Business

Advanced Batteries Move From Labs to Mass Production

Published

3 years ago

July 12, 2022

Advanced Batteries Move From Labs to Mass Production

SAN JOSE, Calif. — For years, scientists in laboratories from Silicon Valley to Boston have been trying to find an elusive potion of chemical compounds, minerals and metals that will enable electrical automobiles to recharge in minutes and journey lots of of miles between expenses, all for a a lot decrease value than batteries accessible now.

Now a couple of of these scientists and the businesses they based are approaching a milestone. They’re constructing factories to provide next-generation battery cells, permitting carmakers to start street testing the applied sciences and decide whether or not they’re secure and dependable.

The manufacturing facility operations are principally restricted in scale, designed to good manufacturing methods. Will probably be a number of years earlier than automobiles with the high-performance batteries seem in showrooms, and even longer earlier than the batteries can be found in reasonably priced automobiles. However the starting of assembly-line manufacturing provides the tantalizing prospect of a revolution in electrical mobility.

If the applied sciences may be mass-produced, electrical automobiles might compete with fossil-fuel-powered automobiles for comfort and undercut them on worth. Dangerous emissions from car visitors might be considerably diminished. The inventors of the applied sciences might simply change into billionaires — in the event that they aren’t already.

For the handfuls of fledgling firms engaged on new sorts of batteries and battery supplies, the emergence from cloistered laboratories into the tough circumstances of the actual world is a second of fact.

Producing battery cells by the hundreds of thousands in a manufacturing facility is vastly harder than making a couple of hundred in a clear room — an area designed to reduce contaminants.

“Simply because you may have a cloth that has the entitlement to work doesn’t imply you could make it work,” mentioned Jagdeep Singh, founder and chief govt of QuantumScape, a battery maker in San Jose, Calif., within the coronary heart of Silicon Valley. “It’s a must to work out the way to manufacture it in a manner that’s defect-free and has excessive sufficient uniformity.”

Including to the danger, the hunch in tech shares has stripped billions of {dollars} in worth from battery firms which can be traded publicly. It won’t be as simple for them to lift the money they should construct manufacturing operations and pay their workers. Most have little or no income as a result of they’ve but to start promoting a product.

QuantumScape was value $54 billion on the inventory market shortly after it went public in 2020. It was just lately value about $4 billion.

That has not stopped the corporate from forging forward with a manufacturing facility in San Jose that by 2024, if all goes properly, will have the ability to stamp out lots of of 1000’s of cells permitting automobiles to recharge in lower than 10 minutes. Automakers will use the manufacturing facility’s output to check whether or not the batteries can face up to tough roads, chilly snaps, warmth waves and carwashes.

The automakers can even wish to know if the batteries may be recharged lots of of instances with out shedding their skill to retailer electrical energy, whether or not they can survive a crash with out bursting into flames and whether or not they are often manufactured cheaply.

It’s not sure that each one the brand new applied sciences will stay as much as their inventors’ guarantees. Shorter charging instances and longer vary might come on the expense of battery life span, mentioned David Deak, a former Tesla govt who’s now a advisor on battery supplies. “Most of those new materials ideas deliver big efficiency metrics however compromise on one thing else,” Mr. Deak mentioned.

Nonetheless, with backing from Volkswagen, Invoice Gates and a who’s who of Silicon Valley figures, QuantumScape illustrates how a lot religion and cash have been positioned in firms that declare to have the ability to fulfill all these necessities.

Mr. Singh, who beforehand began an organization that made telecommunications tools, based QuantumScape in 2010 after shopping for a Roadster, Tesla’s first manufacturing automobile. Regardless of the Roadster’s infamous unreliability, Mr. Singh turned satisfied that electrical automobiles had been the long run.

“It was sufficient to supply a glimpse of what might be,” he mentioned. The important thing, he realized, was a battery able to storing extra vitality, and “the one manner to do this is to search for a brand new chemistry, a chemistry breakthrough.”

Mr. Singh teamed up with Fritz Prinz, a professor at Stanford College, and Tim Holme, a researcher at Stanford. John Doerr, well-known for being among the many first buyers in Google and Amazon, supplied seed cash. J.B. Straubel, a co-founder of Tesla, was one other early supporter and is a member of QuantumScape’s board.

After years of experimentation, QuantumScape developed a ceramic materials — its precise composition is a secret — that separates the constructive and damaging ends of the batteries, permitting electrons to circulation forwards and backwards whereas avoiding quick circuits. The expertise makes it doable to substitute a stable materials for the liquid electrolyte that carries vitality between the constructive and damaging poles of a battery, permitting it to pack extra vitality per pound.

