Best of Linkedin: Charging & Battery Technology CW 44/ 45

00:00:00: Provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus, based on the most relevant LinkedIn post about charging battery technology in calendar weeks forty-four to forty five.

00:00:09: Frenness is a BtoB market research company that supports automotive suppliers with building feature by feature competitive intelligence which shows exactly how their product stacks up against competition.

00:00:19: You can find more info in description

00:00:22: Right!

00:00:22: And welcome everyone.

00:00:24: If you're a mobility professional navigating the electric vehicle space, You know how fast things are shifting right now.

00:00:29: Yeah exactly today we Are on a very specific mission.

00:00:34: We're doing a deep dive into The top charging and battery tech trends that have been blowing up across linkedin over the past couple of weeks.

00:00:41: Yep calendar week's forty four and forty five

00:00:43: Right

00:00:44: And look were keeping this smart focused and totally fluff free.

00:00:48: Right, because frankly the era of blindly building chargers everywhere it's kind ending.

00:00:52: I mean we really have to look at that immediate economic reality in these networks.

00:00:56: Oh absolutely The focus right now is entirely on making them pay.

00:01:00: We've officially shifted from just raw expansion into actual utilization

00:01:05: Which a huge pivot And data we're seeing is wild.

00:01:09: Yeah It really is.

00:01:10: Just looking for recent insights from Basker Colshaw.

00:01:14: So their revenue grew twelve percent which, you know sounds pretty standard.

00:01:18: But the context is what's crazy.

00:01:21: over that same time new public DC fast charging installations in Europe and North America actually fell by eleven percent.

00:01:28: wait they fell

00:01:30: right.

00:01:30: so infrastructure growth is actively slowing down.

00:01:33: Right but... And this is a kicker.

00:01:35: The energy charged through chem powered chargers grew eighty three percent.

00:01:39: Wow

00:01:40: Yeah because battery electric vehicle registrations are still rising.

00:01:44: So demand is just massively outpacing the new infrastructure.

00:01:47: But at the same time, the average utilization is still surprisingly low?

00:01:52: Yeah it's a weird paradox!

00:01:53: Like Bart Saunders shared some data that U.S fast charging utilization is hovering around a mere sixteen percent.

00:01:59: Wow...just sixteen percent.

00:02:00: yeah and up in Canada its closer to ten percent.

00:02:03: but the variance is just

00:02:04: extreme.

00:02:05: like you have The Tesla Diner on Hollywood handling sixteen hundred sessions of day across eighty stalls.

00:02:11: Right, a total gold mine.

00:02:12: Exactly.

00:02:13: but then you have rural sites that just sit entirely empty

00:02:15: Which is terrifying for operators.

00:02:18: It is I mean Chris Powers brought in this real estate perspective That highlights how brutal the math was.

00:02:24: Oh yeah The landlord's mouth.

00:02:26: He shared scenario where three thousand dollars per month and charger income at retail center can literally turn into negative fifteen-thousand dollar loss

00:02:34: Really?

00:02:34: How does it happen?

00:02:36: Well once you lose third of your parking ratio to chargers artificially cap the foot traffic for your prime retail tenants.

00:02:44: The landlord just loses out big time!

00:02:47: Okay, let's unpack this... Is it like building a massive hotel where only sixteen percent of rooms are booked on average but you're losing Prime restaurant seating to build more empty rooms?

00:02:56: Yes exactly that is the perfect analogy and operators are finally waking up to this.

00:03:01: they're getting much smarter using AI to fix it.

00:03:05: Right.. Like that post from Volodymyr Bill Nako.

00:03:07: Yeah....

00:03:08: That was fascinating.

00:03:09: He used cloud AI and GOSQL to analyze public EU charging data.

00:03:13: Mm-hmm, spatial analytics?

00:03:16: Exactly.

00:03:17: And he found seven hundred sixty two NBW sites operating at twenty five point eight percent occupancy compared To just fourteen point four percent for their competitors.

00:03:27: Wow almost double.

00:03:29: Yeah, it was uncovering all these hidden weak spots in the competitor networks Just by mapping the data

00:03:35: Which honestly if you are listening to this right now as a mobility professional You can no longer just look at charger deployment numbers.

