Media Watch - NVX related, page-11099

Elon Musk to Jim Farley (Ford CEO) May 2023 twitter spaces.

Elon.. “…and then we’ve got a cathode refinery that’s um on the same piece of land as our factory in Austin, that’s where our nickel based cathode… and then we’re just trying to figure out like man do we need to do the anode too.. hopefully not.. but if someone could please do that it would be awesome.. Synthetic Graphite there’s a big market for it”.

Teslas sponsored research team at Dalhousie under Jeff Dahn also includes ChongYin Yang (Tesla Canada), recently they’ve been using Novonix GX-23 SG as the anode material for their evaluation of high Nickel cobalt-free chemistry using all-dry synthesis methods, previously they were using Teslas AML-400 SG from China as material in their evaluations in full cell form.

What’s interesting is Jeffs team is more focused on LiB “Cathode” - high nickel & cobalt free material but not Anode, also they’re crossing research paths with Mark Obrovacs research into “synthesis methods”.

Jeff Dahn’s research is funded by Tesla & NSERC for..“Advanced batteries for electric vehicle & grid energy storage applications”.

Mark Obrovac’s research is funded by Novonix & NSERC for “Advanced battery materials & Synthesis methods”.

Looking at the Dalhousie website it further describes Jeff’s & Mark’s intended research & there’s not a mention of synthesis methods for Jeffs research but for Mark it’s emphasised numerous times.
When Jeff joined Novonix as their scientific adviser Mark said he was looking forward to collaborating with him, to what extent who knows but it’s obvious they do.

Matthew Garayt is one of the 3 authors of the DPMG patent along with Mark Obrovac.
Recently (July) Matthew was one of the authors on a couple of research papers which included Jeff Dahn, one was dry synthesis methods for positive electrodes (cathode) & the other cobalt free NM64 using “All-Dry Synthesis”.

Novonix GX-23 Synthetic Graphite (Gen 3 mass production material) has only recently passed internal qualification tests.
At the April AGM Chris said Mass production samples would be sent to customers over the coming months” I assume the internal validation from NVX was the green light for Tesla’s Dalhousie team to use Novonix GX-23 in their material research which often leads to publishing their findings online.

Tesla use the term DBE (dry battery electrode) which was Maxwell’s tech of which has given Tesla battery engineers a headache trying to bring it to mass production.

This year when Novonix updated their website I noticed an increased emphasis on terms like “All-Dry Synthesis” or Zero-waste, so seeing recent electrochemical publications from Jeff Dahn & his Tesla research team using these terms indicates there could be more to it.

From my research No other battery cell manufacturer or cathode or anode producer uses the term “All-Dry Synthesis”. It’s widely used within Novonix & Dalhousie research associated with NVX but this is the first time Jeff Dahn & his Tesla team have used it.

Are we seeing a collaboration of dry cathode technology between Novonix & Tesla as maybe part of the negotiation for a long term supply contract for Anode material.

Novonix already collaborates with most of Teslas Cell manufacturers. Panasonic & Samsung since 2019 and LGES more recently. Most of the material produced in the short term outside of China will come from Posco (Korea), they appear to be the only Cathode/Anode manufacturer currently capable of producing significant volumes although much of that material is already linked to the LG/GM Ultium contract.

There’s still a huge opening for an Anode materials supplier to Tesla directly or indirectly especially with Panasonic.
Panasonic are similar in that other than natural graphite & a small silicon contract there isn’t any SG anode material contracts other than existing contracts with Chinese suppliers, as far as I’m aware.

Elon made it clear 3 months ago… the position is vacant.
Tesla want a US supplier of Synthetic Graphite anode material.

In my opinion it’s not a matter of if…. it’s simply a matter of when. Most likely when the section 301 Tarif’s are reintroduced and a 25% tax imposed, maybe not this September though, more likely Sep 24/25.

There’s simply too many reasons for Tesla to use NVX SG anode material rather than not to use it.

And if all else fails.., there’s the Tesla calendar.