“We spent in regards to the first 5 years in a seek for a cloth that would work,” Mr. Singh mentioned. “And after we thought we discovered one, we spent one other 5 years or so engaged on the way to manufacture it in the appropriate manner.”

Although technically a “pre-pilot” meeting line, the QuantumScape manufacturing facility in San Jose is nearly as huge as 4 soccer fields. Not too long ago, rows of empty cubicles with black swivel chairs awaited new staff, and equipment stood on pallets able to be put in.

In labs round Silicon Valley and elsewhere, dozens if not lots of of different entrepreneurs have been pursuing an analogous technological objective, drawing on the nexus of enterprise capital and college analysis that fueled the expansion of the semiconductor and software program industries.

One other outstanding identify is SES AI, based in 2012 based mostly on expertise developed on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise. SES has backing from Normal Motors, Hyundai, Honda, the Chinese language automakers Geely and SAIC, and the South Korean battery maker SK Innovation. In March, SES, based mostly in Woburn, Mass., opened a manufacturing facility in Shanghai that’s producing prototype cells. The corporate plans to start supplying automakers in massive volumes in 2025.

SES shares have additionally plunged, however Qichao Hu, the chief govt and a co-founder, mentioned he wasn’t frightened. “That’s factor,” he mentioned. “When the market is dangerous, solely the nice ones will survive. It’s going to assist the trade reset.”

SES and different battery firms say they’ve solved the basic scientific hurdles required to make cells that shall be safer, cheaper and extra highly effective. Now it’s a query of determining the way to churn them out by the hundreds of thousands.

“We’re assured that the remaining challenges are engineering in nature,” mentioned Doug Campbell, chief govt of Strong Energy, a battery maker backed by Ford Motor and BMW. Strong Energy, based mostly in Louisville, Colo., mentioned in June that it had put in a pilot manufacturing line that will start supplying cells for testing functions to its automotive companions by the top of the yr.

Not directly, Tesla has spawned lots of the Silicon Valley start-ups. The corporate educated a technology of battery consultants, a lot of whom left and went to work for different firms.

Gene Berdichevsky, the chief govt and a co-founder of Sila in Alameda, Calif., is a Tesla veteran. Mr. Berdichevsky was born within the Soviet Union and emigrated to the US together with his dad and mom, each nuclear physicists, when he was 9. He earned bachelor’s and grasp’s levels from Stanford, then turned the seventh worker at Tesla, the place he helped develop the Roadster battery.

Tesla successfully created the E.V. battery trade by proving that individuals would purchase electrical automobiles and forcing conventional carmakers to reckon with the expertise, Mr. Berdichevsky mentioned. “That’s what’s going to make the world go electrical,” he mentioned, “everybody competing to make a greater electrical automobile.”

Sila belongs to a gaggle of start-ups which have developed supplies that considerably enhance the efficiency of current battery designs, rising vary by 20 % or extra. Others embrace Group14 Applied sciences in Woodinville, Wash., close to Seattle, which has backing from Porsche, and OneD Battery Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif.

All three have discovered methods to make use of silicon to retailer electrical energy inside batteries, quite than the graphite that’s prevalent in current designs. Silicon can maintain rather more vitality per pound than graphite, permitting batteries to be lighter and cheaper and cost sooner. Silicon would additionally ease the U.S. dependence on graphite refined in China.

The downside of silicon is that it swells to a few instances its dimension when charged, doubtlessly stressing the elements a lot that the battery would fail. Individuals like Yimin Zhu, the chief expertise officer of OneD, have spent a decade baking completely different mixtures in laboratories crowded with tools, in search of methods to beat that drawback.

Now, Sila, OneD and Group14 are at varied phases of ramping up manufacturing at websites in Washington State.

In Might, Sila introduced a deal to provide its silicon materials to Mercedes-Benz from a manufacturing facility in Moses Lake, Wash. Mercedes plans to make use of the fabric in luxurious sport utility automobiles starting in 2025.

Porsche has introduced plans to make use of Group14’s silicon materials by 2024, albeit in a restricted variety of automobiles. Rick Luebbe, the chief govt of Group14, mentioned a serious producer would deploy the corporate’s expertise — which he mentioned would enable a automobile to recharge in 10 minutes — subsequent yr.

“At that time all the advantages of electrical automobiles are accessible with none disadvantages,” Mr. Luebbe mentioned.