00:03:42: Definitely not,

00:03:43: you have to look at spatial analytics and real utilization.

00:03:46: understand the market health otherwise your flying blind

00:03:49: right?

00:03:49: And another thing killing utilization is basic pricing transparency.

00:03:54: Oh don't even get me started on the pricing screens.

00:03:57: It's bad.

00:03:58: Eric van Vorden discussed a recent Aladdin L survey it showed that four in ten Dutch EV drivers literally dont know what their next charge will cost.

00:04:07: Four In Ten.

00:04:08: That's insane.

00:04:09: Imagine pulling up to a gas pump with the blank sign.

00:04:11: Exactly, you wouldn't use it No.

00:04:14: But there is a proposed solution that Yachtberger shared from an UK review.

00:04:17: It's called tariff porting.

00:04:19: Oh based on German Durchleitung concept.

00:04:22: Yep!

00:04:22: Basically let drivers use their domestic home electricity rate at local public chargers

00:04:27: And sounds amazing for consumers

00:04:29: It is, but there are still huge open questions.

00:04:32: Like how do you handle the access fees for the hardware or what happens if a charger's just unavailable?

00:04:38: The business model isn't quite there yet.

00:04:40: Right

00:04:40: it's complicated.

00:04:41: and speaking of complicated grid math If passenger cars were challenging heavy-duty trucks Are causing a massive bottleneck right now.

00:04:49: Oh completely!

00:04:50: The debate around the EU's twenty thirty CO two targets For electric trucks Is incredibly heated.

00:04:57: Mercedes-Benz truck CEO, Ockin and Pucart is actually calling for weaker targets.

00:05:01: Right the manufacturers want twenty thirty pushed back to twenty thirty three.

00:05:06: Yeah because they're saying there's just a total lack of charging infrastructure.

00:05:09: They can't sell trucks if buyers can charge them.

00:05:11: But then you have the completely opposite view from Steph Cornelis at Transport & Environment

00:05:16: right?

00:05:17: The NGO side

00:05:18: exactly.

00:05:19: he countered this by stating that compliance Actually only requires twenty three percent e-truck sales in twenty thirty.

00:05:25: Oh Not the thirty five percent.

00:05:26: The industry claims

00:05:27: right much lower and he pointed out that actual infrastructure demand is around four thousand mcs or megawatt charging system chargers not the Thirty-five thousand, the industries asking for.

00:05:38: there's a massive disconnect in the math it

00:05:41: really does.

00:05:42: It's tough because both sides are looking at totally different baseline assumptions, but Carl Magnus Norden from Decade Energy added some great context to this.

00:05:51: What's

00:05:51: his take on it?

00:05:52: He argues strongly against delaying the targets.

00:05:55: he warned that stalling just gives Tesla and Chinese competitors time to win over European customers.

00:06:00: So its a huge competitive risk.

00:06:02: But what is solution for the grit?

00:06:04: His answer is add batteries behind existing depot grid connections.

00:06:08: Just bypassed utility bottleneck altogether.

00:06:10: That makes total sense.

00:06:11: By the way, if you want to stay on top of these fast-moving regulatory shifts make sure to subscribe for this deep dive so that we catch all our future additions.

00:06:19: Yeah definitely hit subscribe!

00:06:21: And you know Norden's point about depots really aligns with a physical reality where trucks charge

00:06:26: Right.

00:06:26: Martin Salomon shared his study from ICCT and Fraunhofer ISI.

00:06:30: Yes

00:06:31: it was staggering.

00:06:32: It projects one hundred terawatt hours of truck charging per year by twenty thirty five And seventy to eighty percent of that is happening at depots behind a fence.

00:06:42: Which, it's just crazy concentration on energy!

00:06:44: The study noted the busiest ten-percent locations will take sixty or ninety per cent of their energy with peaks of twenty to fifty megawatts in one site.

00:06:54: That's practically small town... So grade connection?

00:06:57: Not charger itself as real bottleneck.

00:06:59: Exactly.

00:07:00: Utility lead times for those connections takes years

00:07:03: though we can't ignore corridor charging completely.

00:07:07: Christophe Liffey-Libert noted that long haul trucks will grow from twenty seven percent of Europe's e-truck stock in twenty thirty to fifty percent by twenty forty five.

