Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Industrial Battery Applications

0:00Transcript

0:01Today we're here on our 55th session. If you have been with us for some time, you know we have done this for quite a while now, 55 sessions to be exact. And yeah, most of them are also recorded, and especially the later ones have been all recorded. So you can also find them as part of the Battery Insiders podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you listen to your podcasts. We always like to bring some great guest speakers with us. We'll kind of introduce a new topic. We can of course ask lots of questions as well from the experience and all share these great insights. Yeah, I'm not here by myself. I'm joined by Mariam, one of our trusted co-hosts, and we have done lots of fantastic sessions already in the past. And yeah, I think we're both really excited for today's session. Is there anything you wanna say, Mariam, before I introduce our speaker for today? Yeah, just very excited for today's topic, which is industrial applications for batteries by Dr. Raj.

1:00So Simon will introduce that right now, but feel free to ask to be invited to the stage to ask your questions afterwards. That's great. And maybe also one quick thing is, I mean, it seems like this app is changing always. So it seems like, yeah, so you have this chat function in case you haven't been here for some time. So you can also ask questions in the chat, but of course we always appreciate it if you can also come on stage and ask your questions this way. Great. So yeah, I mean, one thing about Wash, and this is very fantastic that he's the CEO of Electro Viya, and he probably gonna tell us more about that as well. But also one thing I actually realized that he also went to Cambridge in the UK, like myself in the past as well, where he got a doctorate in materials engineering. So I guess not too far from me, who also did his PhD there in engineering.

1:47And yes, you also have been in a period culture for MIT. And it seems like you have done quite a long history or quite a lot of work already with this company Electro Viya, which you're probably also gonna tell us a bit about. And I think there's many topics you could probably talk about, but I think for today we also have the topic of industrial battery applications, as you just mentioned, Miriam. So with this, we're excited to have you and excited to hear introduction for now. Well, thanks so much, both Miriam and Simon for the introduction. Pleasure to be here. Yes, so I'd love to talk about lithium-ion batteries, you know, how we're working with them to apply them for specialized industrial applications. Electro Viya is rather unique in the space. We have quite a bit of IP specifically related to increasing safety and longevity of lithium-ion batteries. And as a result, this makes them extremely well adapted for heavy duty industrial type applications. Great. So maybe you can give us a bit of a history also of these developments and maybe what you have experienced with industrial batteries.

2:58Yeah. So the history of this development goes back quite a bit. Electro Viya has been in the lithium-ion battery space for over 20 years. And during that period has developed a lot of very interesting technologies. We were, you know, just naming a few, we were instrumental in the development of lithium-ion phosphate technology with, we co-founded a company called Phostec Lithium, which was one of the initial patent holders for LFP technology. We were also very early in the development of pouch cells. And we also were one of the early players with respect to automotive lithium-ion technologies. Now, what we found, you know, on the automotive side, we had initially partnered with Chrysler over a decade ago, Tata Motors. And in 2015, we started supplying Daimler for their eSmart. But all this period of time, the automotive sector, as it matured, was extremely focused on cost more than anything else. And that is an area we were struggling to compete in. So we had actually already developed a ceramic separator through our German subsidiary.

4:30We looked at how to implement that in a way that it would extend the cycle life of the battery. There's many things you can do. You know, you can use different types of electrolytes, different assembly methods, etc. And we found that we could make a cell that had about three times the cycle life, much higher safety due to the presence of that ceramic separator. And we said, hey, you know, instead of selling this to automotive applications, let's find applications that really need higher levels of safety and longer cycle life. And that's how we came, you know, really came to focus on these industrial type applications. Our first target market was actually one that you don't come across right away because it happens behind closed doors. And that is in warehousing. So warehousing vehicles, whether they are robots or forklifts at some of these, you know, 24-7 distribution centers, now 24-7 distribution centers are very common for e-commerce, for food distribution, amongst others. So these are applications where vehicles are operating 24 hours a day and order of magnitude difference than your passenger vehicles.

6:01So it was a very, very good fit. We focused the company on that market around 2018. You know, we, at that point, we did have to shrink the company. We did close down our main facility because we were no longer focusing on the automotive market, but that has transpired to be a very successful move. So today we are, we are in major Fortune 500 companies distribution centers. We have relationships with some of the larger OEMs in the space. And now we're looking at branching out into the other heavy duty applications, including electric buses, energy storage, and others. So, Raj, you mentioned the ceramic separator being, you know, the extender of cycle life for your batteries. And so how did you come to the insight that this is what needed to happen in order to get to the point where your batteries are within extended cycle life? And can you also address safety considerations with your ceramic separator? So, the ceramic separator is a unique piece of technology.

7:23When I call it ceramic, it's, you know, over 90% by weight ceramic. I think Electrovia is unique in the battery industry in that I think we're the only producer that has commercialized the use of a material like this to any substantial degree. Now the whole premise to using this type of material is it's stable at high temperatures. So your typical separator membrane that you have in your lithium-ion battery, the one that you're holding in your hand right now probably, that is a polymer separator membrane. It's porous, works well, except if it gets too hot. And if it, and too hot is actually a rather low threshold by electrical or chemical standards, which is about at 100 degrees Celsius. And at those temperatures, that separator material will shrink, actually. It's sort of like the way your plastic bag will respond to a lighter being nearby. So when you have a shrinking separator, obviously your cathode and your anode will have a short circuit. And then very common next step would be a battery thermal runaway.

