Lithium News

Air Race E Series Wants To Rekindle Old Airplane Races With Electricity

What a wild first year it’s been for the highly entertaining electric Air Race E, which is gearing up for its first year of races — targeted for 2020. My last conversation with Jeff Zaltman, Air Race E’s CEO, showed me that the group is about as dynamic as its airplanes maneuvering in the sky.

After announcing its innovative partnership with Airbus and the University of Nottingham, Air Race E got to work on the prototype of the electric race airplane. Zaltman said:

“It has been an amazing 12 months for all the team at Air Race E and we are working like crazy in the background to make the world’s first all-electric airplane race a fantastic spectacle.

“The project has gained support from across the globe and the huge partners that have come on board in the last year serve to highlight the significance of the electric aviation industry and its development for the future.”

This past year was spent grouping the airplanes, race pilots, aviation engineers, and all sports associations involved while opening a test center in Europe. Finally, a “plug and play” electric motor, battery, and electric propulsion system was designed which can be retrofitted onto existing conventional Air Race 1 plane.

Jeff told me that the original gas-powered Air Race 1 started in 2013, picked up in 2015, and continues to grow bigger. He said that Air Race E became a possibility once he and his team realized all the ingredients for a race were there already — sanctioning bodies, engineers, PR teams, and overall expertise to deliver it. They just needed to be put together into an international airplane race series.

The idea behind the open series lies with early air races in the ’20s and ’30s, which were followed by hundreds and thousands of people in a rather informal manner. Air Race E is re-launching this with the electric open platform drivetrain.

The Reno Air Show already has an official relationship with Air Race 1 with 6 different races, which means Air Race E would be 7th.

Lastly, I asked Jeff if there was anything going on with the Rolls-Royce ACCEL e-plane racer, but he told me there was nothing formal with them — although, he welcomes a future collaboration. He concluded by saying that excitement of the race would be captured by the various configurations in the race, which means that some planes will be faster on straight lines, other more maneuverable. Let the racing begin!

This last point is of particular importance, as it means a lineup of different electric airplanes each good at a specific task will have to duke it out between pylons. In the end, launching an electric flight series when the technology is still in its infancy is daunting but will accelerate sustainable aviation and motorsports in the future. So far, Air Race E is the world’s first and only all-electric airplane racing championship.

Jeff told me he decided to base Air Race E on the well-proven Motorsport format, such as formula one air racing or Air Race 1. This high-adrenaline, very fast-paced, multi-plane race on a closed circuit around six pylons meters above the ground is faster than any land-based sport you can witness. It is spectacular! Each plane will be driven by a propeller powered by an electric motor.

We’ll leave the last words to Grazia Vittadini, Chief Technology Officer of Airbus.

“We want to motivate manufacturers to showcase their technologies across the full spectrum of electric propulsion systems and components.

“This partnership enables us to demonstrate our commitment to staying at the leading edge of electric propulsion and developing a new ecosystem.”

China’s electric vehicle (EV) industry has been booming for nearly a decade, with generous subsidies from the Chinese government and state-sponsored marketing efforts. However, the research and development (R&D) subsidies are now shifting to vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells, a new technology that according to industry, is cleaner and more efficient than lithium battery-run cars. Current EV automakers in China will have to face the cruel reality: the EV industry will soon suffer financial losses with the disappearance of state support.

Chinese Regime Shifting Subsidies to Hydrogen EVs

On March 26, China’s Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Science and Technology, and other agencies jointly announced changes to the subsidy program for lithium battery-powered electric cars, slashing subsidies by 67 percent.

Electric cars with driving ranges of 400 kilometers (250 miles) and above will be cut by half, to 25,000 yuan ($3,700) per vehicle from 50,000 yuan. And to qualify for any subsidy, electric cars need to have a range of at least 250 kilometers, compared with 150 kilometers previously.
In addition, subsidies for EV vehicles will be phased out completely after 2020.

The Trigger: Li Keqiang’s Trip to Japan

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Japan last year fundamentally changed his thinking about electric vehicles.

Li visited Toyota Motor Corp.’s factory for manufacturing EV auto parts in Hokkaido on May 11, 2018, where he saw a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle called “MIRAI.” He learned that the MIRAI takes only three to four minutes to fuel up and has a 650 kilometer (404 miles) driving range.

According to several Chinese media reports, upon Li’s return to China, several ministries and commissions in China quickly formed a joint team to develop hydrogen fuel cell technology, the first signal that China’s policy makers would make hydrogen fuel cell a major R&D project.
Lithium battery has several drawbacks when compared with hydrogen fuel cell, which uses hydrogen gas as power.

Lithium batteries contain heavy metals such as nickel, cobalt, and manganese. The mining process to extract such metals can cause pollution to nearby water sources. Meanwhile, processing of copper, lithium, and other metals create toxic waste, that if not treated and recycled properly, can cause serious environmental problems.

