TESLA Battery Day will be presented on Sep 22.
TESLA is the battery metals research leader globally.
AUZ recently stated that the outcomes of TESLA Battery Day will have effects on the battery metals industry, so negotiations are virtually on freeze, pending TESLA’s public presentation this month.
Tesla has Filed Patents or acquired companies with new ground breaking patents for a few years now, including many public and secret moves recently in 2020.
There are several important patents that are public and secret to discuss. Patents are regularly far longer than 60 pages in length. I will have to discuss the Patents here in short form. I will be brief to reduce the length of my post. I will discuss whether TESLA’s battery advancements have an impact on AUZ.
Before we dive into the patents, I will highlight a couple of KEY brief items spoken by AUZ so far this month.
- Sconi is a Nickel Sulphate –Cobalt Sulphate –Scandium Oxide project.
- AUZ is now looking at expanding the project to include MANGANESE SULPHATE.
- AUZ will Supply metals to NCA Cathodes (Nickel-Cobalt-Aluminium) and NMC Cathodes (Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese).
- Expanding into Manganese allows them to supply an extra ingredient for NMC Cathodes.
This would be attractive as AUZ would be a 1 stop shop for NMC cathodes, and also able to supply most metals for NCA cathodes.
- AUZ is shaping up to become a greater value, lower costs metals supplier than global competitors.
- TESLA’s public announcements on Sep 22 will have huge impacts on the future of battery metals.
- AUZ has spoken to off-take partners and everyone is in agreeance to extend off-take negotiations until after the TESLA public presentation as it will directly affect the off-take agreements for AUZ.
- Nickel rich batteries are expected in the TESLA Battery Day presentation.
- AUZ Sconi has a project payback period of 5.8years.
I am not going to discuss other corporate and product aspects of AUZ. I will just discuss the future of TESLA and how it impacts AUZ.
TESLA PATENTS and acquisitions Public & Yet-to-be-publicly-announced:
1) Tesla Tabless electrode Patent.
This is a physical construction assembly design improvement only. The batteries will be assembled more efficiently with lower internal ohmic resistance. This patent removes production line assembly steps, increases production volume, lowers material costs, improves battery performance and lowers battery costs. This does not affect the battery metals market which is good news for AUZ.
2a) Tesla acquired Maxwell Technologies in 2019. It is viewed that TESLA bought this company not only for their super/ultra-capacitors, but also for their Dry Battery Electrode PATENT.
I will explain both.
Firstly I am expecting TESLA to announce a
TANDEM ultra-capacitor Li-ion energy cell at Battery Day Sep 22. This will take heat stress away from the battery cells increasing the life of the batteries. Batteries can only release or charge in Kilowatts. So the capacitors will provide more power in Megawatts to the motors, and conveniently absorb all the Megawatts of energy during heavy regenerative breaker.
This is good news for AUZ as it does not affect the battery metals market.
2b) Now, secondly and more importantly the Dry Battery Electrode PATENT.
This DBE technology can be applied to batteries without the use of solvents.
The wet solvents take up a long time in the manufacturing process, they have to be dried and baked off, taking up a lot of physical floor space and ovens for this process. DBE will drastically
decrease production times by 16x, reduce material costs, large increases in battery cell energy performance and decrease battery costs.
This does not affect the electrode composition.
Once again this technology is great news for AUZ as it does not affect the battery metals market.
3) TESLA Single Crystal Cathode patent filed 2019.
Polycrystalline cathodes exhibit degradation at the individual poly-crystal barriers within the electrodes. Mono crystal technology removes these week points.
This is expected to increase the
batteries end-of-life to 1 600 000km’s for EV’s and 20 years for Grid Storage.
This technology can be applied to NMC, NCA and any applicable electrode technology.
Once again this is good news and does not affect the battery metals market for AUZ.
4) Lithium Doping Patent filed in April 2020.
Rechargeable batteries lose around 7 to 10% of their capacity during their formation, when the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is formed within the battery cell during the first charge/discharge cycle.
The successful lab testing and patented technology dopes the cathodes with a layer of Lithium-Nickel-Copper-Oxide and 1% alumina to prevent the SEI cathode layer issue.
Once again this is a minor technology to assist the main NCA and NCM cathode. This is good news for AUZ as it does not disrupt the battery metals market.
5) PLAID Powertrain.
All the patents on this list coupled along with the new highly efficient PLAID Powertrain tested on the Nurburgring will combine to bring in a large step forward for TESLA.
This will affect the TESLA cyber truck, TESLA semi truck, municipal vehicles and the high performance Tesla sedan models.
The higher watt/kg battery that will be announced coupled with the efficient PLAID powertrain is everything when we consider towing weight.
In the USA they are limited to 80 000lb of weight for the entire semi-truck, including cargo.
This is big news for the EV Market as it is Key to expanding into the Semi-Track market and increasing demand volume for NMC and NCA cathode metals.
6) Dioxazolones and nitrile sulfites as electrolyte additives for lithium-ion batteries, Tesla Patent filed on Dec 2019.
Sulfites are a great addition for conductivity, especially in a dry electrode. The nitrile is an additive to help stabilize the lithium-sulfide for manufacturing purposes.
Once again this does not affect the cathode metal composition and is good news for AUZ.
7) Lithium Difluorophosphate Tesla Patent filed in Aug 2020.
This is another electrolyte patent to improve battery life and energy performance of the battery. Once again this is an electrolyte patent and does affect the NMC and NCA cathode metals. Good news for AUZ.