8:43So many, many thermal runaway incidents in lithium-ion batteries start with a hot spot. You know, that hot spot could be for many, many reasons. We're not going to, I'm not going to go into them, but ultimately what it leads to is the separator no longer maintaining its, its cross-sectional area. And when that happens, then, then you almost certainly go into thermal runaway. With Electrovia's separator technology, because it's, it's essentially a full ceramic material, it's stable at very high temperatures. And the net, net effect of this is the cell itself, the safety level increases dramatically. So that was, that's fundamentally the reason the, the technology was developed. Now we took it a step further and said, okay, let's, you know, this is stable at high temperatures. Let's, let's modify, modify other attributes of the cell, including the electrolyte, including the way the cell is assembled. And through those, that engineering effort, we extended the cycle life of the cell by about a factor of two to three.

10:04So it's, it's a significant improvement and, and it is a platform technology. So you can apply it to any type of cathode material, any type of anode material. And you will still, you'll, you'll see that benefit with respect to safety and cycle life. That's really interesting. And, and having that ceramic separator, does that add any, you know, weight or size considerations to the equation, given that you are going to be playing more and more into the heavy duty transportation sector, which payload may be an issue for? So ceramics, of course, are going to be more heavy than a polymer. So it does reduce the energy density of the cell by a little bit. Um, but it's not a huge hit. So the cells that we're currently making are based on NMC cathode, graphite anode, nothing, nothing too special there. And their pouch cells with about 210 watt hours per kilogram, which is a little bit less than, um, uh, a cell that had a polymer separator with the same chemistry would probably come out at maybe 240 watt hours per kilogram.

11:20So it's a bit of a hit, uh, but not, not substantial. And when you take into account that, uh, you're getting higher safety, you probably can reduce some packaging, uh, around the cell, um, which will have an effect of ultimately increasing the energy density at the pack level. So I don't think there's a significant trade off with respect to energy density, but energy density is not what we're focused on. And it is not, uh, you know, industrial applications are definitely more focused on other performance attributes. I would say the most important attribute for an industrial application is the lifetime costs of that solution. So if you compare it to, let's, let's look at the automotive space because that's what everyone's most familiar with. They're the most important, uh, performance attribute is range, right? So the, and, and probably tied with that is dollars per kilowatt hour, capital, capital costs. They're not so focused on how many cycles that battery can do. Uh, I drive an electric vehicle to work every day, uh, and have done, you know, for about a decade.

12:43And I'll do, I'll drive that car for maximum one hour per day. And it sits, uh, stagnant, you know, for, for 23 hours a day. So I'm doing about one cycle on that vehicle per week. So let's say that's 50 cycles per year. You only need 500 cycles to get to 10 years and maybe a thousand for a 20 year battery. So, so, um, you don't need, uh, electrovias technology there, which is providing cells, which is, you know, eight, 9,000 cycles. So, uh, industrial applications on the other hand, they're doing one, two, sometimes even three cycles on a battery in a day. So it's an, you know, it's more than an order of magnitude, uh, higher usage. They are looking at, uh, lifetime costs. Uh, do they need to replace the battery after five, seven, 10 years? They factor those, those into, into their calculations. Do they have safety liabilities? Um, things like that. So that's, that's the market we're very much focused on. And uh, again, that has been, uh, working out for us.

14:02So Raj, uh, there is a question here in the chat from Simon, which is what about form factor? Can you do cylindrical cells? Cause you had mentioned that you manufacture pouch cells in your, in your facilities. So, you know, when you do use ceramic materials, you do have some limitations. Um, ceramic material, you know, as, as you may guess, ceramics are a bit brittle. Uh, so we, we do have a slightly different assembly methods than typical lithium-ion batteries. And uh, cylindrical cells, you need to wind them. Winding ceramics is a bit tricky. Not to say that we, it can't be done, but it's not something that we have been focused on. Um, so there, there definitely are some, you know, if, if it was easy, everyone would be using ceramic materials. It's, it's not that easy. And um, so, uh, I, I'm not a hundred percent sure whether it can be used in cylindrical cells. And so maybe just a quick follow-up question, because I think it's, it's, it's an important point as well.

15:10I mean, of course, the next level might be solid-state, but I'm, I'm just wondering like if you have these pouch cells, right? So do you have like, you know, strong casings around or something, how do you ensure that the ceramic is unaffected? Right? You have to, this protective layer, but if this protective layer has any, you know, cracks anything, I guess it would be kind of, you know, lose the point. So just curious, like, if you have like, you know, spore special kind of pouch cells, use simple vendor pouch cells and just curious kind of how this is done. Um, yeah, definitely a good segue into the solid-state side, but, uh, no, we, we, uh, we have this relatively, you know, on the processing side down packed, we have a very low, um, fallout with assembly. I'd say it's probably lower than, I mean, equal or lower than a typical cell process. Um, and you know, of course it, you have to handle ceramics with care, but these are all automated machines that we use and, uh, they're well adapted to the changes in the tensile strength and other factors.