00:07:15: Right, they still need a charge on the highway.

00:07:17: Yeah and real world hubs are actually opening up.

00:07:21: Jan Jakras shared that Pragma Charge has new UK hub near the port of Felikstow.

00:07:25: Oh nice!

00:07:26: And Fastnet is opening dedicated truck lanes into Netherlands so they aren't fighting with passenger cars.

00:07:30: That's smart layout.

00:07:32: but You know, with GridConnection's bottlenecking depot charging and long-haul demand rising the industry is essentially forced to innovate entirely new business models.

00:07:42: Yeah they're having to totally rethink the vehicle architecture and the charging paradigms.

00:07:46: Absolutely like Abdullah Jaber from Deimos he pointed out this massive blind spot we all have.

00:07:52: Oh about only focusing on The Tractor?

00:07:54: Exactly He says We need To look at the electrified trailer.

00:07:58: By distributing the drive and storage into the trailer, you fundamentally change where-and when a truck needs to charge.

00:08:05: That is such a cool concept!

00:08:07: And Will Rowe at Swaptopus shared an even more radical shift...

00:08:11: Swaptapus?

00:08:12: That's the octopus energy in cattle joint venture

00:08:15: right?!

00:08:15: Yeah

00:08:15: exactly They are building battery swapping network but specifically for autonomous freight.

00:08:21: Oh wow Why Autonomous?

00:08:22: Specifically

00:08:24: Because the reasoning is that autonomous trucks won't have those mandatory forty-five minute driver breaks.

00:08:29: Oh, right!

00:08:32: Yeah a robot doesn't need to eat lunch so they literally can't afford to sit and charge for an hour.

00:08:37: yeah They have to swap and go.

00:08:39: designing For The Autonomous Future.

00:08:41: And you know we're seeing software aggregation step up too.

00:08:45: I like what Niall Rudell was doing at Powa.

00:08:47: Yep

00:08:48: He is aggregating UK public chargers, but also shared private depot truck chargers all into one app and one invoice.

00:08:56: Oh so you can use someone else's Depot when it's empty?

00:08:58: Exactly!

00:08:59: It maximizes the use of existing infrastructure.

00:09:02: And on the hardware side Richard Laxton shared this skid-mounted charger and best combo from Go EV.

00:09:08: Right The one that delivers six hundred forty kilowatts to a single handle.

00:09:11: Yes...and

00:09:12: because of the battery buffer..it does.

00:09:13: without massive civil works You just

00:09:15: drop in Which was incredible.

00:09:17: But y'know Seeing all these massive batteries at depots, what about vehicle-to-grid for this mass of truck batteries?

00:09:24: MAN just showed ten to twenty percent lower electricity costs doing this than a depot.

00:09:28: Why isn't everyone doing

00:09:29: it?".

00:09:30: Well

00:09:30: that sounds great but Jamie Sands highlighted the real issue.

00:09:33: Truck VTG is stuck on The Warranty not The Electronics

00:09:36: Really

00:09:37: Just the paperwork.

00:09:38: Basically

00:09:39: Every cycle sold back to the grid degrades a battery That an OEM guaranteed.

00:09:44: Ah!

00:09:44: So the OEM takes the hit

00:09:46: Right.

00:09:46: And the OEM gets none of the flexibility revenue, so until someone prices and underwrites that specific risk VTG for trucks remains just a demo Man!

00:09:55: That is frustrating.

00:09:57: But I guess that warranty roadblock brings us right to the core Of all these mobility challenges Which is the battery cell itself.

00:10:03: Yep How we scale it...and how eventually unlock that bi-directional potential For everyday consumer

00:10:09: Which isn't easy.

00:10:10: No Siu Wong at Factorial shared some great insights on three valleys of death in battery scaling.

00:10:17: The

00:10:17: Three Valleys, right?

00:10:18: Yeah the first valley is just moving from a tiny five amp hour lab cell to a forty-amp hour automotive pouch cell

00:10:24: which completely changes the thermal dynamics.

00:10:27: exactly then the second valley's going from that First Forty Amp Hour Cell To making thousands Of them consistently!

00:10:34: The manufacturing yield at nightmare

00:10:36: yep and the third Valley Is Scaling From Thousands to Millions.

