Climate Confident

Electrifying Heavy-Duty: A Deep Dive with Electrovaya’s CEO

October 11, 2023 Tom Raftery / Raj DasGupta Season 1 Episode 140
Electrifying Heavy-Duty: A Deep Dive with Electrovaya’s CEO
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Climate Confident
Electrifying Heavy-Duty: A Deep Dive with Electrovaya’s CEO
Oct 11, 2023 Season 1 Episode 140
Tom Raftery / Raj DasGupta

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Hello, Climate Confident family! It’s Tom Raftery here with a power-packed episode featuring Raj DasGupta, CEO of Electrovaya! πŸššπŸ”‹πŸ’š

We dive into the enthralling world of lithium-ion battery tech and its game-changing impact on heavy-duty industrial vehicles.🌟 Raj takes us behind the scenes, unfolding the innovative steps Electrovaya is taking to reduce GHG emissions and create a sustainable future for us all. πŸŒπŸƒ

⚑️Fast Charging & Longevity: Explore how Electrovaya is lighting up the material handling sector with its incredible battery tech - one that charges swiftly and stands the test of time and use! πŸ•’πŸ”‹πŸš€

🚌 Transit Buses & Beyond: Raj speaks about transit buses, their unique challenges, and how their battery tech is fitting into the bigger picture of sustainable transit! 🚌✨

🌱 Going Green in Mining: We dive into a fascinating chat about how electrifying mining operations (even in remote locations!) is not just eco-friendly but a boon for operational efficiency! β›οΈπŸ’‘

πŸš— Not Your Regular Car Battery: Discover how Electrovaya's batteries offer something distinctly impactful, transcending their use in cars and impacting heavier industries in a BIG way. πŸš›πŸ”‹

Plus, we delve into future-forward elements - demand response, smart charging, and potentially, battery-to-grid applications. πŸ”„πŸ”ŒπŸ­

Join our enthralling conversation 🎧 and ride along on this electrifying journey into a sustainable future! Let's dive deep into conversations that matter and navigate our way to a cleaner, greener world together! 🌍🌟

Don't forget to check out the video version of this episode at https://youtu.be/zR5lFcdn3_k

Support the Show.

Podcast supporters
I'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing supporters:

  • Lorcan Sheehan
  • Hal Good
  • Jerry Sweeney
  • Andreas Werner
  • Devaang Bhatt
  • Stephen Carroll
  • Marcel Roquette
  • Roger Arnold

And remember you too can Support the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one.

Contact
If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn.

If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Credits
Music credits - Intro by Joseph McDade, and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna Juniper

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Show Notes Transcript

Send me a message

Hello, Climate Confident family! It’s Tom Raftery here with a power-packed episode featuring Raj DasGupta, CEO of Electrovaya! πŸššπŸ”‹πŸ’š

We dive into the enthralling world of lithium-ion battery tech and its game-changing impact on heavy-duty industrial vehicles.🌟 Raj takes us behind the scenes, unfolding the innovative steps Electrovaya is taking to reduce GHG emissions and create a sustainable future for us all. πŸŒπŸƒ

⚑️Fast Charging & Longevity: Explore how Electrovaya is lighting up the material handling sector with its incredible battery tech - one that charges swiftly and stands the test of time and use! πŸ•’πŸ”‹πŸš€

🚌 Transit Buses & Beyond: Raj speaks about transit buses, their unique challenges, and how their battery tech is fitting into the bigger picture of sustainable transit! 🚌✨

🌱 Going Green in Mining: We dive into a fascinating chat about how electrifying mining operations (even in remote locations!) is not just eco-friendly but a boon for operational efficiency! β›οΈπŸ’‘

πŸš— Not Your Regular Car Battery: Discover how Electrovaya's batteries offer something distinctly impactful, transcending their use in cars and impacting heavier industries in a BIG way. πŸš›πŸ”‹

Plus, we delve into future-forward elements - demand response, smart charging, and potentially, battery-to-grid applications. πŸ”„πŸ”ŒπŸ­

Join our enthralling conversation 🎧 and ride along on this electrifying journey into a sustainable future! Let's dive deep into conversations that matter and navigate our way to a cleaner, greener world together! 🌍🌟

Don't forget to check out the video version of this episode at https://youtu.be/zR5lFcdn3_k

Support the Show.