16:18Um, so I would say Electrovia is a, is definitely an expert in, in, you know, we've been making, uh, cells with this material since, uh, 2015. And of course we've, we've improved that processing and improved those cells over that period of time. Um, and we, we know how to handle ceramics, which positions us extremely well for what we're doing on solid-state batteries. So solid-state batteries, at least in our research, uh, direction would use ceramic based uh, separator materials. Uh, in this case, those ceramics are, would be ionically conducting instead of just, uh, being barriers. And, uh, I think our know how and, uh, demonstrated capability in manufacturing cells with ceramics materials as separators positions us extremely well to be successful with this next gen development. So we, we did, we are working on it. We have a whole division of Electrovia, uh, which is referred to as Electrovia Labs working in a separate facility, uh, where we're working on this next gen cell design.

17:38Uh, and, and so far we're getting a decent results in no, no way have we solved everything yet and neither has everyone else, but, uh, I'm optimistic it's, it's tracking in the right direction. Thank you. And I think we have a question for Mark. Thank you for joining. Oh, I see Mark's question on LTO batteries. So, um, uh, LTO, the, the, the, the benefit of LTO is it can cycle, you know, 20,000 cycles without degrading. You can charge it very fast, low temperatures, and it's also a little safer. Um, uh, because we're getting such good cycle life with graphite and MC based, uh, you know, it's already comparable to the performance of LTO, but with, um, with the caveat of, you know, more than double the energy density, there's really no point, uh, to use this technology with LTO. I would say it's a competing technology to LTO. Can we expand a bit on that? Like why that would be because the side of us, that is yours is more on the separator front.

18:47Right. So, so chemistry LTO is a, is a interesting chemistry. I don't think it's taken off in, in, in a significant way because it's energy density is about, you know, last time I checked, uh, was about 70 to 80 watt hours per kilogram. Right. So, so it's, it's, uh, that makes that lower energy density makes that technology very expensive, uh, for applications. Uh, and so, you know, the, but the advantage of LTO is that, that cycle life. So if you can get close to LTO cycle life with conventional chem, high energy density chemistries, which we have demonstrated you can do, I think it makes it, uh, the value proposition of LTO more difficult. So that said LTO will always have some, uh, niches like for instance, low temper, very low temperature charging, nothing, nothing beats LTO. Um, but, uh, for, for, for industrial applications as a whole, I, I, I think our approach is probably, you know, time will tell, but probably more successful. Um, maybe one quick follow-up question and I will pattern also to, to my arm again, it's, if you have, you look at like other chemistries for like, I know it's, for example, now, now you're from oxides.

20:16Not sure if you know the work, I mean, Toyota, I think that's, um, early on. And then now you have also two Cambridge startups, um, called the account technologies and like in tech and, um, my old boat. I'm just curious because they are of course trying to compete a bit on the LTO side to be more energy dense, but also still keep higher rates and long lasting cycle life. Yeah. We've, we've looked at it. Now what, what I find is with our approach, right? We're, we're changing us. If you look at the cell, right? Number one cost is the cathode. Number two is probably anode, but there's a big drop. Once you're adding, um, adding more expensive anode materials in there, your cost of the cell is going to go up quite dramatically. The separator itself is a relatively, you know, in our cases, it's definitely arc separator is more expensive than conventional separator by fair margin. That said in the whole cell, it's still a relatively, um, you know, it's, it's a lower cost than those other two components for sure.

21:24So, you know, this is always going to be a cost benefit when it comes to finding applications. And, uh, you know, while we're be, we're able to provide customers a lower cost of ownership, and we can prove it. If your capital cost is more than a, you know, a certain percentage higher than the conventional, uh, cell technologies, it's going to be more and more difficult to implement, even if you can. So there is a balance, um, where we, we, we are looking at some of those materials. I haven't been in touch with one of those Cambridge companies. Um, but, uh, with this, what we've referred to as our infinity platform, which is, you know, this, the cell I've been describing, um, the direction we're mostly going in is just looking at higher energy density cathodes, potentially higher energy density anode materials, and leveraging the safety cycle life advantage that we get from our core platform technology. Yeah, I think Raj, you actually answered my, my next question, which was going to be the, the split between the capex and, um, of your technology versus the capex of some other battery technologies out there.

22:46So if I, uh, heard you correctly, you're saying the delta is not too large. And on top of that, you're, you're reducing or decreasing the total cost of ownership, which then, you know, sort of balances the equation. Is that, am I understanding correctly? Yeah, yes, you, you, you got it right on. Now, Electrovia, we're, we're making, um, you know, a decent number of batteries, but no way are we comparable to the LG chems or the CATLs of the world. So there, you know, if you're, if you're David and they're Goliath, you're never going to get the commodity pricing at the level that they can. So that's why our focus is, has been always to show, uh, uh, performance driven lower costs, uh, of ownership, uh, and other benefits through, through technology. And now there are of course limits to that. You can't be way, way more expensive. And, and this technology, you know, ultimately is around that separator electrolyte and assembly, which, which, um, I don't know exact premium costs there, but it would definitely be less than 20%.

