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battery powered world","a-battery-powered-world","article/a-battery-powered-world",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":560,"content":570,"excerpt":671,"featured":50,"reporter":672,"_editable":676,"component":677,"seo_title":553,"categories":678,"visibility":685,"author_company":49,"featured_image":686,"seo_description":671,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":691,"formattedArticleDate":692},"a9eb38c1-ed6b-4aa8-be33-b2fc78f4c22d","2017-01-25 00:00",[],[561],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":564},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":565,"image":566,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":567},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":571,"content":572},"doc",[573,580,585,590,595,600,603,608,613,618,623,628,633,638,643,646,651,656,661,666],{"type":574,"attrs":575,"content":576},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[577],{"text":578,"type":579},"Gigafactory launch makes lithium supply shortage more apparent","text",{"type":574,"attrs":581,"content":582},{"textAlign":49},[583],{"text":584,"type":579},"Tesla turned an unassuming industrial park on the outskirts of Reno, Nevada, into the HQ for its campaign office as it officially opened its Gigafactory 1, the world’s largest lithium ion battery plant, to the usual fanfare and air of extreme positivity. The company invited a blend of investors, fanboys and international journalists to witness the launch of the megafactory which, at capacity, will produce more than double of the world’s output from last year which was 60GWh.",{"type":574,"attrs":586,"content":587},{"textAlign":49},[588],{"text":589,"type":579},"It was in typical Elon Musk fashion to casually drop in the fact that the plant will now be three times the initial planned capacity of 50GWh, a hugely significant development that will have ramifications across the supply chain, from raw material availability to battery cell costs.",{"type":574,"attrs":591,"content":592},{"textAlign":49},[593],{"text":594,"type":579},"Musk explained that the plant is expected to reach its 50GWh level by 2018 – 3 years ahead of schedule – from which the company is will produce 35GWh of cells in-house while purchasing the remainder from its deal with Panasonic and a new Tesla Energy agreement with Samsung SDI.",{"type":574,"attrs":596,"content":597},{"textAlign":49},[598],{"text":599,"type":579},"The huge facility is six floors tall and already spans three US city blocks yet is only 14% of the size of the final design. It is on course to be the largest building in the world by footprint overtaking Boeing’s Everett Factory where they build airplanes. “Its matters if it happens at scale,” explained Musk. “It’s about being able to make enough electric cars, enough battery packs that it moves the needle from a global carbon production perspective… so it actually does change the world.” “It has to be big because the world is big. That’s why,” he added.",{"type":574,"attrs":601,"content":602},{"textAlign":49},[],{"type":574,"attrs":604,"content":605},{"textAlign":49},[606],{"text":607,"type":579},"The sheer capacity size of the plant is not only hugely significant for Tesla to achieve its ambitious goal to produced half a million full electric vehicles but it has also sparked a global battery arms race forcing other major manufacturers to build their own megafactories.",{"type":574,"attrs":609,"content":610},{"textAlign":49},[611],{"text":612,"type":579},"Since Tesla announced the $5bn project in February 2014, the rest of the industry has scrambled to reveal new plants in a bid to produce the world’s lowest costs cells which at present average $250-350kWh.",{"type":574,"attrs":614,"content":615},{"textAlign":49},[616],{"text":617,"type":579},"Tesla is aiming for a sub-$150kWh cell which it expects to achieve through the addition of scale and speed which it will get through designing the Gigafactory to a “physics first principles basis” where density is key. “Just like a great machine, the entire factory [has been designed in] CAD: every pipe, every electrical conduit, every piece of duct work and every piece of the equipment building the cells,” explained JB Straubel, Tesla’s CTO. “We’ve modelled it to fit it in with minimal wasted space, everything is almost touching each other on every floor.",{"type":574,"attrs":619,"content":620},{"textAlign":49},[621],{"text":622,"type":579},"That was necessary to build this amazing machine and many factories aren’t done this way – you build a shell and randomly put equipment in it. This was very different,” he added. The full integration of the Gigafactory is also critical. It will be the world’s first plant that can produce cells and finished battery powered products, from raw materials to cars rolling off the production line. At present, every single