That's exactly what it means Names. The cost of the battery is similar, but you are getting more mileage.
Purified Silicon is expensive, and there has been some exceptionally interesting research on this coming out of the university of Finland, as well as other universities.
I've been following battery research for a couple of years now.
Of course, the distant future end game is that we will not need batteries, but for the interim, the latest research seems to be honing in on Lithium and Silicon. MNS have added some Graphite, but I think in the medium term it's not going to be needed. Instead what we are seeing is Silicon coated with Graphene nano-particles instead.
If MNS keep on down this path, they may morph into a battery company, and then they can sell the Graphite projects in Tanzania, unless they want to use graphite for things other than batteries, the so called value added (and very profitable) products. HXG are going down this route and are doing some good research, but have sold out the control of their company to MIN. If I was investing in graphite now, I would be focusing on the value added products, and not batteries.
1414 are about to IPO on the ASX with their liquid Silicon battery. Of course, every new technology company says they have disruptive technology, and some do, but it takes more than that to succeed.
In any event, Silicon seems to be the way to go at the moment, which I suppose is good news for the big Silicon miners like Mitsubishu.
Anyway, there is great competition not only in the current battery production space, but in the advanced battery research space. I tend to agree with Magnis from what I've seen, the next generation batteries will be Lithium and Silicon and Graphene (but not Graphite). And these may morph then into just Lithium and Silicon (or another less expensive product to Silicon with similar properties). And they will be free of Cobalt and Nickel. Lithium is still the big winner, there's no getting around it.
I'm not sure which battery technology will win out in the end. There may be room for 2 or more. And then it will come down to who's in first, and market share etc etc, you know, all the traditional business and competitive wranglings that saw companies like Microsoft succeed.
Good luck to Magnis, it will be interesting to see over the next years what this company morphs into, something substantial I hope.
Gw
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