24:05So Raj, when you say industrial, um, applications, can you walk us through some of the applications and why they would be more inclined towards wanting, you know, greater cycle life and safety over, um, you know, some of the other performance metrics that we were talking about? So, uh, I'll, I, I discussed forklifts already. They're doing, you know, a distribution center. I'll give you one example. Walmart, Walmart, Canada had a distribution center that was running, you know, this was one of the first ones we converted. Uh, but they had three lead acid batteries per vehicle. So they would have, you know, 150 to 200 vehicles in a building and each battery is about 30 to 40 kilowatt hours. So they're not small. Uh, and they would be physically swapping a battery after every shift, right? So the battery swapping, uh, we hear about it for passenger EVs sometimes, but in warehousing, it's all, it's been commonplace for years. And, uh, that, uh, operational inefficiency of swapping batteries was costing them a lot of money.

25:17It was a dangerous process. Um, and they wanted to get out of it quickly. So you can't, uh, if, if you're doing three cycles or two cycles a day on a typical, uh, normal lithium-ion battery, it'll probably be, uh, dead after just a few years. So our technology definitely was a very good fit for, for that type of application. Um, we convinced Walmart, we showed, we demonstrated to Walmart that, you know, the battery could be charged very quickly. We could, we could only, we could get away with one battery per, per truck. And in fact, get half the number of chargers as well. So after four years, uh, we took a look at the data there and there has been no degradation on that battery performance after, you know, that substantially heavy usage. Now that's warehousing. Uh, there are other applications and maybe not necessarily as heavy usage, but I'll, I'll just go through a few of them. Um, electric buses, for instance, they will probably do one cycle per day.

26:25Uh, they'll, uh, they'll do their routes all day long and then come to the depot for an eight hour charge overnight. Uh, that's, that's very typical. So they're looking at one cycle per day, but it's every day. And, uh, and they want that bus to last 12 years. So there the conventional technologies are on the edge, right? So, uh, that's there. And, uh, conventional lithium-ion technologies would probably need a battery replacement before the bus is taken out of service. In our case, we can match the bus life with the battery life. So there's an advantage there, but the primary advantage for the, that time of service, for the, that type of application is actually on the safety side. So I think the general public, you know, gasoline is a lot of energy too. There are lots of, uh, vehicle fires that happen. Uh, and people have gotten relatively used to, you know, the, the, I wouldn't say they're used to it, but, uh, there's always a risk for your passenger EV to catch fire, right?

27:44Uh, there've been cases with, uh, if you, if you Google it, you'll find pretty much every OEM has had some issue of, uh, of a sort over the years. Um, that said, having a electric bus catch fire is a different, different, uh, kettle of fish because you have potentially lots of people on a bus. It's harder to get out of the bus. Uh, and it's very large batteries, you know, up to 700 kilowatt hours on the bus. So safety, I think is going to become a driving force, uh, in this industry as it matures. And, uh, is again, a very good fit for this type of technology. And then I'll talk about one more industrial application. That would be energy storage. So energy storage systems are gathering pace. Um, I've watched this industry as it's, as it's progressed. And, uh, initially it was very much focused, uh, and still is on that capital costs. So dollars per kilowatt hour. Um, it's shifting now to, uh, more and more attention to the life cycle cost.

28:57And with energy storage, it's, uh, the value proposition is the more you use the device, the more, uh, money and, uh, uh, and income that, that the facility can generate. And also the more impact it can have on, on the grid. So that will also, you know, that's a, that's an application that we have not focused on for many years. Um, but is, uh, something that, uh, I'm keen to, um, start looking at again. It's really interesting. You know, thank you for this overview. And I think it's also interesting what you described with these forklifts. And I've seen also like, you know, all of these robots and warehouses and all these hidden, hidden needs, let's say of batteries. You might not see every day on the road or the households, but they're also quite important there. Um, I mean, I think one is interesting topic is industrial batteries. Also like power drills and things like that. But I guess that's not for you, right? Because I guess your pouch cells are too big.

29:58So you can see how to power drills, cycle life and safety are not that important. What they're looking for is super high power. And, uh, yeah, we're not enough. Also they need cylindrical cells. So we're not looking at that market at all. That's great. Thanks. And I think there's a question from Mark about recycling in the chat. So this question is in traditional thermion battery recycling, the separator cannot be recovered. How does your separator respond in the thermion battery recycling? So, um, to date actually we haven't recited, we haven't reached end of life on any of the batteries that feature this technology, right? The batteries are gonna last 15 plus years. Uh, and then probably get repurposed to other applications because the cycle life is so good. Now, the ones that do get recycled are typically the ones that have production fallout. Uh, on how the, you know, we have relationships with a couple of recyclers. Um, honestly, I don't know what, I think they're mostly focused on the cathode, um, for recycling.

31:06The rest of the components I don't think they, and maybe the metals, current collectors. Um, the separator, uh, itself is a benign material. It's not, uh, you know, it's, uh, it's basically alumina. So, but, you know, that's, that's very high grade, uh, aluminas. So, um, there's probably value in, in recycling it. But I don't know currently what they do. Great. Thank you. Myra, do you have another question? Yeah, I was just thinking about this, which is, um, you know, you were talking about degradation, um, you know, after a couple of years of working with, uh, with Walmart on their forklifts. And I'm wondering, is it electrical characteristics that you're looking at to look at degradation? Or, um, are you doing some sort of post-mortem analysis on them? So, no, uh, it would, we're not doing post-mortem. So we would take, take a look at the battery, compare its, uh, capacity on day one and compare it to day four years later, you know? Right. And you can see that the capacity of the full system, you know, this is not at the cell level, hasn't changed.

