Advanced Battery Materials in the Wake of a Pandemic, ft. Chloe Holzinger

Just a few months ago, solid state lithium metal batteries and innovative high nickel cathode materials were the talk of the battery town. The current crisis is accelerating some trends, but slowing others down.

Chloe Holzinger, one of the sharpest minds and analysts in the advanced lithium battery technology space, joins your host Emily Hersh to chat about lithium ion batteries in the wake of COVID 19, focusing on which trends have sped up and which have slowed down.

As companies enter a cash-constrained and risk averse environment, Chloe goes through the five major categories of players in the lithium ion battery supply chain:

1. Feedstock
2. Chemicals
3. Cathode Makers
4. Cell Manufacturing
5. Battery Makers

The chain is being squeezed, or "wrung out" on both ends, speeding up the trend of consolidation in the cell manufacturing space and slowing down advances in cathode materials and solid state technology.

Chloe describes possible impacts on EV penetration from sustained low oil prices, including potential divergence between the United States and China or Europe. We touch on hydrogen and other fuel-based future energy technologies, Tesla, Rivian, and how without changing the conversation about climate change at the federal level, automakers forced to navigate state by state will have a hard time finding inroads for EVs.

In the app-based tech world, "mobility as a service" is going to slow down for quite a while, as people have no desire to get into a shared car with a stranger anytime soon. "Super apps" that provide consumers with services from tele-health to grocery delivery are already popular in Asia, and may find growing popularity in the US as social distancing continues - which will come with their own share of privacy concerns.