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scale up","batteries-scale-up","article/batteries-scale-up",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":560,"content":570,"excerpt":763,"featured":50,"reporter":764,"_editable":768,"component":769,"seo_title":553,"categories":770,"visibility":777,"author_company":49,"featured_image":778,"seo_description":763,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":783,"formattedArticleDate":784},"3bb81a48-123b-45fc-bad9-ac216e50a1bf","2019-01-28 00:00",[],[561],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":564},"matthew-bird","Matthew Bird",{"job_title":565,"image":566,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},"Senior Editor - Supply Chains & Data Visualisation",{"filename":567},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/14738033ec/matthew-bird.jpeg","Matthew writes, edits and produces content for Benchmark Intelligence and Benchmark Source across the whole mine to grid supply chain. He also acts as a liaison to the press. He has a PhD in electrochemistry from the University of Nottingham.","https://www.linkedin.com/in/birdmatthew/",{"type":571,"content":572},"doc",[573,580,585,592,597,602,609,614,621,626,631,636,642,649,654,659,665,670,675,680,686,691,697,706,711,717,722,728,733,738,747,752,758],{"type":574,"attrs":575,"content":576},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[577],{"text":578,"type":579},"Following Benchmark Minerals Week, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence visited Thor Trucks’ offices and factory in North Hollywood, California. We had the chance to speak to Dakota Semler, CEO and Co-Founder, about the company’s plans, how electric vehicles can infiltrate the truck market and their views on the supply of raw materials for electric vehicles.","text",{"type":574,"attrs":581,"content":582},{"textAlign":49},[583],{"text":584,"type":579},"Benchmark: When can we expect to see one of Thor Trucks models on the road? Could you provide a timeline and the main challenges to this?",{"type":574,"attrs":586,"content":587},{"textAlign":49},[588,590],{"text":589,"type":579},"Dakota Semler: ",{"text":591,"type":579},"We’ll have our first vehicles in customer hands and on the road in early 2019 as some of our partnerships come to fruition. Notably, UPS plans to deploy one of our Class 6 delivery vehicles in the Los Angeles metro area for 6 months with a real driver behind the wheel operating an actual delivery route.",{"type":574,"attrs":593,"content":594},{"textAlign":49},[595],{"text":596,"type":579},"Our heavy-duty Class 8 platform will enter into production later in 2019.",{"type":574,"attrs":598,"content":599},{"textAlign":49},[600],{"text":601,"type":579},"Benchmark: What potential do EVs have to penetrate or even disrupt the truck market in the US within the next 5 – 10 years?",{"type":574,"attrs":603,"content":604},{"textAlign":49},[605,607],{"text":606,"type":579},"We see a lot of potential to electrify off-highway heavy-duty applications, too, like cranes and forklifts. These applications make up a significant portion of the heavy-duty",{"text":608,"type":579},"market, and with our recent partnership with Wiggins Lift, we show our technology is application agnostic and not localised to on-road trucking. The technology and expertise that we’ve developed in electric powertrain development can be really useful in a variety of on and off-highway applications and we look forward to exploring all potential partnerships.",{"type":574,"attrs":610,"content":611},{"textAlign":49},[612],{"text":613,"type":579},"Benchmark: You’re based in California. Are other areas of the US showing promising signs for truck fleet EV adoption?",{"type":574,"attrs":615,"content":616},{"textAlign":49},[617,619],{"text":618,"type":579},"DS: ",{"text":620,"type":579},"From the policy perspective, Illinois and New York took some inspiration from California a few years back, initiating their own voucher style rebate system to eliminate the difference in cost between a diesel and electric vehicle. Although the appropriation of funding was a one-time measure, sustained funding has been made available through the federal VW settlement. The VW settlement has expanded the interest in electric vehicles nationwide with most states now offering subsidies for commercial electric vehicles.",{"type":574,"attrs":622,"content":623},{"textAlign":49},[624],{"text":625,"type":579},"In general, though, there is a strong appetite for electrification across the nation, especially for short haul and last mile applications where fleets are seeing price parity within a few years of