"China Decade of Dominance in EV Batteries" (CATL; BYD; TSLA)

You don't hear much about cobalt any more do you? 

From EETimes, August 25:

Not accidental but the result of a “very smart” long-term strategy, over ten years, to prioritize LFP batteries. 

For over a decade, China has meticulously orchestrated a strategic ascent in the global electric vehicle (EV) batteries market, culminating in a dominance that now presents a formidable challenge to Western manufacturers. 

From government-backed gigafactories to proprietary technology in crucial materials, China has established what one industry expert describes as “almost a moat” around its battery production, leaving Europe and the United States scrambling to catch up.

In an exclusive interview with EE Times, Doron Myersdorf, CEO of the battery technology company StoreDot, offers a stark assessment of the geopolitical and technological landscape. He attributes China’s current position to a “very smart” long-term strategy, initiated over ten years ago, to prioritize Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries. 

This foresight capitalized on China’s abundant iron resources and its early development of intellectual property (IP) in producing the composite for liquid fermions.

LFP power play and China’s strategic advantage
China’s calculated shift from Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) to LFP production was not merely a material preference; it was a blueprint for global control. Myersdorf notes that it was “there was a deliberate long-term strategy, conceived a decade ago, to leverage existing supply chains, intellectual property, and operational gigafactories. This foresight has resulted in a global dominance in LFP production today.”

This strategic leverage is evident in the struggles of companies like Northvolt, Europe’s once-heralded battery hope, which, despite significant efforts, was unable to achieve the economies of scale or yield competitive advantages, partly due to its reliance on Chinese equipment and expertise. 

Beyond raw material control, China has innovated within LFP chemistry, significantly improving efficiency. By enabling the use of larger LFP cells—a design not feasible with NMC due to safety concerns—Chinese manufacturers developed concepts like BYD’s blade battery and the “cell to pack,” “cell to chassis,” and “cell to body” designs.

These innovations eliminate modules and their associated overhead, a design inherent to NMC. Myersdorf explains that this combination of factors has effectively created “almost a monopoly on LFP” for China, establishing “like a moat for China in dominance of batteries for at least the next 10 years.”

While NMC still offers better performance for high-end vehicles, providing superior range and fast charging—a segment where StoreDot leverages NMC and silicon to deliver technologies like the Polestar 5, capable of charging in 10 minutes, LFP remains the dominant choice for A, B, and C-segment cars, as well as commercial vehicles, primarily due to cost, with supply almost exclusively coming from China.

Another critical component, graphite for anodes, also sees China holding a significant market share, “controlling over 90% percent of the graphite in the market.”....

....MUCH MORE 

Previously on iron batteries:

Deep Dive: Iron Batteries Crushed The Demand For Cobalt, Reduced The Demand For Nickel

Watch Out Elon, Here Come The Iron Batteries (TSLA)

Tesla's Pivotal Move In Battery Chemistry (TSLA)

"What Tesla’s bet on iron-based batteries means for manufacturers" (TSLA)

 "Tesla will only use iron-based batteries for standard model EVs" (TSLA)

 Batteries: Lithium-Iron may be Competitive With Lithium-Cobalt

Platts' "Commodity Tracker: 5 charts to watch this week"

Batteries: ...The Race to Build Europe’s First Lithium-Iron-Phosphate Battery Gigafactory
Lithium-Iron, it's all anyone is talking about....

"Tesla in talks with China's EVE for low-cost battery supply deal -sources" TSLA)
Well I guess Tony Stark Elon Musk is now officially Iron Man. 

One more from 2018—apparently a great year for Iron Age types while I kept writing Bronze Age on my checks. ("Dad, what's a check?"):

Twenty Month Payback for Tesla 100-MW Utility Scale Battery Storage System
Elon (and Panasonic) may have just found another multi-billion dollar business.
Going forward the chemistry probably won't be Lithium ion, maybe molten-salt or iron based, but the fact TSLA can now pitch this kind of payback probably heralds the beginnings of lithium rush 3.0, or at least the promotion thereof....

And on fast charging:

Seven years ago - "DOE to fund $15M for fast electric vehicle charging research":
The fast-charging ability is going to be crucial for mass acceptance of electric vehicles if they are to be anything more than commuter-type transportation that can recharge overnight at home.

 

Watch Out Elon: Sweden's Polestar Extreme Fast Charging EV Prototype Can Add 100 Miles Of Range In Five Minutes

"China's top EV battery maker announced a breakthrough, but top boffin isn't convinced"

 
Watch Out Elon: "Wireless EV Charging Hits Key Benchmark"

Chinese EV battery maker CATL unveils LFP battery with 1,000 km range

It's not just the 620 mile range. The battery can handle extremely fast charging. From Electrek, also April 25:

CATL unveils world’s first LFP battery with 4C ultra-fast charging for 370-mi in 10 mins

"....that can add 370 miles (600 km) range in 10 minutes..."