Demand for batteries is so sturdy that there’s loads of room for a number of firms to succeed. However with dozens if not lots of of different firms pursuing a chunk of a market that shall be value $1 trillion as soon as all new automobiles are electrical, there’ll certainly be failures.

“With each new transformational trade, you begin with quite a lot of gamers and it will get narrowed down,” Mr. Luebbe mentioned. “We’ll see that right here.”

Business

U.S. Sues Southwest Airlines Over Chronic Delays

Published

45 minutes ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

U.S. Sues Southwest Airlines Over Chronic Delays

The federal government sued Southwest Airlines on Wednesday, accusing the airline of harming passengers who flew on two routes that were plagued by consistent delays in 2022.

In a lawsuit, the Transportation Department said it was seeking more than $2.1 million in civil penalties over the flights between airports in Chicago and Oakland, Calif., as well as Baltimore and Cleveland, that were chronically delayed over five months that year.

“Airlines have a legal obligation to ensure that their flight schedules provide travelers with realistic departure and arrival times,” the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said in a statement. “Today’s action sends a message to all airlines that the department is prepared to go to court in order to enforce passenger protections.”

Carriers are barred from operating unrealistic flight schedules, which the Transportation Department considers an unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive practice. A “chronically delayed” flight is defined as one that operates at least 10 times a month and is late by at least 30 minutes more than half the time.

In a statement, Southwest said it was “disappointed” that the department chose to sue over the flights that took place more than two years ago. The airline said it had operated 20 million flights since the Transportation Department enacted its policy against chronically delayed flights more than a decade ago, with no other violations.

“Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years,” Southwest said.

Last year, Southwest canceled fewer than 1 percent of its flights, but more than 22 percent arrived at least 15 minutes later than scheduled, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines all had fewer such delays.

The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In it, the government said that a Southwest flight from Chicago to Oakland arrived late 19 out of 25 trips in April 2022, with delays averaging more than an hour. The consistent delays continued through August of that year, averaging an hour or more. On another flight, between Baltimore and Cleveland, average delay times reached as high as 96 minutes per month during the same period. In a statement, the department said that Southwest, rather than poor weather or air traffic control, was responsible for more than 90 percent of the delays.

“Holding out these chronically delayed flights disregarded consumers’ need to have reliable information about the real arrival time of a flight and harmed thousands of passengers traveling on these Southwest flights by causing disruptions to travel plans or other plans,” the department said in the lawsuit.

The government said Southwest had violated federal rules 58 times in August 2022 after four months of consistent delays. Each violation faces a civil penalty of up to $37,377, or more than $2.1 million in total, according to the lawsuit.

The Transportation Department on Wednesday also said that it had penalized Frontier Airlines for chronically delayed flights, fining the airline $650,000. Half that amount was paid to the Treasury and the rest is slated to be forgiven if the airline has no more chronically delayed flights over the next three years.

This month, the department ordered JetBlue Airways to pay a $2 million fine for failing to address similarly delayed flights over a span of more than a year ending in November 2023, with half the money going to passengers affected by the delays.

Business

California drops zero-emission truck rules after inaction by Biden's EPA

Published

2 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

California drops zero-emission truck rules after inaction by Biden's EPA

California government’s plan to phase out heavy-duty diesel trucks and diesel locomotives has been derailed.

The ambitious plan aimed at reducing local pollution and global greenhouse gases required special waivers from the federal government. The Biden administration hadn’t granted the waivers as of this week, and rather than face almost certain denial by the incoming Trump administration, the state withdrew its waiver request.

That means the far-reaching regulations issued by the California Air Resources Board in 2022 to ban new diesel truck sales by 2036 and force fleet owners to take them off the road by 2042 won’t be enforced. Known as the Advanced Clean Fleets rule, the idea was to replace those trucks with electric and hydrogen-powered versions, which dramatically reduce emissions but are currently two to three times more expensive.

“While we are disappointed that U.S. EPA was unable to act on all the requests in time, the withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty presented by the incoming administration that previously attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said will continue to oppose those programs,” CARB Chair Liane Randolph said in a prepared statement.

Environmentalists reacted with deep disappointment.

“To meet basic standards for healthy air, California has to shift to zero-emissions trucks and trains in the coming years. Diesel is one of the most dangerous kinds of air pollution for human health,” Paul Cort, director of Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign, said in a prepared statement. “We’ll be working tirelessly in the coming years — and calling on Gov. [Gavin] Newsom, state legislators, and our air quality regulators to join us — to clean up our freight system and fix the mess [U.S.] EPA’s inaction has created.”

