The Dawn of EV, page-1606

That's an interesting take on the IRA. I don't know much about it other than from a superficial standpoint so thanks for that.

A couple things I'd like to get your view on;
"NCM batteries are key to the American market."
The biggest takeaway for me in the last couple months when all these automotive manufacturers were announcing their upcoming gigafactories was they seem to come back to the same ideology........affordability. If the cathode makes up large portion of the cost of a battery, and the battery makes up a large portion of the cost of the vehicle, then cheaper EV's (ergo cheaper cathodes) are the way to go. China are already below the famed battery pack cost of $100kwh for LFP batteries with the price difference to NCM packs now blown out to 30% or 40%. Wouldn't others want to follow suit?

"One of the easiest alternative options is to go LMFP because you avoid Cobalt and Nickel"
The easiest route is LFP. It's been around since the 90's, some advancements were made in the pre-EV era but Tesla opted for high-nickel cathodes (higher density) but the density of a LFP pack is now enough for what a daily driver will need. Patents have expired recently and doping Manganese with a LFP cathode isn't as easy as grabbing a beaker from your high school science class and adding some LFP cathode active material and mixing it in with some manganese and voila (although I'd be the first to admit I have no idea what the process is).

There have been some rumours early in the year that Tesla were unhappy with the density of a battery they trialled and all signs point to CATL's M3P battery which, from reports, replaces a lot of the iron with magnesium, zinc and aluminium. CATL are the leaders in the space but still have setbacks, but essentially it will be a cheaper LFP-based battery. There is no planned capacity for LMFP as most of it is still in the R&D stage. These things take time as it will go to testing, then back and forth between battery manufacturer and automotive manufacturer until all bugs get sorted and then mass production takes time too. That's why I said 3 to 4 years as I expect LFP production lines in gigafactories to eventually just switch to LMFP.

So just to re-iterate.....LFP does not mean LMFP unless they're talking way down the track. There's still so much development to be done in the short term from all battery manufacturers other than CATL.