And the flywheels? From the time CATL introduced the predecessor to the new battery, July 11, 2023:

"CATL announces new battery with 400 kilometer range on 10 minute charge"
Have I ever mentioned the "Flywheel Effect?"
*****
I think we're witnessing the Flywheel Effect in action at, not just China's but the world's largest battery producer.
Incremental advantages lead to overwhelming business success. I don't know if there are 16,000 researchers in the entire rest of the battery biz. If that's the case, how can they catch up to CATL? 

Amazing what being able to hire 16,000 researchers can lead to,

And just for grins and giggles, from Reuters, April 29, 2024:

CATL boss visits Elon Musk's Beijing hotel on Tesla CEO's surprise trip

"Volkswagen's Scania buys bankrupt Northvolt's heavy industry battery packs unit"

From Reuters, April 11:

Volkswagen's truckmaker Scania said on Friday it had agreed to buy bankrupt Northvolt's division that makes battery packs for heavy industry, reviving a transaction first presented in February, for an undisclosed price.

Sweden's Northvolt filed for bankruptcy last month in one of the country's largest corporate failures, bringing to an end Europe's best hope of developing a rival to Asian electric vehicle battery makers....

....MUCH MORE

Batteries: "Northvolt goes bust, blames everyone else"

From Irina (OilPrice) Slav's substack, March 13:

Because of course

Northvolt has filed for bankruptcy in Sweden as was expected. They are blaming governments for not giving them enough money. After raising $15 billion over nine years in subsidies and investments from non-government entities. That’s $15 billion down the drain and not a single lesson learned.

“It is a strategic failure. Brussels has sat on the bench and been a witness to this but not done anything about it,” one Northvolt shareholder apparently said, per the FT.

“You will not reach this goal of having a European battery sector if you let private investors purely take financial decisions not based on political goals,” some “battery executive” that the FT didn’t name said.

So, what they are saying, loud and clear, is that the battery industry is completely unviable in Europe unless governments make it viable with lots and lots of money — for how long? Because it certainly hasn’t worked all that well for wind and solar, either. “But China did it,” the industry whines, including Northvolt’s interim chairman Tom Johnstone....

....MUCH MORE

Rather a sharp-tongued woman.

Most recently:

January 31 - Batteries: Sweden's Northvolt Scrambles To Avoid Liquidation
The company is already in reorganization. 

November 3034 -  "Battery unicorn Northvolt files for bankruptcy, upending Europe’s industrial plan"

And many more going back to the early investors.

Batteries: Sweden's Northvolt Scrambles To Avoid Liquidation

The company is already in reorganization.

From Reuters, January 31

Exclusive: Scania tries to breathe life into troubled EV battery maker Northvolt 

• Scania is supporting Northvolt's operations in Sweden
• Scania staff heavily involved in day-to-day running of Northvolt Ett plant, documents
• Northvolt faces financial struggles, needs $1.29 bln to overhaul, sources
• Northvolt filed for Chapter 11 after financing talks collapsed

STOCKHOLM, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Truckmaker Scania has stepped in to help Northvolt with the day-to-day running of its flagship plant in northern Sweden, a last-ditch effort to boost quality and output at the struggling electric vehicle battery maker as it scrambles to secure funds.

Since November, Scania has sent members of staff to Northvolt's Ett plant in Skelleftea, 200 kilometres below the Arctic Circle, according to internal Northvolt documents reviewed by Reuters that outline Scania's support strategy for the green tech player. The plant employs some 2,500 people.

Four Northvolt workers told Reuters they had seen Scania employees, identifiable by an orange visitor armband, inside the factory in recent months, with one saying this was happening as late as this week.

 

Scania acknowledged to Reuters that it was assisting with the production ramp-up and that it had sent staff to the Northvolt Ett plant for a period, but declined to provide further comment.

 

Under the support plan, which has not been reported, each Scania staff member is to be paired with a Northvolt shift manager or team leader to "coach" teams while "simultaneously helping to drive improvements and implement standards", an internal presentation dated early November read....

....MUCH MORE

And from Reuters via MSN, January 29:

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Volvo Cars has signed an agreement to buy struggling Swedish battery maker Northvolt's stake in their joint battery venture NOVO Energy, the Sweden-based automaker said on Wednesday, without disclosing the price.

Volvo Cars and Northvolt, which is under bankruptcy protection, formed the joint venture in 2021 to build a battery factory in Gothenburg on Sweden's west coast. The carmaker said in October it would need a new partner to keep plans for the factory on track....

....MUCH MORE  

If interested see also:

Batteries: "Northvolt says subsidiary files for bankruptcy after project pulled"

So far it's compartmentalized but the parent company is also facing financing and sales problems, more after the jump....

***

...There was a reason we titled September 5's post "Portents" - "Portents: Sweden's Northvolt may postpone $5bn Quebec battery plant by up to 18 months". It was a sign of things to come, including September 25's Batteries: "Sweden’s Northvolt to Cut 20% of Staff Amid Liquidity Crunch"

Batteries: Sweden's Northvolt Has Hired A Restructuring Expert 

"Battery unicorn Northvolt files for bankruptcy, upending Europe’s industrial plan"

The electric vehicle business is not an easy one.

