Summer Round Up (part 1)
Happy northern hemisphere summer. In the UK, it’s been a wet one so far, with intermittent periods of random heat. The battery industry is on a similarly unpredictable trajectory. Here are our picks of top news from the first half of the summer, with a second part to follow.
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🏭 Gigafactory troubles
Concerns about overcapacity in Chinese battery factories have long been on the radar, raising alarms about potential repercussions for European aspirants due to global price suppression. Things are getting interesting around this story, as OEMs and other investors are seeing disappointing returns in Europe on their promised sites.
The EU solution against Chinese production has been to tack on a 38% tariff on Chinese EVs. aiming to safeguard its domestic manufacturing industry. While these policies increase import costs and taxes, they also decrease demand and create obstacles to the global adoption of EVs, exacerbating political tensions from trade disputes. Instead, the EU should consider enhancing subsidies and support for local manufacturing. Notably, Germany has no interest in such a tariff.
Northvolt, the Swedish battery manufacturer, has reportedly had a $2B order canceled by BMW. Reports show that BMW was described as ‘losing patience’ in the company they are large investors in. In the same week, Northvolt announced the cancellation of plans for Cathode Active Material factory at Borlänge, Sweden. The site for Northvolt Fem had been under preparation.
Similarly, LG hit pause on its second battery factory in Queen Creek, Arizona. They originally planned 2 plants targeting cylindrical cells for EVs and an energy storage system, but have paused the plans for the second one to ‘optimise operations’.
Mercedes Benz and Stellantis also paused their efforts in their joint venture Automotive Cells Company (ACC), stopping construction in Germany and Italy.
Here’s a few more in Europe…
💸 More financial difficulties
After several months of hinting, EV start-up Fisker finally filed for bankruptcy following their loss of $450M USD in the last quarter of 2023. The Fiskers are now doing ‘whatever they can’ to preserve cash and keep the doors symbolically open. It’s the latest in the series of start-up EV companies to go under (think Arrival and Proterra), making it look increasingly difficult to compete with both Chinese EV companies and legacy OEMs.
Moxion Power, based in Richmond in the Bay Area, has let 1/3 of its staff go in order to realign to ‘core business objectives and current growth forecasts’. Their product has so far been mobile stationary packs to replace diesel generators, used at Mill Valley festival this year to power the festival entirely on renewable energy in a US first. These lay offs follow a plan to expand the company launched only in January. The company clearly needed an injection of cash that didn’t materialise. Similarly, Ionic Materials has also let all of its staff go and closed its doors.
Hit by the recent news? We have been putting together a ‘new homes’ series and will keep it up whilst submissions keep coming. Our thoughts are with all affected.
🤑 Startups coming up
Unigrid, focusing on safer and cheaper sodium ion batteries, has raised $12 million in their Series A round.
Molten Industries have raised $25 million in their Series A round in their quest to make natural gas into clean hydrogen and graphite.
Sila Nanotechnologies has raised a $375 million Series G(ene) round for the silicon anode materials which deliver faster charging and higher energy density. Watch this space for a deep dive into the silicon market on Intercalation.
US EV manufacturer Rivian has secured $5B USD from Volkswagen. Stocks of the California-based company have soared by 50%.
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has bought smaller peer Rho Motion for a deal worth around $50M USD. Benchmark focuses on mines and minerals, whereas Rho Motion has focused on the downstream analysis, making the pairing very complementary. This is a huge deal for a fairly small company.
Ion Storage Systems received $20M from the US Government to continue developing their solid-state battery technology, as part of a $63.5M Department of Energy package for four transformative technologies through the Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) program. Other recipients of this in the battery space include Natron Energy.
🇨🇳 China Storming Ahead
BYD and CATL have announced that they will soon be shipping LFP cells that can charge from 0 to 100% in 10 minutes. They have been targeting 6C charge rate (which means it takes 10 minutes to charge). CATL cells that are 6C capable are Qilin 2.0 and BYD have the Blade 2.0, both to be shipped by the end of 2024.
🔥 Fire in South Korea
On 24th June, a fire broke out in the Aricell Plant in Hwaseong city, South Korea. At least 22 people were killed and a further 8 injured in the horrific incident. There is a recording of how it started here. This is a horrible reminder of the dangers of particularly lithium metal batteries, which were suggested to be the cause of this incident.
On our reading list
Volts: What’s up with solid-state batteries? Feature with Factorial Energy
Distilled: The Rise of the Clean Energy Megaproject
Billy Wu: Addressing the battery talent shortage with interdisciplinarity (Nature)
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