Podcast supporters
I'd like to sincerely thank this podcast's amazing supporters:

  • Lorcan Sheehan
  • Hal Good
  • Jerry Sweeney
  • Andreas Werner
  • Devaang Bhatt
  • Stephen Carroll
  • Marcel Roquette
  • Roger Arnold

And remember you too can Support the Podcast - it is really easy and hugely important as it will enable me to continue to create more excellent Climate Confident episodes like this one.

Contact
If you have any comments/suggestions or questions for the podcast - get in touch via direct message on Twitter/LinkedIn.

If you liked this show, please don't forget to rate and/or review it. It makes a big difference to help new people discover the show.

Credits
Music credits - Intro by Joseph McDade, and Outro music for this podcast was composed, played, and produced by my daughter Luna Juniper

Raj DasGupta:

I'm sure your listeners are very familiar with their phones, and your phones do about 500 to 700 cycles before they reach their 80% of their initial capacity. And 80% is typically what's referred to as the end of life. Automotive batteries, they're a little bit better. Maybe they're getting a thousand to 2000 cycles, 2000 rare, but that's sort of the range. The batteries that Electrovaya developed are getting about nine to 10,000 cycles

Tom Raftery:

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Climate Confident podcast, the number one podcast showcasing best practices in climate emission reductions and removals. And I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Don't forget to click follow on this podcast in your podcast app of choice to be sure you don't miss any episodes. Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 140 of the Climate Confident podcast. My name is Tom Raftery and before we kick off today's show, I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to all of our amazing supporters. Your support has been instrumental in keeping the podcast going and I'm really grateful for each and every one of you. If you're not already a supporter, I'd like to encourage you to consider joining our community of like minded individuals who are passionate about climate. Supporting the podcast is easy and affordable with options starting as low as just three euros or dollars a month. That's less than the cost of a cup of coffee and your support will make a huge difference in keeping this show going strong. To become a supporter, simply click on the support link in the show notes of this or any episode, or visit tinyurl. com slash ClimatePod. Now, without further ado, with me on the show today, I have my special guest, Raj. Raj, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Raj DasGupta:

Thanks, Tom. Thanks. It's a pleasure being here, first of all, and thanks for inviting me. So my name's Raj Das Gupta. I'm the CEO here at a Battery company called Electrovaya. And I have a background in material science. I'm very passionate about what we do as a company and how we are help mitigating climate change overall with our, what we make.

Tom Raftery:

Cool. And tell me a little bit, Raj, before we get into what it is you make, tell me a little bit about the why you make it, you know, what was the, the genesis behind starting the company?

Raj DasGupta:

So Electrovaya has been in the lithium ion sphere for over two decades, and I would say we were one of the pioneering technology companies in the sector. So a lot of firsts, a lot of key developments that the company was involved with in the early days of lithium ion batteries. So, some of which, quite a bit of which is before my time at the company. So I've been with the company for 15 years, but my father and a very close friend, they co-founded the company a long, long time back. In the early days Electrovaya was one of the early pioneers in the lithium ion space in general. I think we were the first company to make pouch lithium ion pouch cells, which at the time was being directed towards aerospace activities, especially with one of our early projects was with NASA. However, when I joined the company, the real push was for the electrification of the automobile. So that was getting a lot of attention globally. We thought that there was gonna be, and this is 2009 for timing

Tom Raftery:

Sure.

Raj DasGupta:

and Obama had just become president and there was a target for 1 million electric cars in the United States by 2015, I think it was the target. And we uh, we, we we had some great partnerships. So Electrovaya was partnered with Chrysler on some plugin hybrid programs and everything was very exciting. What ended up happening was a only, a really only really, one car company took the electrification movement very seriously that time and our programs with Chrysler ended up getting canceled and that, that's fine. Electrovaya continued the focus though on automotive applications where we supplied Daimler for, if you've seen these those electric smart cars. They're very small cars. And with, with Daimler, the, the premise was we were supplying a safer battery that used a ceramic separator. And that ceramic separator is what goes uh, between your positive and your negative electrodes in your lithium-ion battery, and, in our case, the ceramics are stable at high temperatures and make the batteries much more immune to thermal runaway. So when you hear in the news batteries overheated, it can happen for various reasons, external or internal. But what what's relatively common in, in, in that terminology is the battery overheated means it's technically probably caught fire and then the neighboring cell also gets overheated and it catches fire. Why does it catch fire? It's because that separator in the battery starts to shrink when it gets to about a hundred to 120 degrees Celsius. And obviously if you gotta shrinking separator, you get a cascading short circuit, which is a big fire. In our case, that's definitely mitigated to a high degree with a ceramic separator, which is stable at high temperatures, and that makes our batteries much safer. And then to date, any battery that we've produced that uses this technology has not, we've had zero battery safety incidents in any including 20,000 cars and let's say 7,000 material handling vehicles. But again, 20, 20 17 that Smart car, you don't see too many of them good reason. It didn't sell well. There was pressure from the automotive side to the lower costs, and we were a, we're a relatively small battery company. And we were already losing money, so we were getting squeezed out. So the company, we, we, we decided to make a complete pivot. We had this technology which made the battery safer. We took advantage of that technology. And changed the way we made the cells. We changed the way the electrolytes that we could use in the, in the cells. And the outcome being was a, a lithium ion product, which was both safer and could also manage a, a much larger number of cycles. So the number of charge discharge cycles you can do before it reaches its end of life. Now, putting that in perspective, I'm sure your listeners are very familiar with their phones, and your phones do about 500 to 700 cycles before they reach their 80%.