"Battery unicorn Northvolt files for bankruptcy, upending Europe’s industrial plan"

From TechCrunch, November 21:

Beleaguered Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt announced today that it was filing for bankruptcy in the U.S., striking a blow to Europe’s ambitions for homegrown lithium-ion batteries.

The company reportedly chose Chapter 11 in an effort to right its finances. 

Northvolt, which had soared for years on the back of strong fundraising and a string of announcements about new facilities, has stumbled of late. It laid off 1,600 employees, about 20% of its workforce, in September, and unloaded assets in November from its ill-fated purchase of Bay Area battery startup Cuberg....

....MUCH MORE

Earlier:
Batteries: Sweden's Northvolt Has Hired A Restructuring Expert

Batteries: Sweden's Northvolt Has Hired A Restructuring Expert

From Bloomberg via Canada's Financial Post, November 20:

Sweden’s Northvolt AB hired restructuring expert Paul O’Donnell to oversee its main factory unit, as time runs short for the struggling battery maker to mend its finances outside of bankruptcy court.

O’Donnell, who has helped Thames Water engage with creditors, will become chairman of Northvolt Ett AB, the subsidiary that contains the flagship cell-manufacturing plant in northern Sweden. Northvolt has struggled to raise US$300 million in emergency funding, with Bloomberg News reporting on Friday that talks on the package were on the verge of collapse....

....MUCH MORE

October 8

Batteries: "Northvolt says subsidiary files for bankruptcy after project pulled"

So far it's compartmentalized but the parent company is also facing financing and sales problems, more after the jump....

***

...There was a reason we titled September 5's post "Portents" - "Portents: Sweden's Northvolt may postpone $5bn Quebec battery plant by up to 18 months". It was a sign of things to come, including September 25's Batteries: "Sweden’s Northvolt to Cut 20% of Staff Amid Liquidity Crunch"

Batteries: "Northvolt in talks for about 200 million euros in funding - sources"

A Reuters exclusive, October 11:

Northvolt is in talks with investors and lenders to secure about 200 million euros ($218 million) in funding, three sources familiar with the matter said, as the cash-strapped Swedish battery maker seeks to stabilise its short-term finances.

The talks have been taking place this week as the company seeks short-term financing while it still aims to raise a larger amount of capital, one of the sources said. The sources declined to be identified because the matter is confidential....

....MUCH MORE

October 8 - Batteries: "Northvolt says subsidiary files for bankruptcy after project pulled"

Batteries: "Northvolt says subsidiary files for bankruptcy after project pulled"

So far it's compartmentalized but the parent company is also facing financing and sales problems, more after the jump.

From Reuters, October 8:

Sweden's Northvolt said on Tuesday that one of its subsidiaries had filed for bankruptcy after the project it was developing was cancelled, while the rest of the cash-strapped battery making group continued to consolidate operations.

"All contacts with Ett Expansion AB will from now on be managed by the bankruptcy trustee," Northvolt said.

The Northvolt unit had been responsible for a planned tripling of capacity at the group's gigafactory in northern Sweden, but its board last month cancelled the project.

 

Northvolt said in September it would slim down and cut jobs, sparking fears that Europe's best shot at a home-grown electric vehicle battery champion may stall due to production problems, sluggish demand and competition from China.

 

"Northvolt Group continues to be in dialogue with stakeholders for continued cooperation within Northvolt Group's ongoing operations," the company added in a statement....

....MUCH MORE

Also at Reuters, October 2 - "Northvolt's $1.5 billion funding guarantee on hold, Swedish debt office says"'

Bloomberg, October 2 - "BMW Rules Out Investing in New Northvolt Funding Round"

And via Yahoo Finance, October 5 - "Northvolt’s Funding Travails Hit Battery Projects from Germany to Canada"

Finally Forbes, October 5 - "Sweden’s Environmental Minister Reiterates No Bail Out For Northvolt"

There was a reason we titled September 5's post "Portents" - "Portents: Sweden's Northvolt may postpone $5bn Quebec battery plant by up to 18 months". It was a sign of things to come, including September 25's Batteries: "Sweden’s Northvolt to Cut 20% of Staff Amid Liquidity Crunch"

Batteries: "Sweden’s Northvolt to Cut 20% of Staff Amid Liquidity Crunch"

Batteries and EVs are definitely not "easy money."

From Bloomberg, September 23:

• Manufacturer says it will reduce headcount in Sweden by 1,600
• Expansion plans also put on hold amid auto industry headwinds

Sweden’s Northvolt AB will shed 20% of its global workforce and pause its expansion plans to slow cash outflows as the battery-making firm confronts a burgeoning financial squeeze.

The company, which has struggled in its mission to stand up a home-grown supply of electric-vehicle batteries in Europe, said it will reduce its Swedish workforce by 1,600 positions as part of a strategic review that was announced this month.