8) HIBAR Systems makes state of the art automated assembly machines for batteries and TESLA acquired them in October 2019.
In 2020 Tesla has announced their secret
PROJECT ROADRUNNER publicly for the first time.
The TESLA Gigafactory in California originally partnered with PANASONIC to mass produce the world’s leading performance and affordable Lithium-ion batteries.
Project roadrunner is taking this a step further by using their own state of the art automated assembly machinery and recent battery patents. This will be the first time
TESLA BUILDS THEIR OWN BATTERIES.
Tesla will be in front of the global competition with battery cost and energy density.
TESLA is also disclosing several toxic materials that will be used as part of the project.
Here’s part of the list:
Aluminum Cobalt Lithium Nickel Oxide, Titanium Butoxide, Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide, Cobalt Sulfate, Lithium Hydroxide Monohydrate, Manganese Sulfate, Nickel Sulfate, Precursor (NCA-Oxide or NCMOxide)
Based off the known patents and details of Project ROAD RUNNER that I have mentioned above, my best guess is TESLA will be producing state of the art NMC/NCA batteries.
Project roadrunner will produce batteries at very high volumes.
9) CATL CHINA, Lithium Iron Phosphate LFO.
It is also expected that TESLA will continue their partnerships with PANASONIC in California and CATL in China.
All batteries are important and not every application needs the highest performance battery. To keep up with market demand it is expected PANASONIC and CATL will continue building their battery technologies for certain product models.
CATL China’s batteries currently have less range, heavier batteries with less performance however TESLA has been able to successfully incorporate LFO batteries into certain EV models in CHINA to
appeal to the lower end of the market.
This will make lower end TESLA models more affordable so more people can enjoy the TESLA user experience.
As mentioned earlier Tesla is expected to announce a 1 Million Mile Battery ( 1 600 000km’s) NMC or NCA battery with a 20 year end of life potential.
This year CATL has announced they have successfully lab tested a Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFO)
battery with 1.2 Million Miles and 16 years of end of life potential.
CATL’s new LFO technology comes with the disadvantage that it
costs 10% more to produce than their current LFO batteries while continuing to still be
a heavier battery with less range performance than Tesla’s NCM and NCA batteries.
CATL are making advancements with longer service-life, but this battery is still heavier, has less range per charge and their newer technology has not yet managed to find a way to lower the costs.
It is safe to say TESLA will most likely continue with the current LFO batteries in some of the lower end Chinese Tesla models until they can lower the costs of the new LFO battery technology that has the 1.2 Million Mile service life.
10) Tesla acquires SilLion Inc. (Yet-to-be-announced-publicly 2020) (Possible surprise Battery Day)
The reasons behind the acquisition of SilLion have not been disclosed by Tesla.
SilLion is a small company that is specifically working on battery high-loading silicon anode technology for commercial cylindrical cells. The company’s tech delivers a breakthrough in high-energy batteries by simultaneously incorporating
high-loaded silicon anodes, nickel-rich NMC cathodes, and a non-flammable ionic liquid electrolyte. Doing so allows batteries to be more energy-dense and safer while being cheaper to produce. Tesla, of course, just happens to be one of the few automakers that use cylindrical cells for its vehicles.
SilLion Inc. has since taken down its official website. Some of the company’s employees, such as Research Scientists, now list Tesla as an employer in their LinkedIn pages. SilLion co-founders have also listed Tesla in their interests on LinkedIn. Looking at these, one can be compelled to speculate that Tesla may have acquired SilLion Inc, and the electric car maker may be working on including the startup’s technology in its next-generation of batteries.
It will be great to hear what technologies Elon Musk will announce for Project Road runner especially if Tesla will be producing these high-loaded silicon lithium anodes which are rumoured to be very powerful and cost effective.
SilLion’s technology is good news as it does not affect AUZ battery metals.
It is expected that the TESLA Berlin Gigafactory and all new Giga/Tera factories will be using the new advanced Project roadrunner batteries.
It takes
years of laboratory testing to successfully produce a new patented battery technology. It also takes
years to replicate laboratory success into commercially viable mass produced products on automated assembly lines.
AUZ has an estimated the
SCONI project payback period to be 5.8years. I believe this mine has strong potential to gain an offtake agreement and financing as the next several years of batteries will continue to be nickel, cobalt, manganese dominant. IMHO.
It is in my opinion that TESLA Battery Day Sep 22 will be all
great news for AUZ. It is my belief that NMC batteries or NCA are going to be chosen by TESLA to lead the industry on the state of the art roadrunner production line.
After carefully reviewing the patents and leaks
I cannot see any news that is concerning to AUZ. Battery Market Analysts are predicting a 10 FOLD increase in demand per annum for NMC and NCA battery metals by 2030.
I am excited to see what TESLA announces on Sep 22. ELON MUSK has mentioned that Sep 22 Battery Day will be one of the most important and biggest steps forward for TESLA to date.
An unprecedented energy storage boom is about to begin. It will be led by EV and Grid storage product sales. TESLA are a leaders in both of these fields.
TESLA has publicly told the media that not being able to secure direct Lithium, Cobalt and Nickel offtake agreements with miners will be a major business risk for global battery producers while this imminent EV and Gird storage boom is expected to drain the available metals supply.
I post my research because I want to sure it for myself against other people’s research.
All opinions contrary to my analysis are welcomed. I would appreciate it if anyone can find a mistake with my research or anything I may have missed. I am very confident with my research, everything is my honest opinion and not financial advice.
Thanks for reading.
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