Tom Raftery:

Yeah

Raj DasGupta:

Of their initial capacity. And 80% is typically what's referred to as the end of life. Automotive batteries, they're a little bit better. Maybe they're getting a thousand to 2000 cycles, 2000 rare, but that's sort of the range. The batteries that Electrovaya developed are getting about nine to 10,000 cycles, so four or five times the cycle life of typical lithium-ion batteries. And so we said, okay, we've got this very unique technology here, but it's always gonna be more expensive. We're smaller than the big Korean and Chinese battery companies. Let's not go head to head anymore or we won't be in business. And so we, we looked for applications which could take advantage of that type of performance and pay, pay a bit more for it. And we focused our efforts initially on material handling. So this is your, your warehousing applications, things that happen behind doors, but these are vehicles that are operating 24 7. Sometimes they're quite quite often being used for three shifts. The typical operations actually would have battery swapping in their, in their operations, they would typically swap batteries every shift

Tom Raftery:

when you say, just clarify, Raj, when you say material handling, you're talking forklifts, right?

Raj DasGupta:

Primarily forklifts. That's, that's grown to forklifts and robots to quite a high degree. And now the forklifts themselves are turning into robots. So there's a great deal of transition occurring in that sector which is also growing tremendously due to, to everyone ordering everything from groceries to diapers online. So, that's what we uh, made as our initial focus because of that heavy duty cycle. Also, the fact that these are vehicles that operate indoors.

Tom Raftery:

Yeah.

Raj DasGupta:

So if you go to a typical e-commerce company or Walmart distribution center, you'll see that they will have maybe hundreds, hundreds of vehicles operating in these warehouses. And these warehouses have fire sensitive materials, et cetera. So they cannot tolerate any sort of safety issue. And not to say safety issues should be tolerated anywhere, it's, it's a, it's a greatly different scenario, having something inside a building, then outside. So, so that's what we focused on. We, we have been successful there. Electrovaya is now supplying I think about 12 fortune 100 companies today, including the largest retailers in the world. And they see the, fundamentally, the reason they want this technology is it provides them a lower lifecycle cost. And if it's providing them a lower lifecycle cost, that's because it's, it's lasting longer. It can handle the high duty cycles without degrading. It also has a higher impact on the environment. Because this this a battery that doesn't degrade, if putting it in comparison to an electric vehicle. And Tom, I know you drive one, I drive one. We commute in these vehicles, but they spend most of the time parked maybe in my case, probably 23 out of 24 hours it's parked. And if you compare that to a material handling vehicle, 23 out of 24 hours, it's moving. And so it's a huge amount of higher utilization. And as a result, if you're electrifying something, which would've otherwise been, powered by an IC engine, your impact is substantially better than if you're converting a passenger EV. And even if you're converting a vehicle, which would be powered by lead acid batteries. Lead acid batteries are very inefficient compared to lithium ion batteries. You're also having a significant GHG impact. So every battery that Electrovaya is making is, a, not going to the landfill for a very, very long time, or recycling for a very, very long time. And B, it's having a tremendous impact just through its operations, just through the extensive utilization of the batteries in those, in those environments. So, so that's what we've gotten our start on which is the material handling sector. And we're growing rapidly there. We're partnered with the largest OEM in the sector, which is the Toyota group. But we see opportunities elsewhere as, as well. So, electric buses is a sector where we're actively pursuing. Mining trucks is another one that is come to mind recently, that is also a 22 hour per day type operation. And there are a few others as well. So we're, we're really targeting only the super high duty cycle sectors, but there are lots of them. They're drawing quickly. The electrification movement overall is, is unstoppable.