Read More: Northvolt to Cut Staff, Halt Some Output as EV Demand Falls

The money-saving move comes as Northvolt continues to negotiate a new financing pact with its creditors and investors. The company in January reached agreement on a $5 billion green loan facility, taking its overall debt and equity commitments to more than $13 billion. Lenders have selected investment bank PJT Partners to help advise on options, Bloomberg News reported last week.  

The manufacturer’s rapidly mounting challenges have placed at risk Europe’s ambition to build an EV battery-making champion. The company, which earlier this year was contemplating an initial public offering, has come under increasing strain as a production ramp-up faltered, EV demand slowed and battery-cell competition from China intensified.

Northvolt has also faced a string of health and safety concerns ranging from worker deaths and injuries to reports of toxic chemical leaks. Local business daily Dagens Industri reported this month that the company was looking to raise 7.5 billion kronor ($737 million) to make September’s payroll...

....MUCH MORE

A couple days ago the usually supportive Aftonbladet published a story:

Northvolt resembles a hostage drama

Save us or everything will go to hell!
That's the approximate message from Northvolt's management.
The bite is recognizable from the banks during the financial crisis of 2008. There is no reason to go for it.... 

Machine translation.  

Our most recent post on Northvolt was September 5's "Portents: Sweden's Northvolt may postpone $5bn Quebec battery plant by up to 18 months".

"A Porsche-backed startup is building a massive battery recycling plant to boost Europe’s EV industry"

There was a time when I thought Veolia, Umicore and maybe Johnson Matthey would be European champions of battery recycling but for whatever reason they never went big.

From CNBC, September 9:

• Cylib, a startup backed by luxury sports car firm Porsche and appliances maker Bosch, is building a massive battery recycling facility in Germany.
• The plant, located in the town of Dormagen in western Germany, will span 236,000 square feet.
• Cylib said the facility is focused on the electric vehicle industry and, upon completion, will have capacity to recycle 30,000 metric tons of end-of-life batteries every year.

A massive battery recycling plant is being built in Germany by Cylib, a startup looking to reduce waste from EV batteries that have reached the end of their life.

Cylib, which is backed by luxury sports car firm Porsche

and appliances maker Bosch, on Monday started work on the new site in the town of Dormagen, in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

More than 180 million euros ($200 million) is being pumped into the facility, which is expected to span 236,000 square feet and will produce recycled batteries for the electric vehicle industry in Europe.

Cylib says its facility will be the largest end-to-end lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Europe.

It plans to recycle roughly 30,000 metric tons of end-of-life batteries at the facility each year, making it larger in scale than the current biggest plant, Hydrovolt, a joint venture between Swedish EV battery maker Northvolt and Norway-based aluminum and renewable energy firm Hydro....

....MUCH MORE

Chinese industry is also starting to go large-by-large. If interested see "Battery Recycling: Watch Out Redwood Materials"

Portents: Sweden's Northvolt may postpone $5bn Quebec battery plant by up to 18 months

From Global Construction Review, September 2:

The construction of a US$5.2bn EV battery plant in Montreal could take up to a year-and-a-half longer than planned, Canadian broadcaster CBC reports.

The factory was being developed on the city’s South Shore by Swedish battery maker Northvolt with a view to beginning production in 2026. However, the company said in a statement on Saturday that a strategic review might lead to a revised timetable.

It added that nothing had been finalised and that the results of the reconsideration were expected in the early autumn. “In the meantime, engineering and design of the technology complex are ongoing, and site preparation work continues,” the company said....

....MUCH MORE 

Also at GCR, July 5: "Production problems may prompt review of Northvolt’s €12.6bn gigafactories"

"Clean Energy's Next Trillion Dollar Business"

It is happening right now. In the U.S. battery back-up for solar and wind is being built faster than natural gas peakers are being deployed.

From The Economist, September 1:

Grid-scale batteries are taking off at last

Decarbonising the world’s electricity supply will take more than solar panels and wind turbines, which rely on sunshine and a steady breeze to generate power. Grid-scale storage offers a solution to this intermittency problem, but there is too little of it about. The International Energy Agency (IEA), an official forecaster, reckons that the global installed capacity of battery storage will need to rise from less than 200 gigawatts (GW) last year to more than a terawatt (TW) by the end of the decade, and nearly 5TW by 2050, if the world is to stay on course for net-zero emissions (see chart 1). Fortunately, though, the business of storing energy on the grid is at last being turbocharged.

Grid-scale storage traditionally relied on hydroelectric systems that moved water between reservoirs at the top and bottom of a slope. These days giant batteries stacked in rows of sheds are increasingly the method of choice. According to the IEA, 90GW of battery storage was installed globally last year, double the amount in 2022, of which roughly two-thirds was for the grid and the remainder for other applications such as residential solar. Prices are falling and new chemistries are being developed. Bain, a consultancy, estimates that the market for grid-scale storage could expand from around $15bn in 2023 to between $200bn and $700bn by 2030, and $1trn-3trn by 2040.