32:29At the cell level, it's fairly much more straightforward. We have cells that have been in, in long-term testing for years, right? And they're doing a couple cycles a day. And we're very, very slowly, but surely generating these very long, um, graphs. But system level, that's, that's much harder to do. Uh, and we're fortunate that we, that these guys let us take a look at the batteries after, um, that, that period of time. And I know that we are, uh, the battery, battery revolution. Um, but you gotta get asked this question often, which is, you know, what, what's the pro of using, uh, a battery for a forklift application rather than using a fuel cell that uses hydrogen? Or is there a place for both in the industry? Um, you know, what are your thoughts on, on this, um, you know, on this, um, on the, on the applications of different technologies for, um, applications like forklifts? So to be honest, that's a better question for the operator, but from, from what we see, the customers that, uh, we're working with are, are often using both technologies.

33:50So there, there is, uh, a space for both. Uh, that said, it is definitely easier to implement a battery technology in, in warehouse sites than fuel cells. Because you, fuel cells, you do have to come up with the whole infrastructure, which is a fixed cost. Um, well, every, every building in the world will have electrical infrastructure in place. Um, but there, there are pros and cons to both technologies. Of course, you know, if you ask me, I'm, I'm very biased, uh, not, not, you know, I'm, well, I am biased, but, you know, as a scientist, uh, there is no more efficient, uh, method of storing energy than in a battery. You know, you're getting round trip efficiencies greater than 98%. Uh, in a fuel cell, you're looking at substantially less round trip efficiency. So as an environmentalist, uh, batteries definitely will, will be superior to fuel cells anytime. Yeah. And, um, maybe just to, to sort of, um, be, you know, talk about the manufacturing side of things.

35:06Have you had to custom, customize your, your manufacturing lines? Where do you do your manufacturing? You know, is it, have you had to reinvent the wheel on doing end of line quality assurance and things like that because of, you know, how unique your technology is with the ceramic separator? Or, um, you know, can you, can you walk us through that, that process a little bit? So, um, on, on the manufacturing side, we used to manufacture all these, everything in our German facility. And, uh, that was not, uh, financially viable. Uh, so we shifted in 2018 to a contracting manufacturing route where we manufactured IP sensitive things in, in Japan. Like the separator. Uh, and consign them to our contract manufacturer in China to, to, to assemble the cells. Uh, that's been in place to date. Uh, now that, at that contract assembler site in China, we have had to have unique tooling, unique equipment, and a unique process to make the cells. Uh, which, uh, which, uh, which is now mature and has been working well.

36:20So, it's not necessarily, you know, a fully conventional method of assembling lithium-ion cells, but it's not greatly different. It's just sort of modifications of existing processes. Uh, that said, we're also looking to reshore the assembly of these cells into the, into the U.S. Um, because our volumes are increasing, uh, because of, also because it makes financial sense with respect to vertically integrating. So, we, we have announced plans to build a gigascale facility in New York state. And, uh, uh, we're well on our way in establishing that. That's wonderful. Um, anyone have any questions for, uh, Raj? I know, um, Mark had a few questions in the chat that we had addressed. Um, but anyone else in the room have any questions? Please, please feel free to raise your hand and I'll invite you as a speaker or just put your question in the chat as well. We also want, I can, I think, while people are thinking about their questions, just because also maybe because we spoke about, you know, the, the different trends.

37:33And as you said, Europe, we have seen a strong push there also last year. This year we have seniors, us doing a strong push on North America. Also with the Inflation Reduction Act, of course, you know, also really with interest to kind of localize supply chains, you know, bring these better production and the supply chain more locally, you know, into the U.S. or with the trading partners. Um, and then maybe next year will be maybe a big pitch for India, but I'm just curious for, from your perspective, even with the Inflation Reduction Act, like how this maybe influences, or also all of these other, kind of infrastructure building, all of these different developments in the U.S., how this maybe all supports the U.S. market, the battery space. So the Inflation Reduction Act is, uh, you know, we, we decided to build this facility in New York, even before the Inflation Reduction Act was, was, uh, passed. So it already made good financial sense to, to, to, to reshore the production.

38:31The inflation act, uh, reduction act just makes it even better. Um, I'm very pleased to see that, that these, uh, these policies are being implemented. Uh, they've been implemented, uh, at least tacitly in Asia for many years, which is why the industry is so, uh, has been so successful there. Um, and, uh, uh, we're, we're catching up quickly. So the Inflation Reduction Act will provide, I think about $35 per kilowatt hours in tax, tax incentives, or, uh, I have to look into it a bit further, but, uh, it's, it's very valuable. Um, it's a very valuable incentive. Thank you for sharing. That's also interesting that you already planned this before. Maybe here's another question from Ngoto. Um, I'm gonna go from the over here. What's the regulatory environment like in Canada, Asia, Europe to use a stainless industrial battery solutions? Uh, regular, you know, we, we, uh, we're very focused on safety testing. So we, all our battery systems are listed under a UL 2580 standard, which, uh, is their electric vehicle standard means has gone through, you know, extensive destructive testing, both electrical, mechanical, and fire testing.