The trucking industry is pleased at the result, but hopes to continue working with California on environmental issues.

“This rule was flawed, and was not reflective of reality,” said Matt Schrap, chief executive at the Harbor Trucking Assn. “Ideally this is an opportunity to take a step back and look at a program that would be more sustainable.”

Trucking representatives had filed a lawsuit to block the rules, arguing they would cause irreparable harm to the industry and the wider economy. Train operators said no zero-emission locomotives exist on the commercial market.

Schrap said “the most important thing is the EPA could have issued the waiver and they didn’t.”

The EPA said it acknowledges California’s withdrawal of the waiver requests “and as a result is taking no further action on CARB’s prior requests and considers these matters closed.”

President-elect Donald Trump is a champion of the fossil fuel industry, making it unlikely that his administration would have approved the California waivers. The state could, however, pursue waivers at some point in the future.

Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is allowed to set its own air standards, and other states are allowed to follow California’s lead. But federal government waivers are required. Most of California’s waivers have been granted, including approval in December of a California ban on new sales of gas-powered cars and light trucks by 2035.

Business

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos to Attend Trump’s Inauguration

Published

9 hours ago

January 15, 2025

Press Room

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos to Attend Trump’s Inauguration

Bezos, Zuckerberg and Coke at the inauguration

Corporate America had already raced to donate big sums to Donald Trump’s record-breaking inaugural fund. Now some of its leaders appear eager to jockey for prominent positions at the inauguration next week.

It’s a new reminder that for some of the nation’s biggest businesses, forging close ties to a president-elect who is promising hard-hitting policies like tariffs is a priority this time around.

Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are expected to be on the inauguration dais, according to NBC News, alongside Elon Musk and several cabinet picks.

The presence of Musk isn’t a surprise, given the Tesla chief’s significant support of and huge influence over Trump. But the other tech moguls have only more recently been seen as supporters of the administration. (Indeed, Bezos frequently sparred with Trump during his first presidential term.)

It’s the latest effort by Bezos and Zuckerberg to burnish their Trump credentials. At the DealBook Summit in December, Bezos — whose Amazon has faced scrutiny under the Biden administration and whose Blue Origin is hoping to win government rocket contracts — said that he was “very hopeful” about Trump’s efforts to reduce regulation.

And Zuckerberg recently announced significant changes to Meta’s content moderation policy, including relaxing restrictions on speech seen as protecting groups including L.G.B.T.Q. people that won praise from Trump and other conservatives. On the inauguration front, Zuckerberg is also co-hosting a reception alongside the longtime Trump backers Miriam Adelson, Tilman Fertitta and Todd Ricketts.

Both tech moguls have visited Mar-a-Lago since the election, with Zuckerberg having done so more than once.

Coca-Cola took a different tack. The drinks giant’s C.E.O., James Quincey, gave Trump what an aide called the “first ever Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle.”

More broadly, business leaders want a piece of the inauguration action. The Times previously reported that the Trump inaugural fund had surpassed $170 million, a record, and that even major donors have been wait-listed for events.

Others are throwing unofficial events around Washington, including an “Inaugural Crypto Ball” that will feature Snoop Dogg, with tickets starting at $5,000, The Wall Street Journal reports.

It’s a reminder that C.E.O.s are reading the room, and preparing their companies for a president who has proposed creating an “External Revenue Service” to oversee what he has promised will be wide-ranging tariffs.

David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser who’s hosting a pre-inauguration event, told The Journal, “This is the world order, and if we’re going to succeed, we need to get with the world order.”

In other Trump news: The president-elect is expected to appear via videoconference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which starts on Inauguration Day, according to Semafor.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

Investors brace for the latest inflation data. The Consumer Price Index report, due out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, is expected to show that inflation ticked up last month, most likely because of climbing food and fuel costs. Global bond markets have been rattled as slow progress on slowing inflation has prompted the Fed to slash its forecast for interest rate cuts.

More Trump cabinet picks will appear before the Senate on Wednesday. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the choice for secretary of state, is expected to field questions about his views on the Middle East, Ukraine and China, but is expected to be confirmed. Russell Vought, the pick to run the Office of Management and Budget, will most likely be asked about his advocacy for drastically shrinking the federal government, a key Trump objective. And Sean Duffy, the Fox Business host chosen to lead the Transportation Department, will probably face questions on how he would oversee matters including aviation safety and autonomous vehicles, the latter of which is a priority for Elon Musk.