A plunge in the price of lithium batteries is fuelling their adoption on the grid. According to BloombergNEF, a research group, the average price of stationary lithium batteries per kilowatt-hour of storage fell by around 40% between 2019 and 2023. A global deceleration in the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), which run on similar technology, has led battery manufacturers to take a keener interest in grid storage. In 2019 stationary lithium batteries were almost 50% more expensive than those used in EVs; that difference has fallen to less than 20% as producers have piled in (see chart 2). The IEA reckons that solar power combined with batteries is now competitive with coal-fired power in India, and is on track to be cheaper than gas-fired power in America in a few years.

The centre of global battery production is China. It is home to six of the world’s ten biggest manufacturers, including CATL and BYD (see chart 3). The share of China’s battery production destined for power grids has risen from almost nothing in 2020 to around a fifth last year, overtaking the share used in consumer electronics. Growth has been helped by policies at home mandating that big solar and wind projects also install storage.

China’s battery firms are intensely innovative. CATL has increased its spending on research and development eight-fold since 2018, to $2.5bn last year. BYD, which has invested heavily in robotics and artificial intelligence, has built a battery plant in the city of Hefei that is almost entirely automated. But the industry is also swimming in overcapacity. According to BloombergNEF, China alone already produces enough lithium batteries to satisfy global demand of all types. Its industry has announced plans for a further 5.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of capacity by 2025, more than double the current global capacity of 2.6TWh.

That will be catastrophic for many firms in the battery industry, including those producing for the grid. According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, another research outfit, construction was cancelled or postponed on 19 battery gigafactories in China in the first seven months of 2024. The collapse in prices has also pummelled many Western battery startups. One example is Sweden’s Northvolt, seen by some as Europe’s answer to China’s champions. Last year it reported a loss of $1.2bn, up from $285m in 2022. The consequence is likely to be a wave of consolidation, as Robin Zeng, the boss of CATL, predicted earlier this year.

Even so, a bloodbath among battery-makers could help, rather than hurt, the adoption of battery storage. Prices could fall further as the most productive companies take a greater share of the market. Fierce competition is already spurring innovation, as companies seek out new technologies to help them compete. Sodium-ion batteries are one promising alternative. They do not require pricey lithium, and although they offer lower energy density, that is less of a problem for stationary batteries than for those powering EVs....

....MUCH MORE

"IPO watchlist: The climate tech startups most likely to go public"

Some interesting names on the list. We don't do much with IPO's, poor first year returns, book-runners offering too many of the cold ones, too few of the hot ones for shorter-term trades, etc. but the information contained in the offering documents can be treasure in and of itself.

From PitchBook, June 28:

Climate tech startups are having a strong year supported by regulatory tailwinds, high energy prices and investment. But exits remain elusive.

VC-backed climate tech deal value jumped from $2.1 billion to $8 billion quarter-over-quarter in Q1, according to PitchBook data, demonstrating growth in the vertical even putting aside H2 Green Steel‘s blockbuster $5.2 billion round.

However, because of the capital-intensive hardware needs for many companies, the path to commercial scale is longer than that of asset-lite sectors. Correspondingly, exit activity in climate tech has been muted, with total exit value falling more than 50% from 2022 to 2023 to $9.3 billion.

But there are bright spots: stand-out startups like Northvolt and Andreessen Horowitz-backed KoBold Metals have risen rapidly and could gear themselves up for an IPO in the near future.

Not all the buzzy climate tech startups of today will go the distance. “We’re going to have a few outlier winners,” said Katie Rae, managing partner at MIT-backed deep tech fund Engine Ventures, which has backed long-duration energy battery storage developer Form Energy.

Here are 10 venture-backed climate tech companies with a high likelihood of going public. The list was created using PitchBook’s VC Exit Predictor, which calculates exit probability using a machine learning model that is fed historic and real-time data on private company exits....

....MUCH MORE (names, corporate sketches)

"Swedish police investigate three unexplained deaths at an electric vehicle battery plant"

What's going on here? Northvolt's manufacturing set-up is as advanced as anyone's, it doesn't make sense that there would only be the one cluster if the battery-making process is involved.

From the Associated Press, June 27:

Police in northern Sweden said Thursday they were looking into the unexplained deaths of three men who had died within a short period after working at an electric vehicle battery plant in the Arctic. They want to find out whether the deaths are linked, whether a crime has been committed, or if they are a string of accidental workplace fatalities.

The deaths have puzzled Swedish media which have reported about the three people who died after working at Northvolt’s plant in Skelleftea, some 620 kilometers (385 miles) north of Stockholm. Two of them died in January and February, while a third one passed away last year. Two were working at the plant and the third one was a cleaning person.

Local newspaper, Norran, said that a 33-year-old cleaner was found dead in his bed in January, the day after his evening shift. A month later, a 19-year-old employee was also found dead in his bed hours after late-night work. Last year, a man in his 60s was found dead on his balcony after having worked at the plant, the newspaper said....

....MUCH MORE

"IPO Watchlist: European unicorns most likely to list" (incl. Northvolt; Graphcore)

From PitchBook, February 16:

Europe had its worst year for VC-backed IPOs in over a decade due to volatility in the public markets and poor performance from recent listings.