00:10:40: it is brutal

00:10:41: It really is.

00:10:42: And Dr.

00:10:42: Manjit Singh Gaha detailed the engineering nuances of fast-charging these commercial cells.

00:10:47: Oh, this was super technical but... Really important

00:10:50: Yeah!

00:10:50: He pointed out that The same C rate doesn't equal the same aerial current Right.

00:10:55: So at a five c charge A thicker four milliamp hour per square centimeter electrode carries Four times the aerial current Of a thin one milli amp hour electrode.

00:11:06: Wow

00:11:06: Yeah Which leads to longer journeys for the ions and a huge risk of lithium plating.

00:11:11: Okay, here's where it gets really interesting.

00:11:13: so hitting a fast charge on high capacity commercial cell is like trying to force the same amount of water through a mile long pipe as you would a garden hose.

00:11:22: The pressure in resistance changed everything.

00:11:25: Exactly.

00:11:25: that is the physical reality inside this cell.

00:11:28: And once these batteries somehow survive their car Their second life use actually highly debated now Really?

00:11:35: I thought Second Life was the holy grail.

00:11:38: Well, Peter Kroll shared that Redwood materials is doing it.

00:11:41: They wired a hundred plus retired Rivian packs into a ten megawatt hour factory battery

00:11:47: which sounds amazing.

00:11:48: It does but Joseph Seger notes that Europe is broadly backing away from grid scale second life EV batteries.

00:11:56: Wait why?

00:11:57: Because inheriting someone else's degradation curve Is just too financially risky.

00:12:01: Oh I guess you don't know how the previous owner drove it

00:12:03: Exactly.

00:12:04: It's much safer and cheaper for utilities to just buy brand new LFP batteries.

00:12:09: Lithium-Iron phosphate, that makes sense.

00:12:12: but speaking of the grid let's pivot to a massive breakthrough for The Home.

00:12:15: Bidirectional charging getting cheaper?

00:12:17: Yes!

00:12:18: Ellie Cohen & Lauren McDonald highlighted Ford's upcoming Fathom EV.

00:12:22: Oh...the new pickup?

00:12:24: Yeah

00:12:24: starting under thirty thousand dollars it has built in inverter in its EBOX

00:12:29: which is game changer right?

00:12:31: Huge.

00:12:32: It completely avoids the need for a separate, expensive wall-mounted inverter and it delivers over ten kilowatts of AC power straight to home.

00:12:39: That's incredible!

00:12:40: But you know while hardware is getting cheaper...the regulations are still really misunderstood.

00:12:46: Oh

00:12:46: like EU stuff?

00:12:47: Yeah Yontora Gyobe clarified this.

00:12:50: People got confused about the EUs' twenty-twenty seven ISO fifteen one eight dash twenty requirement.

00:12:56: Right everyone thought that mandated bidirectional charging.

00:12:58: Exactly.

00:13:00: But it's actually just about the communication protocol.

00:13:02: It mandates a software language, but offering bidirectional charging remains totally optional for operators.

00:13:08: Interesting!

00:13:09: It is laying the groundwork…but it IS missing piece of grid puzzle.

00:13:13: Definitely.

00:13:14: Gabriel Koss shared that Portland General Electric's virtual power plant passed over six hundred megawatts which proves when customer resources are aggregated they really do become dependable utility assets.

00:13:27: They absolutely Which honestly leaves us with a pretty provocative final thought to ponder from all these sources.

00:13:33: Yeah,

00:13:33: let's hear it

00:13:34: Well as these batteries get bigger and charge times drop to single-digit minutes And as our cars literally become power plants for our homes Who ultimately owns the battery's degradation?

00:13:46: Oh right

00:13:47: going back to the truck warranty issue

00:13:48: exactly

00:13:49: will The future of mobility rely on buying A vehicle outright or just leasing the energy flowing through It?

00:13:55: that is a fascinating question.

00:13:57: to leave you one.

00:13:58: Well, if you enjoyed this episode new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:14:03: Also check out our other editions on commercial fleet insights autonomous mobility markets and software defined in AI-defined vehicles.

00:14:11: Thanks for joining us.

00:14:12: And yeah just a final reminder to subscribe so you don't miss the next one take care.