Meta plans to lay off another 5 percent of its employees. Mark Zuckerberg, the tech giant’s C.E.O., told staff members to prepare for “extensive performance-based cuts” as the company braces for “an intense year.” The social media giant faces intense competition in the race to commercialize artificial intelligence.

A new bill would give TikTok a reprieve from a ban in the United States. Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he planned to introduce the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, which would give the video platform 270 additional days to be divested from its Chinese parent, ByteDance before being blacklisted. It’s the latest effort to buy TikTok time, as the app faces a Jan. 19 deadline set by a law; President-elect Donald Trump has opposed the potential ban as well.

A question of succession

JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock, the giant money manager, just reported earnings. (In short: Both handily beat analyst expectations.)

But the Wall Street giants are likely to face questioning on a particular issue on Wednesday: Which top lieutenants are in line to replace their larger-than-life C.E.O.s, Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink.

Who’s out:

Daniel Pinto, who had long been Dimon’s right-hand man, said he would officially drop his responsibilities as JPMorgan’s C.O.O. in June and retire at the end of 2026. Jenn Piepszak, the co-C.E.O. of the company’s core commercial and investment bank, has become C.O.O.
And Mark Wiedman, the head of BlackRock’s global client business and a top contender to succeed Fink, is planning to leave, according to news reports.

What Wall Street is gossiping about JPMorgan: Even in taking the C.O.O. role, JPMorgan said that Piepszak wasn’t interested in succeeding Dimon “at this time.” DealBook hears that while she genuinely appears not to want to pursue the top job, the phrasing covers her in case she changes her mind.

For now, that means the most likely candidates for the top spot are Marianne Lake, the company’s head of consumer and community banking; Troy Rohrbaugh, the other co-head of the commercial and investment bank; and Doug Petno, a co-head of global banking.

The buzz around BlackRock: Wiedman reportedly didn’t want to keep waiting to succeed Fink and is expected to seek a C.E.O. position elsewhere. (So sudden was his departure that he’s forfeiting about $8 million worth of stock options and, according to The Wall Street Journal, he doesn’t have another job lined up yet.)

Fink said on CNBC on Wednesday that Wiedman’s departure had been in the works for some time, with the executive having expressed a desire to leave about six months ago.

Other candidates to take over for Fink include Martin Small, BlackRock’s C.F.O.; Rob Goldstein, the firm’s C.O.O.; and Rachel Lord, the head of international.

But Dimon and Fink aren’t going anywhere just yet. Dimon, 68, said only last year that he might not be in the role in five years. And Fink, 72, said in July that he was working on succession planning: “When I do believe the next generation is ready, I’m out.”

The S.E.C. gets in a final shot at Musk

Another battle between Elon Musk and the S.E.C. erupted on Tuesday, with the agency suing the tech mogul over his 2022 purchase of Twitter.

It’s unclear what happens to the lawsuit once President-elect Donald Trump, who counts Musk as a close ally, takes office. But the agency’s reputation as an independent watchdog may be at stake.

A recap: The S.E.C. accused Musk of violating securities laws in his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.

The agency said that Musk had failed to disclose his Twitter ownership stake for a pivotal 11-day stretch before revealing his intentions to purchase the company. That breach allowed him to buy up at least $150 million worth of Twitter shares at a lower price — to the detriment of existing shareholders, the agency argues.

The S.E.C. isn’t just seeking to fine Musk. It wants him to pay back the windfall. “That’s unusual,” Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane Law School, told DealBook.

Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer, called the latest action a “sham” and accused the agency of waging a “multiyear campaign of harassment” against him.

The showdown sets up a tough question for the S.E.C. Will Paul Atkins, the president-elect’s widely respected pick to lead the agency, drop the case? Such a move could call the bedrock principle of S.E.C. independence into question.

Jay Clayton, who led the agency during Trump’s first term, earned the respect of the business community for running it in a largely drama-free manner. It was under Clayton that the S.E.C. sued Musk over his statements about taking Tesla private.

Musk, who is set to become Trump’s cost-cutting czar and is expected to have office space in the White House complex, has called for the “comprehensive overhaul” of agencies like the S.E.C. The billionaire said he would also like to see “punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.”

In related news: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One, accusing it of cheating its depositors out of $2 billion in interest payments.

THE SPEED READ

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OpenAI added Adebayo Ogunlesi, the billionaire co-founder of the infrastructure investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners, to its board. (FT)

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