Only 28 companies listed on a stock exchange, raising a total of €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion), according to PitchBook’s 2023 Annual European Venture Report. But as inflation and interest rates come down and the public markets start to stabilize, more VC-backed companies may be getting their ducks in a row with an eye to listing in the near future.

Here are the European VC-backed unicorns most likely to go public. The list was created using PitchBook’s VC Exit Predictor, which calculates exit probability using a machine learning model that is fed historical and real-time data on private company exits. The predictor draws from 34 inputs related to company characteristics, financing and investors....

....MUCH MORE

We've been keeping an eye on Graphcore for eight years. Here's a 2019 post that refers back to that simpler era:

Graphcore CEO Takes A Shot at NVIDIA, Talks His Book, Makes a Good Point (NVDA)

In November 2016 we headlined a post Artificial Intelligence: What Could Derail NVIDIA? A Lab in Shenzhen; A Basement in Moscow; An Office in Bristol (NVDA).
Bristol?...

Graphcore was the "Office in Bristol".
A year later: "Sequoia Backs Graphcore as the Future of Artificial Intelligence Processors" (NVDA; INTC):
Huh.
Sometimes you get lucky...

They (and Intel) still haven't surpassed NVIDIA but are nipping at the big dog's heels.

And Northvolt? A lot of posts.

Batteries: Sweden's Northvolt Gets EU Okay For €902 Million In Government Aid For German Gigafactory

Northvolt is no longer a startup.

It is a strapping young company founded in 2015 and becoming Northvolt in 2017.

From Sifted.eu, January 8:

EU greenlights €902m Northvolt deal for German gigafactory

Northvolt’s German factory, announced last year, will be in Heide, a town near the Danish border

Swedish startup Northvolt, Europe’s best-funded battery manufacturer, has secured approval from the European Commission for €902m in state aid from Germany to build a production plant in the north of the country. 

The German state funding package was announced last year but was put in jeopardy in November, after the country announced a budget freeze. Northvolt was then granted an exception, but the deal still awaited approval from the EU.  

Northvolt’s German factory, announced last year, will be in Heide, a town near the Danish border. Production is expected to start in 2026 and produce 60 GWh of battery capacity each year, enough to power 600k electric vehicles. 

The total price tag for the facility, which is expected to create around 3,000 jobs, has been estimated at approximately €4.5bn. ...

....MUCH MORE

"Sodium in Batteries: Shift May Herald Another Shakeup" (Northvolt; CATL)

For an introduction we'll use the one from October 2017's "A Stanford battery based on sodium may offer more cost-effective storage than lithium":

We've been tracking battery technologies for a long time and if pressed to condense the lessons learned into one sentence it would be: "Scaling up is hard".
That said we keep an eye on developments, as Intel's Andy Grove once said: "Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive."

From Bloomberg, November 26, 2023:

Battery industry is starting to turn to sodium-ion products

If successful, it could yet again rejig metal demand outlook

Battery giants are starting to put their money on new sodium-based technology, a sign that there could be yet another shakeup in the industry that’s crucial for the energy transition.

Sodium — found in rock salts and brines around the globe — has the potential to make inroads into energy storage and electric vehicles because it’s cheaper and far more abundant than lithium, which currently dominates batteries. But while chemically and structurally similar, sodium has yet to be used on a large scale, partly due to the better range and performance of similarly sized lithium cells.

That could be about to change. In the past week, Sweden’s Northvolt AB said it made a breakthrough with the technology, while Chinese EV maker BYD Co. signed a deal

to build a $1.4 billion sodium-ion battery plant. China’s CATL already said in April that its sodium-based batteries will be used in some vehicles from this year.

“It’s serious investment,” said Rory McNulty, senior research analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. “It’s creating a confidence boost with them saying we are here to continue scaling capacity to commercialize this technology.”

If sodium products do prove successful, they could curb lithium consumption. It’s also a reminder of the perils of trying to forecast metals usage in a constantly evolving industry as companies seek cheaper and more efficient cells.

While sodium-ion batteries’ low energy density means they’re unsuitable for larger EVs, they could increasingly be used instead of lithium in lower-end, shorter-range vehicles — or for power-grid energy storage, where size isn’t such an issue....

....MUCH MORE

Here's the November 21 Northvolt announcement. And here is the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World with a lot of commentary, including:

Developed with research partner Altris, the battery will use a hard-carbon anode and a cathode based on Prussian white – a derivative of the famous Prussian blue paint pigment....

Our last mention of Prussian Blue was in 2021's "Batteries: Is This The End Of Lithium-ion? (and the beginning of graphene?)".

In-between the 2017 and 2021 posts were:

• "A battery technology worth its salt"
• "Sodium-ion batteries Poised to Pick Off Large-Scale Lithium-Ion Applications"

And more recently"

• "Why sodium is Mukesh Ambani’s big battery bet in EV race"
• "Electric vehicle battery makers test a future without lithium"

Here's June 2023's "CATL announces new battery with 400 kilometer range on 10 minute charge":

Have I ever mentioned the "Flywheel Effect?"