major step in the lithium ion supply chain is separated by thousands of miles and different companies, each of which have to make a profit.",{"type":574,"attrs":624,"content":625},{"textAlign":49},[626],{"text":627,"type":579},"From lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel mining, cathode and anode manufacturing, cell production, to electric vehicle production, each of these steps adds cost and time and have fundamentally held the battery industry back from producing at a lower cost and at scale. “You can’t send things on around the world trips and expect it to be cheap,” said Musk. And this is where Tesla expects to have an edge.",{"type":574,"attrs":629,"content":630},{"textAlign":49},[631],{"text":632,"type":579},"At present, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence data, a molecule of brine sourced lithium in Chile will go on a 50-day, 42,000km journey before arriving in California in the form of a battery cell.",{"type":574,"attrs":634,"content":635},{"textAlign":49},[636],{"text":637,"type":579},"Lithium would pass through at least four players in the industry – four contract negotiations and company balance sheets to look after – before ending up in vehicle. Graphite, on the other hand, would have an 18,000km trip starting in northern China and pass through 5 companies over at least 35-days before arriving at Tesla’s Fremont factory in a battery.",{"type":574,"attrs":639,"content":640},{"textAlign":49},[641],{"text":642,"type":579},"For a company that will be the largest single consumer in the world, this offers not only additional expense but a supply security nightmare hence the rationale behind baking the anodes and mixing the cathodes onsite in Nevada – the Gigafactory’s first step.",{"type":574,"attrs":644,"content":645},{"textAlign":49},[],{"type":574,"attrs":647,"content":648},{"textAlign":49},[649],{"text":650,"type":579},"The real question is about whether there will be enough raw material to fuel not only a Gigafactory that is now 150GWh but also the major growth that is being seen in China where at least 7 lithium ion megafactories are being built. The answer is no. Huge capacity expansions will be needed to take the carbon anode industry from 80,000 tonnes last year to the 300-400,000 tonnes needed by 2021.",{"type":574,"attrs":652,"content":653},{"textAlign":49},[654],{"text":655,"type":579},"The majority of these expansions are only expected to come from flake graphite miners rather than synthetic graphite producers which are simply not installing the additional capacity due to the higher costs. Meanwhile, lithium continues to be in shortage and prices remain at levels 3-4 times higher than at the start of 2015.",{"type":574,"attrs":657,"content":658},{"textAlign":49},[659],{"text":660,"type":579},"New mines are being planned and significant expansions are being announced – especially by Albemarle and FMC Lithium. There remains little doubt that the supply and demand balance will remain tight over the next four years.",{"type":574,"attrs":662,"content":663},{"textAlign":49},[664],{"text":665,"type":579},"When Tesla announced the Gigafactory and its plan to build half a million vehicles a year, it raised a number of eyebrows because many people did not believe anyone could sell that many electric cars each year before 2020.",{"type":574,"attrs":667,"content":668},{"textAlign":49},[669],{"text":670,"type":579},"Today, with Model 3 pre-orders over 400,000 and Tesla Energy’s home and commercial battery packs to be integrated into solar powered source of energy through its recent SolarCity acquisition, the company’s biggest worry must now be on whether there will be enough of vital ingredients that will allow it to change the world. Because at the moment there is not.","Gigafactory launch makes lithium supply shortage more apparent Tesla turned an unassuming industrial park on the outskirts of Reno, Nevada, into the HQ for its campaign office as it officially opened its Gigafactory 1, the world’s largest lithium ion battery plant, to the usual fanfare and air of extreme positivity. The company invited a blend […]",[673],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":674},{"job_title":565,"image":675,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},{"filename":567},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"a9eb38c1-ed6b-4aa8-be33-b2fc78f4c22d\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[679,682],{"slug":680,"name":681},"batteries","Batteries",{"slug":683,"name":684},"critical-minerals","Critical Minerals","private",{"id":49,"alt":687,"name":687,"focus":687,"title":687,"source":687,"filename":688,"copyright":687,"fieldtype":689,"meta_data":690,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/1376afd92d/bm-screen-shot-2017-01-25-at-093004.png","asset",{"alt":687,"title":687,"source":687,"copyright":687},"Jan 25, 2017","25th January 2017",[],[],1792688599975]