gets more easier also to organize things like this. And, yeah, this is just something we are thinking for the next year and the other moderators would, you know, have also, you know, a responsibility in a bit to, you know, find speakers. Of course, we can share them as well and things like this. But that's a bit of the idea what we're thinking, Catherine and myself and, of course, Bavi Aiyar and I have been also doing this Battery Insiders podcast, which is, again, one that's essentially a recording of these sessions. And now, then some of the, I think probably a month ago, you also find these replays directly on this app, which is actually quite nice. I'm not sure I've tried it. I mean, there's only one session. That's going to be the second session. We call this way, but this actually also allows you to skip through people.

1:14:06So, for example, if you bought what I'm saying right now in the future, you just go on the replay and you can, you know, skip me, then go to the next speaker or, you know, go this way. So I think it's quite nice functionality. You can see the profiles of who's speaking. So it has some advantages to also listen on this app directly. But we're still putting these recordings on Spotify, other podcasts, et cetera, because, of course, the future is much larger this way. We had, I mean, I think we had, you know, about 6,000 or so listens of the podcast this year, which is not bad, I think. And then we have been also doing this short reflection. So, Bavi and I have been, you know, essentially just for 10 minutes or so or less, kind of reflected a bit on the sessions, you know, what we kind of stood out to us. For the people who want to kind of have a bit of a teaser before listening to the entire one of ours.

1:14:51And sometimes we also invited some of the accommodation startups with us. We also recorded some of them for, essentially, we put them on YouTube and LinkedIn, especially on LinkedIn, we had quite a good reach as well with these videos. So, yeah, so there's quite a few cool things we've been experimenting with. And I think we have seen kind of what worked for us and what has been less successful. So the idea we do for the coming years to bring in some more people, you know, share this, share this platform as well, you know, have a chance for other people to have to reach as well. And really, you know, keep providing content, but at the same time also reducing the strain on every single individual and planning. And especially when you sessions, the most planning goes also into finding the speakers, you know, and there's always, you know, situations where people get sick or someone, something happens in their lives and you have to be arranged and that's all fine and good.

1:15:40But especially if you do it kind of, you know, very regularly, it can be, can be a lot of work. So the idea is to, to reduce this a bit. And I think, keep going because I think, you know, based also on the response today and what we have heard over the past year, I think people really enjoy it. We get lots of messages, you know, also it's been fantastic. We found quite a few people for battery associates, be the ambassadors or Battery MBA participants. I mean, that's been a, it's been a great platform, I think, to connect with people who are like minded and want to share and learn together. So it's been all good, but that's a bit of our idea for the coming year and very excited. Yeah. Just reach out to us, you know, as Kathleen said, I sent her myself a message. We are quite in sync. So we know what you sent to one, we will share between each other.

1:16:22So that's easy. You don't have to write to both. And yeah, very excited to kind of start applying this. We already got some speakers lined up for the next year. So we have, which we were supposed to do this year, but then we had to rearrange it due to personal circumstances. But essentially we have the European head of R&D of S-Walt, who's Lisset, who also has been giving an excellent lecture for the BatteryMBA. She's coming on this session. There's a few other ones we've been talking to, so look out for that. But yeah, hopefully also you'll find some more motivators to really kind of keep this going. And then we have all these recordings on the podcast, but also for the reflection. And that's also one last thing I mentioned here, you know, for the podcast, we're very lucky to have Taha Adnan with us, who is also one of our ambassadors of Battery Societies. And he has been busy editing these and just cutting them together.

1:17:08But we also have been thinking maybe for next year, at least that's my personal goal. We'll see. Maybe Roger, you like it. We also have to talk about it a bit more. And the idea of this to have maybe like two episodes, like really high quality, where we have like, you know, lots of different interviews with people on one certain topic. We really make it a show. I'm not sure if any, if there are any big podcast fan on here. But for example, I want podcast I personally enjoy a lot. It's called Startups. Gimlet Media. They could acquire Spotify a while ago. And they probably produce some of the highest produced podcasts I've ever listened to. I have immense respect to them. I think it's very, very intense to do this. But I think maybe we could do two or so of them a year. I think this could be really nice as well. Definitely like a really high quality version, which doesn't say these are not high quality, but just saying that we put a lot of production value into it.