From TechNode, July 7:

On July 6, Wu Kai, Chief Scientist at China’s largest EV battery maker CATL, revealed that its new product can be charged for just 10 minutes to achieve a range of 400 kilometers. Announced at the 2023 China Auto Forum held in Jiading, Shanghai, the new battery is expected to launch within the year. Furthermore, the company aims to reduce the charging time to five to seven minutes in the future. Wu also said that, with a team of 16,000 researchers, CATL is preparing for mass production of its sodium-ion batteries....

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Why yes, I have mentioned the Flywheel Effect. A few times. Here's a post from May 2020:

Flywheel Effect: Why Positive Feedback Loops are a Meta-Competitive Advantage
Since the big name business schools are closed for a while here's a do-it-yourself Masters Class.
Following up on April's "How to Think About Companies: 'Advantage Flywheels'".....

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I think we're witnessing the Flywheel Effect in action at, not just China's but the world's largest battery producer.
Incremental advantages lead to overwhelming business success. I don't know if there are 16,000 researchers in the entire rest of the battery biz. If that's the case, how can they catch up to CATL?

Our most recent mention of the Flywheel Effect was about eight hours ago. History may not repeat itself but amateur historians sure do.

"Dyson doubles down on Singapore and ramps up hiring globally"

We last posted on Dyson in "Batteries: Northvolt and Dyson". Here CNBC takes a deeper dive in two posts June 20. First up, the headliner:

•  Tech giant Dyson is known for its consumer gadgets such as vacuum cleaners, hair styling products and air purifiers, but it is now breaking into a new generation of products.
•  The company is trying to hire another 2,000 engineers globally, according to Dyson’s director of upstream robotics, Kashyap Chandrasekar.
•  A key part of Dyson’s global investment scheme is a 247,000-square-feet battery plant in Singapore.

Dyson is known for its consumer gadgets such as vacuum cleaners, hair styling products and air purifiers, but it is now breaking into a new generation of products.

Recently launched devices like its 360 Vis Nav robot vacuum boast “intelligent” features, which require more software development — and the company has ramped up hiring in order to support those functions.

“We’ve really seen a ten-fold increase in our engineers working in software over the last years,” Dyson’s Chief Technology Officer John Churchill said. “We’re hunting for the greatest talent, from graduates of colleges to experienced people, to join us to pivot Dyson into more of a software world.”

The company is trying to hire another 2,000 engineers globally, according to Dyson’s director of upstream robotics, Kashyap Chandrasekar.

“Robotics and software are the largest pools of people we’re trying to hire,” he said....

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And:

How many engineers does it take to make a Dyson headphone? We tour its secret labs to find out

Remember Dyson’s failed project to create an electric car? We had an exclusive tour of its global headquarters in Singapore, where we got to see the full-scale model, including its secretive lab where other prototypes are tested before they are launched....

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We have a few dozen posts on the company and on Sir James. Here's one from 2016:

"James Dyson on 5,126 Vacuums That Didn’t Work— and the One That Finally Did"

Batteries: Northvolt and Dyson

Some catch-up, from Energy Storage News, May 22:

Northvolt completes construction of Poland ESS factory

European lithium-ion gigafactory firm Northvolt has completed construction of its energy storage system (ESS) production facility in Poland and expects to start production by the end of 2023.

The Sweden-headquartered firm announced the completion of construction on Linkedin over the weekend (20 May), saying it is Europe’s largest factory for ESS solutions. The facility will build its ‘Voltainer’ ESS product.

“The facility is powered solely by electricity from renewable sources. This aligns with our company’s business model, which focuses on using only green energy in all our factories located in Poland, Sweden, and Germany, as well as utilising recycled materials,” said Robert Chryc-Gawrychowski, CEO of Northvolt Poland.

The company is aiming to open the facility and start production by the end of the year. When first announced in late 2021, Northvolt said the plant would open with an initial annual production capacity of 5GWh and a potential future capacity of 12GWh.

It will receive cells from the company’s Swedish flagship gigafactory, Northvolt Ett, and the project received an EU innovation grant of €75 million (US$81 million)....

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And from The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, May 3:

Dyson makes biggest bid yet in advanced battery manufacturing 

Household appliances firm Dyson is to set up a state-of-the-art battery manufacturing plant in Singapore as part of a global push, which will also see it opening new R&D labs in the Philippines and the UK.

The company, which is now headquartered in Singapore and carries out the bulk of its manufacturing there, chose the island state as the home for its first proprietary new technology battery plant.

Dyson expects the plant, which will represent its biggest ever investment in “advanced manufacturing”, to be completed this year and to be operational by 2025.

The facility will produce batteries for Dyson products.

“Dyson started its in-house battery programme more than a decade ago, to pioneer smaller, lighter, more sustainable, and more energy-dense batteries,” said the company.

“Research teams have been working globally on the proprietary new technology battery, which uses novel materials and processes, and is assembled in a smart, digitally-enabled environment.”