On March 15, China’s cabinet-like State Council publicized 83 amendments to its annual Government Work Report delivered before its rubber-stamp legislature. Among them was a provision to promote the construction of infrastructure related to electric and hydrogen fuel cell technology. At the time, there were no additional policy details, but it was the first time hydrogen fuel was included in the report.
Eleven days later, Chinese government announced the aforementioned new EV subsidy policies.

On April 11, the state-run English-language newspaper China Daily reported that the central authorities’ development plan for hydrogen fuel technology has set targets of getting 5,000 hydrogen energy vehicles on the road by 2020, 50,000 by 2025 and 1 million by 2030.

Subsidy Reductions Led to Sharp Drop in Automaker Revenues

China’s EV automakers are already losing money.

For example, Chinese automaker BYD is a star brand in the domestic market. BYD started new energy vehicle (NEV) R&D ten years ago.

According to Chinese news portal Sohu, citing information from BYD’s financial reports, in the past five years, the company has received a total of 6.93 billion yuan ($1.03 billion) in electric vehicle subsidies from the Chinese regime.

But the industry’s lucrativeness was already falling. In BYD’s 2018 annual report released on March 27 this year, the company’s net profit attributable to shareholders was 2.78 billion yuan, down 31.6 percent from the previous year. BYD explained that the over 30 percent drop was mainly due to the reduction in subsidies and increases in R&D costs.

In early March, NIO (known as Shanghai Weilai Automobile in Chinese), which specializes in making electric autonomous vehicles and became publicly listed only half a year ago, reported revenues of 4.951 billion yuan ($738 million) in 2018 while net losses were 9.639 billion yuan ($1.44 billion). In addition, Weilai also announced that it would cancel plans to build a new plant in Shanghai.

According to an October 2018 Morgan Stanley research report, NIO has been losing money year after year. The net loss in 2018 was 9.639 billion ($1.44 billion), almost double the figure from 2017. Total losses from 2016 to 2018 amounted to 17.233 billion yuan ($2.57 billion).
The Chinese regime’s phasing out of EV subsidies could be devastating to the industry.

The Rise and Fall of China’s EV Industry

The concept of new energy vehicles (NEV) has long existed. The Paris Agreement adopted in 2015 has led many countries to transform in this direction.

The Chinese regime took it as an opportunity to “surpass competitors by overtaking them at the curve,” hoping that NEVs would help China transform from a follower to a leader in the auto industry.
In the Chinese regime’s ten-year economic blueprint “Made in China 2025” released in 2015, NEV’s were among the ten high-tech sectors that Beijing targeted for aggressive development so the country could emerge as a global tech manufacturing powerhouse.

At the same time, the Chinese regime provided multiple incentives—subsidies to EV manufacturers; mandatory requirements for government agencies to purchase certain percentage of EVs; subsidies to auto consumers to buy EV’s; and increased access to EV-only carpool lanes among them—all of which quickly propelled the growth of EV industry. China is now the global leader in making and buying of electric cars.

According to Morgan Stanley’s estimates, China is expected to account for 59 percent of global EV sales by 2020.

The first all-electric MINI — based on the BMW i3 — will go on sale in 2020. Gearing up for the marketing campaign that will accompany the launch of that car in the US, MINI decided to ask Americans what their expectations are for an electric car. It commissioned a survey conducted by Engine International for that.

“It is important for us as a brand to understand how consumers want to use their electric vehicles, and what they know and don’t know about them, as we move closer to the launch of the MINI Cooper S E electric vehicle in the US,” said Andrew Cutler, Head of Corporate Communications, MINI USA, according to an Associated Press report. “The more intelligence we gather, the more we can educate consumers about the many benefits of electric mobility and what MINI has to offer in the new MINI Cooper S E electric vehicle coming in early 2020.”

The survey asked a number of questions of 1,004 Americans 18 years or older — half men and half women. The takeaway from the survey results is that most people don’t have a clue when it comes to understanding what electric cars are all about. A recent CleanTechnica article by Carolyn Fortuna emphasized the need to educate consumers about electric cars. Boy, howdy!

74% said they had no idea where the nearest EV charger was located. When asked how much time it takes to charge an electric car, 53% said they didn’t know or thought it was about 30 minutes. Two-thirds said that EVs were mostly for early adopters. Almost as many said electric cars were primarily for commuting and urban driving.

That last part shouldn’t surprise anyone. Most research shows that the average American drives less than 30 miles a day. But that still doesn’t stop many of us from believing that as long as we have money for gas, we have the freedom to chuck it all, hop in the car, and head west to follow our dreams. Can’t do that in an electric car, now can you?

Nevertheless, 73% said 75 miles of range was adequate for their needs and a significant number of those who responded to the poll indicated the federal tax credit would not be a significant part of their decision making process if they decided to purchase and electric car. (They probably don’t realize that could be another $7,500 in their pockets.)

What are we left with? The general impression is that people don’t know much about electric cars and most of what they do know is wrong. Hardly good news for those who want to see the EV revolution move forward.

Education is the key, but who should be doing the educating? Certainly those of us who own electric cars can tell our friends and neighbors about them and offer them test drives, but if we rely on that, the revolution won’t be complete until 2121 or so. The Earth simply can’t wait that long.