Tom Raftery:

Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. It's, I mean, it's fantastic that you have batteries that last four to five times longer than typical EV batteries. What, what's missing from that? I don't know is the energy density. How do your batteries compare in energy density to the likes of lithium ion batteries, whether it's lithium, iron, phosphate, or whatever other chemistries are out there.

Raj DasGupta:

So that, that's a great, great question. And and there are chemistries out there that do get cycle life, like Electrovaya's technology, and that would be lithium titanate. However, that technology gets less than half the energy density, and as a result, it becomes cost prohibitive. And may not even have the performance attributes to make certain applications viable. In our case, our technology is really that platform. It's really the separator is the main piece, but also the electrolyte and some nuances in the assembly process, which makes this ultimately a platform technology. We can apply it to any cathode, any anode, and get the same, get a benefit with re with respect to the longevity and a benefit with respect to safety. So what we're produced right now is an NMC, graphite based cell. And we focussed on NMC primarily because our benefits get more accentuated with that chemistry. So that chemistry is the highest, one of the higher energy density chemistries out there, which is why it's utilized in most of the EV applications.

Tom Raftery:

Sure.

Raj DasGupta:

However, it to its detriment is, is cycle life and safety, right? So, and we, we fix those two items with, with our technology. So in terms of the Electrovaya's energy density, it is comparable to any of the other NMC producers. The only slight difference is we are using ceramic separators, which are a bit heavier but the ultimate difference is maybe 10, 15% in density maximum. So it's not a big difference.

Tom Raftery:

Okay. It occurs to me as well that another potential use would be for the likes of stationary storage for grids, because again, those kind of batteries are gonna need lots of cycles because they'll be constantly taking in and giving out energy to compensate for the variability in production of energy from renewables, for example. And if they're doing you know, grid services, frequency on, on grids, then yeah, they'll be charging and discharging the whole time. Is that, is that a, a vertical that you're looking into as well?

Raj DasGupta:

You, you make a very good point, Tom. So that vertical, you're correct. The more it's used, the higher the cycle count, the more useful it is for energy storage and and the more, more income the the site operators will get. Right? So, Technically they need a technology which cycles as long as

Tom Raftery:

possible And is safe.

Raj DasGupta:

And is safe. So, that said if you look at the, at least the grid scale sites for the last 10, 15 years, most of them have been built by developers who are responding to RFPs from, from from the local constituencies or, or ISOs. And they tend to go to lower lowest CapEx capital cost solutions as opposed to lowest lifecycle cost solutions. Which is unfortunate because the lifecycle is really what the co is really what matters. We're seeing that mentality start to shift if, and, and that's due to, due to lessons learned. So if you, if you walk into some of the big battery recycling sites there's a, there's a great Canadian company Canada, US Company called Lifecycle and I think they have operations in, in Europe too. They, if you walk into one of their sites, the most, most batteries you'll see that are getting recycled are these grid scale batteries. They're reaching their end-of-life much earlier than than the developers had thought. And that's because they're putting an automotive battery into energy storage. And an automotive battery, you're doing one cycle a week energy storage, you're doing one cycle per day. It's a nearly in order of magnitude difference in utilization and that's, that's what's ending up happening. So now we're starting to look at that application in, in more with more focus. Again, we're a business, so we wanna sell our currently limited production to the highest costs sale potential and energy storage hasn't been there, but we believe that's going to change in the coming years. So we're looking at, we're currently actively looking at projects in 2020, that would require delivering 2027, 2026, that kind of time period.

Tom Raftery:

Okay, cool. And you know, what is your I wanna say go to market strategy, as in seems like your technology is phenomenal. Loads of cycles, compatible or similar energy density significantly safer. So if you could scale this up through partnerships, through licensing, through whatever would is, is that a path you're planning to follow to try and scale up? Or are you just doing it all internally?