operations.",{"type":574,"attrs":627,"content":628},{"textAlign":49},[629],{"text":630,"type":579},"One of the major forces driving this nationwide interest in electrification is to achieve a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) through significantly reduced fuel and maintenance costs. With ever-expanding emissions regulations and chronically volatile diesel prices, more and more fleets regardless of their location are seeing electrification as a necessity, not an option.",{"type":574,"attrs":632,"content":633},{"textAlign":49},[634],{"text":635,"type":579},"Benchmark: How does regional and national government policy affect this? Can you give some examples?",{"type":574,"attrs":637,"content":638},{"textAlign":49},[639,640],{"text":618,"type":579},{"text":641,"type":579},"Policy plays strongly in our favour. With climate change policy expanding from a statewide priority to a worldwide priority, the door is left wide-open for electric vehicle manufacturers to bring product to market.",{"type":574,"attrs":643,"content":644},{"textAlign":49},[645,647],{"text":646,"type":579},"In California specifically, policy for electric vehicles trickles down from two large climate change bills, AB32 and SB32, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emission 30% by 2020 and 40% by 2030 respectively. The primary goal of most existing government grant and incentive programs is to help offset the typically higher",{"text":648,"type":579},"initial purchase price of electric vehicles to speed up adoption.",{"type":574,"attrs":650,"content":651},{"textAlign":49},[652],{"text":653,"type":579},"Thanks to some of these opportunities, we’re seeing early adopters acquire electric vehicles for well below even the price of a comparable diesel vehicle. While our vehicles are designed and engineered to be viable in the marketplace without subsidies, this is undeniably a great time for fleets to explore electrification while these grant and incentive opportunities are still available.",{"type":574,"attrs":655,"content":656},{"textAlign":49},[657],{"text":658,"type":579},"Benchmark: For commercial trucks, is a widespread charging infrastructure as important as with other EVs?",{"type":574,"attrs":660,"content":661},{"textAlign":49},[662,663],{"text":618,"type":579},{"text":664,"type":579},"Widespread charging infrastructure buildout will be essential for electrifying long-haul routes, but this doesn’t pose a roadblock for the local and regional applications that",{"type":574,"attrs":666,"content":667},{"textAlign":49},[668],{"text":669,"type":579},"Thor is laser-focused on electrifying. For these applications, we work hand-in-hand with our customers to develop custom plans for in-yard charging. Each customer’s yard is different, requiring a unique solution but we’ve built out the right team and partners to provide these plans as turn-key solutions.",{"type":574,"attrs":671,"content":672},{"textAlign":49},[673],{"text":674,"type":579},"We help fleets from charger selection, planning all the way through installation, helping them determine the most cost-effective solution that will meet their charging needs. Building out charging infrastructure onsite, especially if it requires a utility upgrade, can be a daunting task which is why we assist the fleets we work with from start to finish, minimising any barriers to adoption.",{"type":574,"attrs":676,"content":677},{"textAlign":49},[678],{"text":679,"type":579},"Benchmark: Can you describe your approach to battery pack size and how this will differ for different models you intend to make?",{"type":574,"attrs":681,"content":682},{"textAlign":49},[683,684],{"text":618,"type":579},{"text":685,"type":579},"Thor’s battery design focuses on industry leading safety, cost, and modularity. The modules and packs are designed in a way that allows us to combine them for various applications and use cases in commercial trucking, other vehicle types, and even energy storage.",{"type":574,"attrs":687,"content":688},{"textAlign":49},[689],{"text":690,"type":579},"Benchmark: You make your own battery packs. Can you let us know how you approach this?",{"type":574,"attrs":692,"content":693},{"textAlign":49},[694,695],{"text":618,"type":579},{"text":696,"type":579},"We want to present an economically and environmentally sustainable solution with our technology so that our product can be easily adopted and serviced by today’s fleets. We focused our battery design on three key areas: modularity, commercial-grade batteries and reliability.",{"type":574,"attrs":698,"content":699},{"textAlign":49},[700,702,704],{"text":701,"type":579},"Firstly, with regards to modularity, we see",{"text":703,"type":579}," and ",{"text":705,"type":579},"benefit from millions of miles of learning. Using standard parts also ensures that our customers can easily get their vehicles serviced locally, without having to track down specialty suppliers.",{"type":574,"attrs":707,"content":708},{"textAlign":49},[709],{"text":710,"type":579},"Benchmark: On our recent visit, it was quite interesting to see the work you had done on battery chemistry. How important is chemistry to the design and desired performance of your trucks?",{"type":574,"attrs":712,"content":713},{"textAlign":49},[714,715],{"text":618,"type":579},{"text":716,"type":579},"Choosing the right chemistry for a given application is very important to us. For on road vehicles, energy density is paramount (as compared to stationary storage). There are undoubtedly trade-offs between safety, cost, life cycle, availability, and energy density – and you certainly can’t have it all, but some of those trade-offs (like safety and lifecycle) can be managed at the module and pack level more easily than others such as cost and availability.",{"type":574,"attrs":718,"content":719},{"textAlign":49},[720],{"text":721,"type":579},"Benchmark: As an ultimate end user that sits right at the end of the supply chain: Do any battery raw materials cause concern to your business? Can you delve into why?",{"type":574,"attrs":723,"content":724},{"textAlign":49},[725,726],{"text":618,"type":579},{"text":727,"type":579},"Of course! The sustainability, ethics of sourcing, and cost of raw materials are a concern for us personally, and even something our fleet customers often ask about. We consider ourselves a triple bottom line business that needs to not only generate profits, but also have a social and environmental impact, and that goes for sourcing as well.",{"type":574,"attrs":729,"content":730},{"textAlign":49},[731],{"text":732,"type":579},"While we aren’t sourcing raw material ourselves, we are certainly letting our concerns and preference be known to cell manufacturers.",{"type":574,"attrs":734,"content":735},{"textAlign":49},[736],{"text":737,"type":579},"Cobalt is getting a lot of attention now both for its cost and the conditions under which some of it is sourced.",{"type":574,"attrs":739,"content":740},{"textAlign":49},[741,743,745],{"text":742,"type":579},"If you take a longer view, you’ll notice that",{"text":744,"type":579}," the ",{"text":746,"type":579},"cobalt content of lithium ion cells has dropped dramatically over the last decade from double digits of a cells energy content, to five percent or less.",{"type":574,"attrs":748,"content":749},{"textAlign":49},[750],{"text":751,"type":579},"Benchmark: To alleviate any concerns, would you ever conceive as an EV producer becoming involved in the raw materials side of the business? Whether that is by securing long term supply or investing in operations to guarantee supply.",{"type":574,"attrs":753,"content":754},{"textAlign":49},[755,756],{"text":618,"type":579},{"text":757,"type":579},"Anything is possible. As our volumes increase it may become necessary to invest heavily to guarantee supply of raw materials. However, as a new entrant one of our advantages is our ability to remain flexible and open to new technologies while innovation in the space is moving faster than ever.",{"type":574,"attrs":759,"content":760},{"textAlign":49},[761],{"text":762,"type":579},"It’s not the right time for us to lock ourselves into a massive supply of a particular material.","Following Benchmark Minerals Week, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence visited Thor Trucks’ offices and factory in North Hollywood, California. We had the chance to speak to Dakota Semler, CEO and Co-Founder, about the company’s plans, how electric vehicles can infiltrate the truck market and their views on the supply of raw materials for electric vehicles. Benchmark: When […]",[765],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":766},{"job_title":565,"image":767,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},{"filename":567},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"3bb81a48-123b-45fc-bad9-ac216e50a1bf\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[771,774],{"slug":772,"name":773},"batteries","Batteries",{"slug":775,"name":776},"critical-minerals","Critical Minerals","private",{"id":49,"alt":779,"name":779,"focus":779,"title":779,"source":779,"filename":780,"copyright":779,"fieldtype":781,"meta_data":782,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/53f7f36af4/bm-etone20at20thor20parking20light20exterior203.jpg","asset",{"alt":779,"title":779,"source":779,"copyright":779},"Jan 28, 2019","28th January 2019",[],[],1790082850019]