Dyson chief executive officer Roland Krueger praised Singapore’s “highly skilled engineers and scientists, and supportive government that embraces Industry 4.0 manufacturing technologies"....

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But what about the Gurkhas? They never mention the Gurkhas.

Those are a couple members of Singapore's Gurkha Contingent. The gent in the foreground is the close-in guy, you can tell, not from the knife at his back, they all have those, but from the shotgun, whereas his partner has an automatic rifle.

Singapore employs 2000 as a very special department within the Singapore police.

Here's a story we linked to in 2011 about a Gurkha and some would-be rapists:

POKHARA, Jan 13: Gorkha soldiers have long been known the world over for their valor and these khukuri-wielding warriors winning the British many a battle have become folklore.

A retired Indian Gorkha soldier recently revisited those glory days when he thwarted 40 robbers, killing three of them and injuring eight others, with his khukuri during a train journey. He is in line to receive three gallantry awards from the Indian government.
Slave girl Morgiana in the Arabian Nights used her cunning to finish off Ali Baba´s 40 thieves, but Bishnu Shrestha of Baidam, Pokhara-6 did not have time to plot against the 40 train robbers. He, however, made good use of his khukuri to save the chastity of a girl and hundreds of thousands in loot.

Shrestha, who was in the Maurya Express to Gorakhpur from Ranchi on September 2 while returning home following voluntary retirement from the Indian army--saved the girl who was going to be raped by the robbers in front of her hapless parents, and in doing so won plaudits from everybody.

The Indian government is to decorate Shrestha with its Sourya Chakra, Bravery Award and Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Medal and the 35-year-old is leaving for India Saturday to receive the first of the awards on the occasion of India´s Republic Day on January 26.

“The formal announcement of the awards will be made on Republic Day and on Independence Day on August 15,” said Shrestha, whose father Gopal Babu also retired from the same 7/8 Platoon of the Gorkha Regiment around 29 years ago.

His regiment has already given him a cash award of Indian rupees 50,000, and decided to terminate his voluntary retirement. He will get the customary promotion after receiving the medals. The Indian government will also announce a cash bounty for him and special discounts on international air tickets and domestic train tickets.

The band of about 40 robbers, some of whom were travelling as passengers, stopped the train in the Chittaranjan jungles in West Bengal around midnight. Shrestha-- who had boarded the train at Ranchi in Jharkhand, the place of his posting--was in seat no. 47 in coach AC3.

“They started snatching jewelry, cell phones, cash, laptops and other belongings from the passengers,” Shrestha recalled. The soldier had somehow remained a silent spectator amidst the melee, but not for long. He had had enough when the robbers stripped an 18-year-old girl sitting next to him and tried to rape her right in front of her parents. He then took out his khukuri and took on the robbers.

“The girl cried for help, saying ´You are a soldier, please save a sister´,” Shrestha recalled. “I prevented her from being raped, thinking of her as my own sister,” he added. He took one of the robbers under control and then started to attack the others. He said the rest of the robbers fled after he killed three of them with his khukuri and injured eight others.

During the scuffle he received serious blade injury to his left hand while the girl also had a minor cut on her neck. “They had carried out their robbery with swords, blades and pistols. The pistols may have been fake as they didn´t open fire,” he surmised....MORE

Got that?
With his khukuri knife he charged 40 low-life punks armed with pistols, knives and swords.
Killed three. Wounded eight. Chased the other 29 away.

A different approach to gang-rape from that evinced by, say, the South Yorkshire Police, know what I'm sayin'?

Singapore hires 'em as cops. Pretty smart if you ask me.

"The Swedish battery unicorn that wants to solve energy storage (and no, it isn't Northvolt)"

 From Sifted.eu, April 5:

Along a basement corridor in the same building where the Swedish secret service has its offices, doors are marked with different colours depending on the voltage risk behind them.

Behind the doors with a red dot tests occur with voltage levels so high we’re not allowed to enter. “I’m not even allowed in there,” says Stefan Jansson, the CEO of Swedish energy storage scaleup Polarium. But in the rooms he can go into, his company is assembling battery cells into modules, setting them up with “state-of-the-art” electronics and software then turning them into ready-to-ship, next generation energy storage systems.

The tests are being carried out inside Polarium X, the company’s recently opened R&D centre. It’s the latest sign of growth for a unicorn that has somehow managed to mostly slip under the radar.

The technology
Polarium is often described as the twin of Swedish battery manufacturer giant Northvolt. Instead of making batteries, it purchases lithium-ion battery cells and develops commercial solutions for storing renewable energy.

The cells that battery manufacturers deliver to Polarium look similar to the normal, large cylindrical batteries you would buy in a shop. “We believe in a small size like this,” Jansson says and points at a row of cells assembled together.

They are put into battery modules with electronics and software attached, checked to see if they work and later added to wardrobe-like boxes. These are then used by the grid or commercial actors for short-term energy storage, or used for longer-term energy reserves.

Critics, however, argue that lithium-ion batteries are too expensive and need replacing frequently, so aren’t great for storing renewable energy. The way they generate energy is also a challenge....

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