Raj DasGupta:

So what we're, what we're seeing is the heavy duty space, the heavy duty market space, which especially if you just look at let's look at some of these key sectors, material handling, buses in Europe is, is definitely ahead. I just came back from London and a good percentage of the buses are already electrified there. But here, that's still nascent. Trucking is definitely, we're just scratching the surface. Mining trucks I think is almost none. So what we're seeing is huge growth potential in the heavy duty space because they all, it all has to be electrified. Heavy duty industries are gonna have a higher GHG impact than per unit, right, per vehicle or per unit kilowatt hour than a, than a car. But they're a little further behind on, on the electrification for the most part. So, we're not too late. So we're, we're building up capacity right now. We're building a giga scale plant in New York State, not, not too far from where I'm right now in Toronto. And that's going to provide a lot of the capacity growth that we see in the near term. In terms of partnerships, this is a this technology while we, we figured it out and we've, we have lots of IP around it, it's the big battery companies are more, to be honest, more focused on the car market 'cause that's where the, that's the, the largest market. And that market is requiring different requiring a different technology ultimately. So it requires high energy density and low cost, and the margins are very, very tight in, in that market. And that's not what we, we've participated in that before. It's very, very tough. It's whoever succeeds. Well done. But we, we Electrovaya is now a profitable battery company. We, we've now done two quarters back to back making that profits. We want to be a a profitable, healthy business going forward. And if you want to get into the automotive space right now, you have to be prepared to lose a lot of money before you eventually it you, you break even. And so our go-to market strategy for the most part is just grow the company as quickly as possibly, but in a, in a profitable manner. And with the market. We don't wanna be ahead of the market. We wanna be with the market. And I think with all businesses I think there's a, a certain degree of luck and timing that goes with it. And I think that wind is with us this time. Electrovaya has historically been ahead of the market with with technologies. Right now. We're hitting this one right when it's in its growth curve. So, so, I think it's, it's a matter of execution, which we have a very smart and able team here at the company. So I'm, I'm optimistic. Where we see opportunities in terms of partnerships though, that's next generation battery technologies. So we have a, a separate team at the company working under the banner of Electrovaya Labs, actually in a separate building. And there they're working on ceramic separators, but not the ones that we're currently using. They're, they're working on ceramic separators for solid state batteries.

Tom Raftery:

Okay.

Raj DasGupta:

And where we see if we're successful with developing that technology, that the scale of which is much higher in potential demand. And that's where we would definitely look to, to partner with, with other companies.

Tom Raftery:

Sure, sure. Because that was gonna be my next question around solid state batteries, because we're starting to see more announcements about solid state batteries coming to market. So my question was gonna be, is it gonna, is it something that you're looking at, and obviously it is, when do you see that becoming a product that that reaches scale?

Raj DasGupta:

So a solid state battery. Just, just giving your viewers a idea of what, what it is, is essentially you're trying to remove two large parts of the lithium ion battery. And that's the liquid electrolyte, remove it entirely or vast majority of which, and the anode. The anode is currently graphite. If you remove it, you, you could use lithium metal, which would have a significantly higher energy density. So the outcome, the targeted outcome for all, all these players who are seeking the holy grail of battery technology is, is a battery which is effectively double the energy density of your current automotive grade battery. So it's a, It's a game changing battery technology. It would double the range of your EVs or half the weight of your battery systems. It's, it's very attractive. To date, no one has commercialized solid state batteries to any degree, and there are challenges with the technology. The technology for the most part is going to rely on a ceramic separator.'Cause that separator now has to operate as the electrolyte. Most of the industry and most of the research sphere is going the way of ceramics as opposed to polymers because it has higher conductivity. And if you've heard the last 20 minutes of our conversation, Electrovaya is a company that has successfully commercialized a ceramic separator before. We're the only company that I know of that is using ceramic separators like that. And so the, we're optimistic our approach here can leverage some of those lessons that we've developed over the, over the last 10 years. So, that's what we're working on. We're not ready, it's not ready to be commercialized yet. I can't say with, with r R&D it's very hard to say, oh, we're gonna be in production on such and such a day. I know there have been companies that have made some of those claims and maybe they're, they're ahead. But that's where we are. Right now we're targeting sampling cells, though in a few months.

Tom Raftery:

Okay. Cool, cool. And in terms of your current customers, do you have any kind of case studies that you can speak to? Any kind of successes or wins you can talk to in terms of, you know, we were using this type of battery or this type of power source for our material handling units. Up until now, we switched to Electrovaya, and now we're X percent more efficient, y percent less greenhouse gases, whatever it is.

