Approached by gigafactory @ordos Battery Materials
* Things are accelerated, timelines are expected to shorten
There are just a few manufacturers of silicon material for batteries located mostly in China. Maybe two or three in NA or EU, huge reshoring advantage for HPQ.
* Eastern NA green energy advantage and key ingredient is energy
- Hydro electricity
- Carbon capture with QRR
* Bernard is very busy lately, cannot even reply to some emails the same day
* "Carbon bomb" in Europe
* Silicon metal production is the largest emitter of CO2 per kg of material
* You essentially need to run your EV for 20+ years to offset the CO2 footprint of making that car. So reducing footprint for all your base ingredients is very important
* Conversations with industry participants often are around the carbon taxes and the green advantage of HPQ's materials
* Approached by gigafactory owners that say they would need 1000 tons of this material per year for their gigafactory(ies), how much can we offtake, these are the conversations now
* Deals could be made in advance of some gigafactories being finished in 1.5-2 years
* Graphite based lithium ion batteries are here to stay for many years to come
* 18650 battery type is very well known, used for many years, used in many EVs
* The fact that the degradation WITH the silicon follows the same or lesser degradation pattern as 100% graphite is very promising
* The next steps now how are we going to manufacture these materials, not even the cycles anymore
* 100, 300, 500 cycles are the next milestones
* This is just the first iteration of the material, Sila is at their 38,000-th iteration
* Looking at other variations of the materials to start iterations of each variation
* Looking to make physically bigger (than 18650 type) battery tests
* Key message: starting to come to full fruition, there is a lot of interest