39:58So, uh, so we're, we're very, uh, we're very much, uh, in favor of having all our systems with some sort of, um, UL designation. Uh, UL is more North American. Uh, I, I don't think it's Canada specific. Uh, so. Uh, so. Uh, so. Uh, so. So have you also sold these batteries, like the batteries you developed for, for other markets? Or have you really focused on the North American market for that? And if so, why? No, it, you know, a battery is a battery where, where, you know, North America is our primary push, but we have customers who have, uh, sites in South America. We have quite a few sites in South America right now. Uh, and in, even in Australia, Australia, we're shipping our first systems there. We're in, in a couple of weeks. So, uh, definitely there's demand outside of North America for our product. Uh, but North America, you know, we're, we're, we're just scratching the surface in terms of demand. So may as well do it in our backyard before we go elsewhere.

41:15Maybe it was a question related to like, or maybe ma'am. I was thinking about your topic of data and like, you know, tracking, you touched a bit on it before, but kind of, kind of how you maybe can do. I mean, you haven't really seen much degradation maybe, but even kind of monitoring systems, I guess, to show to your clients, um, are you using. Do you have like any data from the field of yourselves or is it more like you give the battery and then you get more anecdotal, um, insights rather than real data. No, no, no, no, no. We do every battery system that we produce has a capability of being remotely monitored. Now, uh, if, uh, that also needs permissions from the sites that they're installed it. But, uh, for example, every Walmart site we are able to, uh, we have our remote monitoring system which we branded E-Vision and we can monitor, uh, all aspects of that battery, uh, from, from our site.