Raj DasGupta:

Oh, a good one. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll think of one, which was actually one of the early customers, which was Walmart, who effectively saved Electrovaya. It was a time the company was, was a bit on the rocks. 2018, we just closed down a lot of our German operations and we had a lot of losses to deal with from that. But they, they really liked the technology. We demonstrated it at a number of distribution centers in, in the US and Canada, and then they selected it for one of them in Canada. And so what we ended up converting was a site which had approximately 150 of these vehicles, these forklift vehicles. These are not small electric vehicles. The average capacity on, on one of these was about 30 to 40 kilowatt hours, and they would be having three lead acid batteries per vehicle.

Tom Raftery:

Whoa.

Raj DasGupta:

So you can imagine a building with let's say 150 vehicles and 400 and 50 batteries And they would be swapping these out with giant magnetic swapping stations which lifting 2000 pound batteries in and out of, out of vehicles every shift.

Tom Raftery:

Whoa.

Raj DasGupta:

you'd picture a lineup of vehicles at the shift change, trying to get their, their batteries changed so the next shift could start with a fresh, fresh battery. So the reason they had three batteries per vehicle is they had one driving the vehicle, obviously one ready to go, and the third one would be getting charged.

Tom Raftery:

right.

Raj DasGupta:

So we went in and we pl we came in with our technology, we said, you know, you can use Electrovaya's battery. It'll charge because it's got such long cycle life and And the way we design the battery, you could charge very quickly so we could replace a whole shift's worth of use in 20 minutes. So very fast charge because the longevity is, is there, they don't need to replace the batteries. And so we went with one battery per truck instead of three. And one other piece before I get go further is those three batteries per vehicle, after five years, or even less three to five years, they'd have

Tom Raftery:

Replace

Raj DasGupta:

to replace all of So these are, this is a fast, degrading environment for, for any type of battery. And so we, we swapped out all the lead acid and we went from three batteries per truck to one, and we went from one charger per truck to 0.5, so half a charger. You know, one charger would be shared by, by two. And so big, big change in in the operation. The, the charging space went down, the battery changing space went down. So there was more space for, for other, more, more inventory. And the so their return on investment was very rapid because the, the main piece of the cost for them was not the assets. It was really that changing operation, which would cost a lot of time and and lost productivity for, for the operation. In terms of electricity savings the, there is, it was a significant electricity savings just because of the efficiency difference between our battery and, and the incumbent lead acid battery. So I, they didn't give us the exact numbers, but they were saving thousands and thousands of dollars per year. In terms of our estimates is there's probably about a 20% electricity savings, which is which is, is big.

Tom Raftery:

Mm

Raj DasGupta:

Uh, and perhaps 20 to 30%. So we don't know exactly, but it, it would be high because you save and you save electricity both on the charging side because when you charge these lead acid batteries, only maybe 70% of the electrons make it into the, into the battery. Others are going into heat and some hydrogen gas formation, et cetera. And then when the battery's powering the vehicle, again, a lot of the, some of it's going to the motors, but some of the energy's going to heat as well. In the li in our case, the lithium ion battery is much more efficient, both on the charging side and on the discharging side in the truck. So, big, big savings there. The proudest point though I have is that those batteries have been operating now for five years in, in that incredibly heavy usage environment and after five years, there's probably been about two to 3% degradation on the batteries.

Tom Raftery:

Wow.

Raj DasGupta:

So they're gonna last 10 plus years in that type of application. So that, that's uh, a real testament to how good this technology is in that, that type of environment.

Tom Raftery:

Cool, cool, cool. And where to next for Electrovaya? I mean, you, you've mentioned the gigafactory in New York and you've mentioned the, the solid state. Are, are there anything, is there anything else in the horizon that you're aiming for? You know, where do you, where do you expect to be kind of five, 10 years from now?

Raj DasGupta:

So the, the last thing is we're trying to add a lot more. So five, 10 years is a great question. So, I would love to see continued growth in the material handling sector for instance. Right now we're still scratching the surface. We're working with really the big wealthy companies. Sooner or later, the mid-size companies are gonna join, join the, the party there. So I think right now, lithium ion batteries and, and our batteries in particular penetrating maybe under 10% of market share with our OEM partner, and we expect that to see that continue to grow. I also wanna see if, of course, our, our solutions make our way into transit buses. Transit buses are dear to my heart because I take the bus a lot and uh, but in, in North America, we've seen that sector not, not move well to, to lithium ion power. And for the most part, companies have been utilizing automotive cells in packs, large packs, and the bus routes are long, so they need 500 kilowatt hour battery systems per bus and they're not faring well. There have been recalls on pretty much every major bus OEM relating to the battery packs, mostly around safety. And we see that as a sign that, you know, you can't use automotive, the same automotive battery that you put in your car into a bus. It's, it's a different type of application. And so I see that a, as a, a key potential market for us. We're, we're gonna be delivering some of our first high voltage systems later this year. And I would like to see bus and truck a significant part of our business 25 onwards. So that's another piece. And the third is adding some smarts to these batteries, right? and we're starting to do that. So right now they just charge in, charge out, and, and, and that's, that's how we're looking at, we're, we're adding in some newer functions to the batteries. One of which would be demand response.

Tom Raftery:

Yeah. Nice.

Raj DasGupta:

So we'll be able to charge these systems with, with some level of smarts right. So you can say this battery is already 90%, doesn't need to be charged further, but battery number three does. It's only at this state of charge. And or you getting a step further would be saying this vehicle is not utilized very much, but this vehicle is utilized a lot, so let's charge that one at a higher rate. So, so that kind of system and taking it a step further would be a battery to grid, right? So you, here, you, in Electrovaya's case, you have a battery that doesn't really degrade

Tom Raftery:

Yeah.

Raj DasGupta:

or, and so you wanna use that energy storage asset as much as possible which would not be the case in your EV

Tom Raftery:

Mm-hmm

Raj DasGupta:

So, but in this case you do so using it as energy storage when it's, when it's charging or parked for sure. And then use it for powering the vehicle in other times so that that's the directions we want to move in as a company.

Tom Raftery:

Okay. What about other sectors like the marine transport sector and the aviation sectors because they need safe batteries as well and ones that, you know, again, cycle a lot.

Raj DasGupta:

So Marine is a good, good one. I have, we haven't looked, you know, we can't Marine is one we haven't looked at in a great deal. The sector after that we're looking at though is, is mining.

Tom Raftery:

Hmm.

Raj DasGupta:

mining vehicles operate with huge amounts of diesel same as Marine, but huge amounts of diesel. They but unlike Marine, they're operating 20 plus hours per day.

Tom Raftery:

Mm-hmm.

Raj DasGupta:

So in, in many cases, and there the electrification is both gonna have a huge impact on the environment. But again, there are not many batteries technologies that can meet that type of demand. And I think that is one where we're going to look at more closely in the coming months.

Tom Raftery:

Sure. And a lot of mines are typically remote, sometimes off grid. So if they have local renewable generation sources, coupling that with electric mine vehicles makes a, a really nice way of extracting minerals, which isn't nearly as damaging.

Raj DasGupta:

Correct. Actually, we're talking to one mining company who does extract lithium,

Tom Raftery:

Yeah Nice.

Raj DasGupta:

it's coming full circle and they would love to see that become more green. And it's not just becoming more green. It's a more it's a more efficient operation overall. You know, these remote sites, trucking in diesel is not efficient. It's very costly. It's

Tom Raftery:

And polluting.

Raj DasGupta:

and the vehicles, the, and the vehicles themselves are actually designed around electric from the get go. Sort of like your locomotive trains

Tom Raftery:

Yeah.

Raj DasGupta:

the diesel's there to power the electric motors?

Tom Raftery:

Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, yep. Of course. We're coming towards the end of the podcast now. Raj, is there any question I haven't asked that you wish I had, or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about?

Raj DasGupta:

No, no. For just as a takeaway, I would say, you know, Electrovaya is a interesting battery technology company in this space. And the batteries we're making are, are going to have a tremendous outsized impact on GHG reduction. I'm not saying anything negative about the car batteries 'cause that, that's important as well, but we're going to have a outsized impact overall. And with this technology is, is what the world needs. We need technologies, which last a long time, which don't make their way into landfill, which can have a, you know, a, a much, much higher level of green impact than your, your standard batteries.

Tom Raftery:

Sure, sure, Great. Raj, that's been fascinating. If people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Raj DasGupta:

Of course our, our website's great to start, so Electrovaya.com. We also post some, some good updates on our LinkedIn page as well, which Electrovaya on LinkedIn. And hopefully you'll be hearing more about us and as we do more outreach.

Tom Raftery:

Superb. Great, Raj, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Raj DasGupta:

Thank you so much.

Tom Raftery:

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks. Catch you all next time.

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