1:17:53You know, we cut them together. We have nice music in between, trailers. We have, I mean, lots of interviews. We have nice microphones and things like that. So that's a bit of the, maybe something new for next year. But again, just ending this kind of block from my side is to say, if you're interested to, you know, to say, if you're interested to moderate, I know we already got some messages. So appreciate that. Get in touch and we're going to get back to you and talk about this. And I think we probably will talk about this also in the beginning of next year and then start assembling some teams. Yeah, I'm certainly happy to pitch in on some of the moderation. And maybe if we have a chat about that one to one, looking at looking at the kind of calendar, look at what sort of going on. A couple of big events. So in June in Norway is EVS 35, which is the big electric vehicle symposium.

1:18:42That's, you know, a big event that combines academia as well as, you know, the commercial industry, EV industry. It might be good to do something from that, you know, as a way of ways. But nonetheless, planning all this stuff is what it's about, I guess. So, yeah, yeah, happy to help with a few things, you know, personally. But, you know, I'm going to buzz off shortly, I guess. We all are. Yeah, again, just to reiterate, thank you so much for, you know, the time you put into all of this and the work, the body of work that you've got that's accessible to everybody. It's fantastic. So, you know, it's really appreciated, Simon, Catherine, and everybody actively involved. Hats off. Thanks to all of you, too. Honestly, these sessions will not be, well, we wouldn't be hosting these Saturday sessions if you guys don't tune in and without, you know, the help and the contributions of all the further speakers, including yourself, Roger, and Christopher Barrett, everyone here on stage.

1:19:49So, you know, we're really grateful for all the contributions as well. And, you know, thanks for joining us for 44 weeks. Truly honored to have all of you here, you know, being so interested in talking and building this community with us. So I've already received some messages for moderation and, you know, would love thank you so much for volunteering as well. And Simon and myself will connect with you offline on, you know, to discuss more on schedules and on how we would love to bring in all of you guys to as moderators. And, you know, if this is a first time moderating or if you would love to explore the idea, please don't feel shy and just talk to us. I mean, myself and Simon, we met on Clubhouse. And I don't know whether you had any prior training or experience before, Simon, but I didn't. So we kind of just started and just wanting to build this community together. So, you know, we would love to have people who don't have any experience or just have the spirit to kind of build this network together and to meet people, like-minded people in the industry to join us.

1:21:01So feel free to message us, reach out to us and, you know, Simon and myself will connect to connect with you on this. So, yeah, Simon, do you have any questions? Yeah, maybe just a quick one. I thought just maybe share something quick personally on this one. So I very much agree on what you said, Catherine. I think this has been an excellent training actually to moderate and, you know, I think on this platform, but also in any other platforms. And personally, for example, I've got my first kind of paid keynotes and speeches and motivations this year. And that's, I think, also due to actually having the practice, right, from this platform and others. And I think, yeah, I mean, any work you put in, you tend to get something out of it. But I think especially in these days where it's really important that we can, you know, present ourselves, that we can, you know, share the knowledge, that we can interact with different platforms and different people, et cetera.

1:21:54I found that personal immense learning experience. And every time we didn't have a session, Catherine, I felt like it's really missing something. So it becomes, it's quite a natural part. And I think I can just really recommend it to people to be engaged. It has been a great learning, I think, for the both of us and very excited to have like more people. Agreed. Definitely agree, Simon. So this is the last five minutes of the session. If anyone has anything to add, anything to share, or just any personal thoughts, feel free to unmute your mics right now. And, you know, feel free to speak up. Or if not, we could also end this session five minutes early. Simon, what do you think? And leave everyone to their, you know, holiday shopping, or whatever you're doing, last minute shopping right before Christmas. Absolutely. I think it makes absolute sense. You know, I'm sending very sunny greetings from Dublin, Ireland, where I'm currently at. And yeah, I think, you know, very excited for this. Again, really big thank you for everyone to make this year extra special.

1:23:13Definitely has always been one of my highlights. You know, I mean, as you said, Catherine, you wouldn't have done it once without you. And second, if you really wouldn't have enjoyed it. I mean, personally, I learned a lot from all of you over the past year, and we enjoyed to work with you on different, you know, different platforms and different ways. So, really great for this and very excited for next year, I think. Especially now adding on new people, it's going to be really exciting. Definitely, absolutely agree. And it's a great way to make friends as well, you know, on this platform. So, yeah. Thanks everyone for tuning in right before the holidays and wishing all of you guys a great Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year next year and look forward to seeing everyone back next year in 2022. Thanks. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Bye. Have a good day. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Have a good rest of the year. Bye.