Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[7:14] MI: "The EPA publishes reports on the average [daily] distance traveled in the United States, it's 42 miles [...]. But 99% of the daily trips can be covered under 150 miles. [...] When you look at the single trip distance of all the vehicles in the United States, there's one time in a year that you'll cross 285 miles. [...] And that's why 300 Miles has been in everyone's minds, a number that starts to look like a real vehicle that can satisfy all of their trips."
[8:08] MI: "What we did in analyzing the batteries that are required for the future electric vehicles, is we just simply made one adjustment. [...] Let's make that 300 miles sufficiently robust, so that people can always get that number, whether it's the winter, whether it's driving at highway speeds, or climbing mountains. [...] It turns out, you have to nearly double the EPA rated range. To get 600 miles would mean that you're almost guaranteed 300 miles. And that's where we came up with doubling the range of EVs. In order to compensate for real world conditions, you have to go after a much higher energy density, a much longer range battery. And if you rate the vehicle at 600 miles, you can be sure the customer will get at least that 300 mile capability on a single trip."
[17:03] MI: "When we set out to double the range of an electric vehicle, we didn't actually have a clear idea of how we would do that. And specifically, when we started the company, we wanted to avoid the use of nickel, cobalt, and other materials that would be hard to mine and would not be as sustainable in the long term. We came up with a battery architecture that divided a battery into two segments. One that dealt with that 150 miles every day that could do it very durably and routinely [...]. The second battery was installed as a range extender, and that that battery would have a unique chemistry, that chemistry would be there for extending the range occasionally, but we would not need to use that in an everyday setting."
[19:29] MI: "Gemini [is] referring to these two different batteries working together to extend the range. [...] The primary battery that you use every day is made out of a chemistry known as lithium iron phosphate. And where that chemistry has an advantage as it does not use nickel or cobalt and has a much better safety. In case of failure, it doesn't propagate into a fire that could lead to a full vehicle fire. [...] The Gemini battery is for the mainstream automotive market to help double the range of EVs, and that battery would launch in 2025 timeframe."
[28:50] MI: "$100 per kilowatt hour has been long used as the target for nickel cobalt cell products for automotive. [For] lithium iron phosphate $75 per kilowatt hour has been used as a target that most companies are going after right now. [...] For our anode free [battery], where we're not using graphite, and we've substituted a manganese base chemistry for the cathode, we're at around $45 per kilowatt hour. [...] We're driving away from materials that are more scarce like cobalt, materials that require a lot of energy investment, nickel. We're driving towards materials that are improving carbon dioxide footprint, like manganese and lithium iron phosphate. And also eliminating the 60% of the graphite being used in the anode. All of that is improving the overall cost structure of the battery."
[40:30] MI: "In summary, what ONE is going after is we want to double the range of electric vehicles, doing it without using nickel and cobalt, and develop a North American supply chain."
Rating: ⚡⚡⚡
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