April Round Up
It’s been a cold and very wet spring in the UK, not great for agriculture. The battery industry has also not had a dry news month! Here are our picks.
❓❓❓ What the heck is going on with Tesla
Tesla announced this month it was laying off more than 10% of its global workforce, impacting around 14,000(!) employees globally.
The wave of firings at Tesla including two senior execs: Drew Baglino, Senior Vice President of Powertrain and Energy Engineering, and Rohan Patel, Vice President of Public Policy and Business Development, have parted ways with the company. Drew seems to have sold all of his shares on exiting.
The entire Supercharger team led by Rebecca Tinucci has been disbanded. The discontinuation of the Supercharger team has particularly been a controversial move, given its previous success and strategic importance to Tesla’s charging network infrastructure.
The summer internship programme has been scaled back.
The company is reportedly pivoting towards robotaxi development, moving resources away from projects like the low-cost EV model initially slated for a future release. Elon says you can “think of Tesla like some combination of Airbnb and Uber.”
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📜 LG Energy Solutions is coming out hot
In an unprecedented move to protect its tech, LGES is coming out swinging against the hundreds of patent infringers aka “free riders” in the industry. This initiative will see the company issuing warning notices and potentially pursuing legal action against hundreds of infringers. As of 2023, LG holds over 4000 patents related to battery technology, with 1000 being “highly strategic” and 580 being “infringed” upon.
Interestingly, they’re planning to start a “battery patents licensing” agenda. This initiative will allow previous infringers to legally utilize LG's patented technologies under new licensing agreements, transforming potential legal challenges into profitable partnerships.
Is this a tactical warning to deter competitors or a step towards rigorous enforcement of LG’s intellectual property rights? Not sure. The industry watches on.
"A surge in patent infringement by latecomers in the battery industry, and subsequent market distortion caused by unlicensed use of patented technology, calls for strong countermeasures to level the playing field. LG Energy Solution believes that at least 500 patents directed to its first through third-generation battery technologies cover the current state-of-the-art battery products. The company intends to lead the establishment of a battery patent licensing market by creating a global patent pool."
Great commentary from patent attorney Howard Lim.
🟢 Green and clean nickel
Sustainable sourcing is a hot topic, with Benchmark Mineral Intelligence launching a green nickel price, and Fastmarkets a low carbon nickel briquette premium.
This seems to be part of a wider move on the London Metal Exchange to reward cleaner metal suppliers for supplying clean, green metals, creating differentiated pricing for nickel products due to their differing environmental impact. One of the key voices for this is Andrew Forrest, Chair of Fortescue Metals Group, who also owns Williams Advanced Engineering. Being able to differentiate financially will be an asset to the energy transition, argued by Skarn Associates.
Speaking of supply chains… we came across one of the prettiest Sankey diagrams we’ve ever seen. A research paper out of Carnegie Mellon from Anthony Cheng et al. details the ebbs and flows of lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt supply chains around the world. Enjoy the Sankeys below, we know we did.
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Looking at the graphs above, China is a clear juggernaut in the battery space.
📦 The best BESS?
In an announcement last month, CATL unveils a ‘five-year zero degradation’ “TENER” stationary storage battery with 430 Wh/L ESS LFP cells and 6 MWh total capacity. It’s caused waves in the industry, and likely means they’ve oversized it or augmented it. Don’t worry, we’ve got a stationary storage guide in the works to help you understand how this could be possible.
On the EV side, CATL also announced a new EV battery pack in collaboration with Yutong (China bus maker) with a 932,000 mile (1.5 million km) / 15-year warranty. Similarly, it claims to have no degradation in the first 1000 cycles.
🚐 Canoo acquires all of Arrival’s stock
US van company Canoo has acquired a lot of UK casualty Arrival’s manufacturing stock at an 80% discount at the end of March. The equipment will be container shipped to Oklahoma. It just goes to show how much it pays to be the last man standing.
🔉 Luca de Meo’s wake up call to Europe
In March, CEO of Ampere and Renault Luca de Meo published a ‘letter to Europe’ with recommendations on the eve of the European elections to future-proof the car industry. It includes his summary that China rules, the US stimulates and the EU regulates, and 10 recommendations to keep the European mobility industry in the game. This is nicely summarised by Christof Horn here. The EU goes to the polls on 6-9th June, so let’s see what happens there.
🧙 Believe it when you see it
Statevolt has announced a plan to produce solid-state batteries in the UAE from 2026 which is extremely ambitious. No battery factory in history has been able to get up and running to production in 1.5 years, especially with a novel chemistry. You may remember their founder Lars Carlstrom as the same founder of Britishvolt, now destined to be a data centre, and Italvolt, currently in crisis management.
🎧 What else we're reading and listening to
Missed our start-up showcase last month featuring Liminal and EC Power? Don’t worry, you can watch at your leisure on YouTube.
IEA released its Global EV Outlook Report 2024.
Jamie Sheard’s “Take Charge” Podcast is one to listen to. Latest episode with Blue Solutions’ Adrian Tylim.
Shirley Meng gave a TedTalk on building better batteries.
🌞 Thanks for reading!
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