I am writing this today, as I am concerned that the West has lost the plot. Actually, maybe you can't lose what you never had.
Whilst it's mostly geo-politics and certain government administrations driving an aggressive global electrification campaign, based on a looming Armageddon due to climate warming/cooling/change, or whatever fits with the changes in regional weather, an absolute fear of China and its superior efforts in producing EV's and -batteries have manifested itself in Western societies.
A multitude of companies have sprung to life to eventually build massive gigafactories everywhere, with ambitions of building millions of EV's and -batteries, to also join the party which China started preparing for more than a decade (or 2) ago. Huge government incentives have been made available, sponsored by taxpayers, to attempt to kick-start this electrification revolution, and some companies have been ready.
Billions of dollars and euro's (mainly) have been promised, to stop China's very aggressive and if may say, successful, scaling up of production of all that are required to supply most of the world with EV's and also the energy generation and -storage infrastructure. The Chinese government have invested heavily, and most R&D started more than a decade ago, if not 20 years for some products. They have been spoilt, as they have had the opportunity to practice, make all the mistakes and get better, whilst the West have been busy with other, mostly politically motivated matters.
Now it's a mad rush in the West, to scramble some projects together, to do some damage control in stopping from China taking over the World of EV's. Traditional OEM's (car manufacturers) were arrogant and ignorant, thinking that throwing money at the problem will make it go away. Many of these companies have been building cars for a very long time, and things have been relatively easy, as other people went through the growing pains in the previous century.
The following car brands were founded over 100 years ago, and have a long history of producing cars and have been able to stand the test of time by adapting to changing market conditions and consumer preferences:
Peugeot (France, founded in 1810), Opel (Germany, founded in 1862), Mercedes-Benz (Germany, founded in 1883), Skoda (Czech Republic, founded in 1895), Fiat (Italy, founded in 1899), Renault (France, founded in 1898), Ford (United States, founded in 1903), Rolls-Royce (United Kingdom, founded in 1904), Cadillac (United States, founded in 1901), Buick (United States, founded in 1903), Alfa Romeo (Italy, founded in 1910), Chevrolet (United States, founded in 1911), BMW (Germany, founded in 1916), Citroen (France, founded in 1919).
If we look at the current leaders in EV production, not a single one of these "old" car manufacturers are amongst the top dogs.
So the question begging for an answer, if it ain't sublimely rhetorical, how many of these old-timer legacy brands will die a quiet death over the next decade or so?
Will they merely be fondly remembered like your first Nokia, or the Spice Girls, and gradually fade into obscurity?
In life, most people believe that you should learn from the best in class, the individuals at the top of their game and the top performing companies. Know what they are doing, what are their secrets to success, how do they prepare and practice, what are they doing which others won't or can't. Right?
You don't bury your head in the sand and complain about how well others are doing, if you haven't changed what you have been doing to date. You don't look at their results and successes, and think that you can just reach the same heights without doing all the special things they are doing.
So what do you think you can learn from looking at market prices only? What stability is there in a price? How can you predict prices without a huge margin for error? There is very little control over a price of any commodity, especially in relatively new markets. How many times have their been price rallies in the last decade, or even 3 years?
So now you want to add announcements of intended gigafactories, many of which do not have funding secured. Most of them are new players in the business, and have never done anything in manufacturing at this scale before. Doing some experiments in a lab, or pilot scale and doing it at gigafactory scale are incomparable. It's like making yourself a gourmet sandwich, practising the scale-up on your sports-team or church event or and then attempting the same for 100,000 people for lunch.
I believe that by combining current Chinese battery materials Production Data, together with current market price data, together as a combination, much more can be learned.
There is a relatively big lag between precursor manufacturing and eventual EV-on-the-road. In the New World of EV's, 6 to 12 months is a long time. That can be the difference between having the right product, available at the right time/price, at the right price. OR, being too late... missing the boat, and having to queue up with the rest to fight over the crumbs. The difference between another year of R&D cost, versus making changes earlier, can amount to millions of dollars.
Having a community of like-minded persons, in the same or similar industry, to discuss the monthly data, and to follow new trends as and when they start, can be valuable, if not life-saving for a business, and especially for investors with skin in the game.
Relying on the marketing material from corporate presentations is an extremely risky way of learning the tricks of the trade. Market Intelligence companies feed founders and boards of directors what they need to hear to get investment.
I said to one board-member not too long ago: "Good luck raising money and using those projections about future pricing, 5-10 years into the future, at 4x the current market prices. I really hope, for your sake, that the market will also have those deficits of millions of metric tonnes, like you put into your corporate presentation. However, I sincerely hope you never use those pie-in-the-sky numbers to actually run your business !" He wasn't a happy chappy after that...
We will cover the monthly production data for following battery chemistries: LFP, NMC and LMO, as they are the biggest 3 at the moment. LMFP and Sodium batteries are not being reported on directly yet, but we can deduct much from the feedstock production.
Then we will cover the feedstocks for these battery chemistries: the sulphates of Nickel, Cobalt and Manganese, 2x Manganese-oxides, Iron-phosphate, and also the 2 lithium-compounds.
We will report on a metal contained basis for the feestocks, as battery formulations are based on actual elements, not their compounds. This is a way more sensible method to assist primary and secondary processors to gage quantities of product required. Miners don't quantify raw mineral ores or concentrates in kWh, and neither do precursor producers. This only really starts at cathode manufacturing level, and our studies cover up to pre-CAM level, i.e. the production of LFP powder, or NMC powder, etc...
We will also cover copper cathodes production and pricing in China, as there is generally a keen interest amongst many people, irrespective of direct involvement in copper cathode manufacturing. The same principle as lithium-carbonate and lithium-oxide.
Hopefully, this basket of materials can provide plenty of talking -points amongst our members, and stimulate intelligent conversations about the current state-of-affairs, and near-term trends and developments. I endeavour to spread my net wide to attract people from all over the globe, so we can build a group of people together, to collectively have an enormous pool of knowledge.
I said "we can build" as I will implement a referral / affiliate program, to reward those individuals who make work of actively seeking new members for our community, and to also off-set part, if not all of their membership fees.
As there will be an enormous amount of residual value in being a member, and also to keep out free-loaders and other parasites, there will be no free lunch, or trial memberships.
We intend offering the best value for many for your membership, compared to any subscription service out there, and to retain our members for a long time. By continuously striving to add more value over time, our membership will become increasingly important, to stay informed in an immensely fast moving sector.
I aim to launch the actual membership community website in September 2023, but I am still learning all the ins-and-outs about the website building platform I intend using.
I also need to start getting a feel of possible numbers of people and/or companies who may be interested in membership, to fine-tune my pricing model...
So, please get friends and foe, from near and far, to pop in their email on this site's home page... Just an email for now, as I will send more info later.