42:14Uh, and same, same with the customer. They can see every battery, how it's operating. Uh, and from that data, they can see how the, how the vehicle is also being treated. being treated so it's a very powerful system we're looking to add more features to it as well so it's one thing just seeing how the batteries are doing but this enables other functions you know we're looking at potentially adding um adding energy storage features even even demand response features potentially down the road so it we don't want to be in the business of just selling the batteries we do want to see how we can provide value-added services after their after these these units have been installed I see Mirko has a question in the chat and Mirko's question is what are the mechanical properties is there any problem about cracks that can affect the other part of the cell uh no we haven't seen seen anything like that to date maybe kind of a good question to follow up on that like vibrations and other things because one thing I found quite interesting we had another speaker here sometime back who was kind of more in things was large-scale mobile batteries kind of like trailers and things one of their kind of solutions and offerings was that they actually monitor the devices when they're getting shipped right so they're seeing if there's anything back oh we take it a step further so every unit has uh has uh has vibration sensors built into it which are monitored remotely in in material handling most of these vehicles don't have suspensions so vibration levels are much higher we've really designed the the battery system mechanically to withstand very high levels of vibration so there's lots of different technologies which we've added to the system at the system level to uh to be able to meet those those requirements maybe one quick question then i will also give it to my arm to mark of these questions maybe one thing about passivation because it's something i recently heard more about for example for iot devices right where you need a very low current and you usually use maybe primary batteries or something and they had issues with some of these you know building our preservation because they use so low currents in the cells and this became kind of an issue to their performance just wondering if you ever have looked at kind of preservation for like you know iot devices or something with your separator setup no honestly i haven't i haven't seen any impacts of something like that on performance but we don't run very low currents either so something i don't honestly don't know about appreciate it maria or mark do you want to go next yeah i always love the topic of data because that's essentially what we do so i'm obsessed with data for electrochemical systems and um but before before we delve a little bit deeper into that you had mentioned something which is interesting to me and wondering if you can shed some light on you know you you do some remote monitoring on your assets are you are you then leasing the batteries or so are you the asset owner or is the operator the asset owner good good question for you know because our company hasn't you know never had huge amounts of cash we were typically always selling these assets that's starting to change we are renting some which we own uh and then our oem partner is leasing some as well so that that is starting to take place and and uh it's something that uh as that i want to do more of because these these are assets that we know are going to last for extremely long time customers may not think about it too much so uh when data goes hand in hand if we do uh want to control a larger percentage of these assets uh that that uh data and analytics is going to become more and more important and then today you know the asset owners being the operators uh if they're purchasing the the batteries typically you know their core competencies are in um whatever their business is doing right so how are they currently managing the assets that they have on site um you know it's a it's a real it's a relatively i mean it's almost a there's very little maintenance you do if any on on these types of systems but we do do do annual inspections with our oem partner they they have service and support uh in place and then the the battery management system itself does quite a bit of uh the babing of the battery already right so it prevents it from being over discharged obviously being overcharged and uh for the most part it it anyone can manage this device yeah because because you know soh estimation state of health estimation state of charge estimations are a huge topic today in the battery industry um and a lot of times you know we hear we hear about state of health or state of charge estimations not being that accurate in in field conditions and and having to potentially um do quarterly checks on state of charge by fully charging fully discharging an asset is this how you're approaching sort of checking the pulse of the battery right now or or do you have um no weird of sophisticated analysis on your bms we have a very sophisticated algorithm on the bms for state of charge um and we don't have to do any calibrations in the field so um yeah i i think if you have a good bms you shouldn't have to do that the on the state of health side again this is a battery that doesn't really degrade um our state of health algorithm doesn't do much it doesn't doesn't need to but it exists so um yeah uh on on on state of charge state of health these things uh are really need to be written out well tested validated uh over over a long period of time and uh that that ultimately becomes a company's ip for for the bms yeah and and you know this is a question that you may not want to answer maybe it's part of your ip but how how would you guys deal with things like current sensor drift uh to measure some of the electrical properties um to feed into your bms uh i i think you in general you know whether this be what on the topic you just asked or any other type of measurement you always need a reference point uh and then you can always calibrate automatically so this is fairly typical with any any type of measurement thank you so much raj um for shedding some light on that no no problem i think we got some questions in the chat mark has one um i read it out if you're not able to speak mark why are you able to speak perfect sure sure hi raj thank you for your presentation so i have a mining background so question about have you considered using these in mine trucks both above ground and below ground i would think it'd be ideal but you could have mine that runs say 24 7 underground oh it makes very good sense um we just haven't got around to it yet but my mining is a no-brainer especially underground mining um yeah i i haven't uh you know we we we pushed one thing at a time but uh mining is a good idea no question great i'd love to see it implemented in some of these um you know diesel using systems because they use so much diesel fuel and i know there's some electric usage but particularly underground um say and even these uh some of these robotic um systems would be ideal oh yeah i you know having fumes underground is not uh yeah yeah i think i think the mining industry definitely was probably concerned about safety probably and that's something that we we can demonstrate and how do you choose like new applications like like how do you do like your you know your decision your road map and i mean because it's yeah when we focused on material handling we were to be honest as a company in in rather bad financial shape so we could only do we had to we had to pick it and pick it correctly otherwise we'd be out of business so we we went with the material handling because it was the uh it was an existing market it was large enough uh that uh and with sophisticated buyers so that was a good move uh and now we're in a position to open it up to other markets so we we did have to make a make a pick right so we could have picked uh buses to start with we could have picked mining to start with uh but we picked this uh and i think that was the correct decision uh not not not to say the other markets won't uh but uh but i think that's a good observation right and i've seen definitely as you said you know i think often for startups we also have done these you know startup pitches on here like battery den and things in the past and i think often you know you have always the same pitch which is like we're gonna transform bb's automotive and of course that's a very attractive you know you know pitch to have especially from an investing perspective but i think that's a good point of the perspective is you think okay the market is gigantic etc but often i think as you say probably you want to maybe start with one market which is a bit more niche where you actually don't have to compete with all of the other you know high scale and we know solutions out there so i think you know i've seen buses also being one you know i think being focused on by other some of these maybe more niche chemistries or you know aviation being another one i think i'd be quite attractive and there's defense and i think there's a range of or maybe is it like more power tools or something so i think to identify where your technology can be best suited is i think probably a good good move but also as you say you have to choose the right one right because you might choose one but then there isn't there you know you cannot you know get the demand you were expecting and it can be tricky as well yeah exactly this is a problem all all startups or small companies would have to you know they have to you can't do everything so you have to pick which one to start with so what i find interesting in this session is that the title is industrial battery applications but there's so much curiosity around your technology that i think we just we're bombarding you with questions about the tech so going back to the application side and mark touched upon this with mining applications but what's next for electrovia is it you know you mentioned buses i see on your website energy storage what is that next application that really needs your technology because of the safety and cycle life so you know uh our our next target is high voltage systems so it'll be a high voltage pack which can go on you know ultimately i think it will be buses but that same battery pack can go on a truck and go on anything any other electric type vehicle that is is high voltage which is more and more and more of them so that's uh that's something we've been working on for quite a long time uh sort of you know early next year and then next year but there's still room to grow on on the mining side too i mean that same pack probably would be applicable there um and then we have still room to grow we're still developing products for for material handling that's interesting and i think so do you think you know that because i know some i was just looking at so there's of course some other companies as well which are kind of offering you know kind of safety you know approaches and i think it's it's very hot topic right i think it's just been a lot of people now because of course also the issues which you have seen about safety you know with batteries i think that's a lot of different interesting solutions which come into the market from technical solutions from in the cells to outside of the cell to monitoring etc etc so i'm just kind of curious have you also looked into like licensing your technology to to other players and there are some other players which are doing that right and then have like this consortium they're building and then they license other technologies to a range of stakeholders yeah it's curious if you're looking at something where we we had considered years ago we uh and something that we could revisit again um at the moment our core focus has been in just scaling up right so this is the year this year we've scaled up assembly significantly uh both at our contract manufacturer and at our sites and uh we plan on continuing that effort um once it reaches a certain scale uh it's uh then our attention will go to to those other steps but uh it's not on our it's it's on our uh whiteboard but it's not something you know you can't pursue everything immediately so that's great and um maybe also just some some maybe lessons learned you know we have quite a few when there's a range of really interesting people i'm sure most of them we haven't met even yet but hopefully one day of people listening and i think there's a range of you know executives of big you know companies in the space and oems and better producers etc but also a range of different startups and i think also quite a lot of founders definitely have met quite a few listening to this so maybe any kind of lessons learned we had some great ones other ones i'm just remembering also skuburg i think some interesting insights maybe just from your side you know you've been now in one of these companies for quite some time which i think has gone it sounds like to quite a few different stages and you know i've been adjusting quite a bit so maybe just like you know any kind of lessons learned being in the startup space as a battery company any anything you can share with others who might be listening yeah i'd say you know two two two lessons learned that you know which is more broad for any entrepreneur but one is it's number one difficult to make money in batteries it's extremely competitive space unfortunately uh not many companies uh get good good financials out of it um hopefully we will uh and and and hopefully that that part of that difficulty in this in the industry gets easier but that has been a challenge not just for for us but for other companies um uh so that would be one lesson learned but number two which is more definitely the more broad item is you know don't as a as an entrepreneur or as a business don't be scared to give up on something right uh and and pivot and if something's not working at some point you know you might need to pivot which is what we did as a company in 2018 it was a difficult decision to do uh to to switch our focus from um from the automotive space to to this very specific um material handling application uh but um that that uh and that involved shrinking the company and doing lots of changes but ultimately that has worked out for us so and if we if we didn't do that we probably wouldn't have wouldn't be here in business today and i think that uh all business have to have to deal with that kind of decision at some stage in their in their life absolutely and i think very much appreciate that and maybe also one thing my last question for today as well would be and you come from quite a technical background right so you have done your phd in cambridge and see it here on your linkedin electrochemical production of tin-filled carbon nanotubes use another materials for lithium-ion batteries and i remember my phd days as well and then you have done research position and then you went more and more i think also more commercial roles as vice president of business development for over 70 years and then now as you know finally being in the ceo role so maybe also a bit of your own kind of you know transitional journey from more like a research role to more like a business role has this been like yeah any lessons learned from that part as well because there's a lot of people also listening who are interested to either you know join the battery industry or curious how a career could look like in this space yeah i did definitely started more on the research side i i still like to have uh you know dip my toes in it and i do stay involved with our team uh even even even now that i'm ceo but um there's only so much that transition has its pros and cons research is definitely a lot of fun uh but ultimately if you can't make it work as a business uh it's not sustainable so um i've enjoyed every role i've been involved with there there there are pros and cons of each of them uh but um i'm very excited with what i'm doing right now and the direction we're moving the company in but i think in in the as uh you know i can't say that this is most definite advice but you know this is a very technical industry if if you don't have a strong technical background i i'm not sure how you're would lead a company effectively so i think uh i think uh to be honest having that phd training was probably more important than having a mba uh to be a ceo of a battery company most certainly that's interesting i think it's definitely uh of course you're always in our own survivor bias but definitely also i've seen some quite successful people coming from the business side but i'm with you i think it's interesting to see these different routes and it seems like for you at least has been a successful one moving through that and you know getting your your developments and this topic mariam do you have any other final questions or mark i just want to say thank you so much raj for um for presenting your uh technology and this topic to to to us well thank you so much and uh it's been a pleasure and thanks for the audience for some great questions i had a question for you raj and so um you develop this technology in grad school i i assume and um you know a lot of times there's some sort of um accelerator for for graduate level technologies that helps people from graduate schools get those on the business side did you participate in any of those i'm sorry the first part of your question got cut off oh i'm sorry um you developed this technology in graduate school correct no no not this particular i i know something else in graduate school uh okay um didn't get commercialized got patented but never commercialized i see did you participate in any accelerator to to go from say this just a technology to something you know with with a group of um compatriots to advise you how to move into an actual business or was that um much more efficient or much quicker uh um no we did not we did not take part in an accelerator at the at the start of this business that said you know we're i'm participating in some uh accelerators right now you know even though the business is well established to look at additional markets and partnerships i see have you considered being acquired be part of the larger entity i know that in the battery space there's a lot of um a lot of mergers acquisitions etc i'm sure you've been approached a few times in this kind of type of endeavor at this point our focus is most definitely on on proving the scale up that we've that we started the start of the year um and we've got we've got a ways to go we also have our plans on on the new york giga plant um so right now mergers acquisitions isn't front and center of of our planning great thank you mark if there's any other final question that's no otherwise just muted you quickly for for a bit of the background noise but if not i think that's also i mean i think that's another great lesson you know i think probably never too late to learn and to grow i think you know taking taking getting the support wherever it makes sense where that's helpful but yeah maybe i think this maybe from my side just want to say a big thing as well to to you know answer all these questions i think it's always really appreciated for you know giving candidly no response to to many of these interesting developments and also a bit behind the scenes and also in your own journey so yeah just a really big thank you rush for for for this um and i'm sure people can how's best if you want to connect with you on linkedin or so is this yeah yeah that's that's that's best i'm pretty pretty easy to contact there perfect great yeah with this just a massive thank you for for for this today and then yeah hopefully all of you join us again next month we're gonna have three weeks now because we had moved this session when we back to normal schedule but yeah we're looking forward to a nice presentation there i'm not sure if my room you already want to say anything about the speakers or you maybe keep it a bit as a bit in suspense so the closer to the date let's keep some suspense going simon sounds good perfect thanks so much everyone thanks so much much thank you bye bye everyone you