Manufacturers could do more. Electrify America is in the middle of an educational campaign and Audi has just decided to follow suit as it prepares to bring its e-tron electric SUV to market. Kudos to both for at least doing something (even if Electrify America’s work is a court mandate for cheating consumers and illegally polluting our air). But what of other manufacturers? And how hard would it be for car dealers to hold EV education events?

We’re not talking about boring lectures where someone drones on and on about electric cars. A little music, a few hot dogs, and a selection of electric cars to drive. One or two well trained individuals on hand to answer people’s questions. Not a lot of money or time needed, but has anyone actually heard of a car dealer doing such a thing?

Those of us who are part of the CleanTechnica community are well informed and like to think others are, too. But the truth is, most drivers in the US have no idea how an electric car operates or how to charge one. They don’t know the joy of waking each morning to a full battery, disconnecting the charger, and driving all day on electrons instead of molecules.

If life on Earth was not threatened with extinction, all this talk of EVs might be just the subject of cocktail party conversation, but we are on the verge of an existential crisis, one that will overwhelm us shortly if we don’t act immediately. On the one hand, good on MINI USA for trying to understand consumer attitudes about electric cars. On the other hand, BMW has been selling electric cars for many years now and should already know what is needed to get customers interested in EVs. Perhaps The Eagles said it best: “Things in this life change very slowly if they ever change at all.”

Rivian, the electric truck and SUV startup based in Plymouth, Michigan, has attracted a lot of attention. Recently, the privately held company completed a $700 million funding round led by Amazon. It also has financial support from Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. and Saudi auto distributor Abdul Latif Jameel Ltd., according to a report by Fortune.

That report claims talks were underway between Rivian and General Motors that could have led to The General purchasing a stake in the startup. Rivian’s first vehicles — introduced last year at the Los Angeles Auto Show — are the darlings of the EV world right now, as they are both large (some might say extra large), something that appeals strongly to American customers.

When we say large, we mean bigger than the Tesla Model X, and significantly larger than the forthcoming Tesla Model Y. Yet despite their bulk, both are said to be capable of traveling more than 400 miles on a single charge, something that also appeals strongly to prospective American customers.

In the US, bigger is better and General Motors is hot to get some Suburban and Silverado sized electric vehicles into its lineup. All of its current EV options are small and midsize vehicles. A linkup with Rivian would speed those larger SUVs and trucks to market. Without it, it could take GM years longer to get such vehicles into showrooms.

For whatever reasons, Rivian founder R.J. Scaringe tells Fortune he prefers to keep his options open and that the talks with GM have ended. Apparently, there are plenty of suitors buzzing around Rivian’s door and the company can have its pick. Scaringe said in February that his company is interested in marketing its EV technology to several customers. Perhaps GM wanted exclusivity and Rivian preferred an “open marriage” arrangement?

GM spokesperson Pat Morrissey tells Fortune, “As we have stated, we admire Rivian’s contribution to a future of zero emissions and an all-electric future. Talks occur on a regular basis in the auto industry between a variety of partners, but as a matter of policy we don’t discuss who, where or when those discussions might occur.”

Rivian expects to begin production of its first vehicles in 2020 at the factory in Normal, Illinois, it bought from Mitsubishi in 2017 for the bargain basement price of $16 million. Another EV startup called Tesla started off in much the same fashion, purchasing a shuttered factory in Fremont, California, from General Motors. Heard of it?

It the Tesla experience has proven anything, it is that the road to becoming a manufacturer of automobiles and trucks is littered with land mines. Announcing intentions and delivering actual products are two very different things. The world needs for Rivian and other EV startups to succeed, but as my old Irish grandmother liked to say, “If wishes were horses, we’d all be kings.”

The boards of Orocobre and Toyota Tsusho Corp. have given the green light to building the Naraha lithium hydroxide plant, which will be the first of its kind in Japan.

The majority of production will feed the Japanese battery industry and will be sourced from the lithium carbonate produced from the phase two expansion of Orocobre’s Olaroz mine in northern Argentina’s Jujuy province.

Construction will start before the end of June, and the joint-venture partners expect to commission the plant sometime in the first half of 2021.

The companies estimate that it will take about 9,500 tonnes a year of primary grade lithium carbonate to produce 10,000 tonnes per year of battery grade lithium hydroxide.

A cathode manufacturing plant already exists nearby the site, and plans have been announced to develop a battery manufacturing facility in the area, Orocobre notes in a press release.

Capital costs for the project are forecast to run to $77.6 million, excluding VAT, but the joint-venture is entitled to a subsidy of $27.1 million from the Japanese government.

The subsidy will be received once the project “reaches mechanical completion,” which is expected to occur in the first half of 2021, the joint-venture says.

Financing the plant will come from $82.1 million of term/bridging loans and $9 million of shareholder equity. (Orocobre’s share is $6.8 million and Toyota Tsusho’s is $2.3 million.)

Japanese banks have already approved two loans with interest rates of below 1%.

Operating costs, excluding the feedstock, are forecast to run to about $1,500 per tonne.

Orocobre’s partnership with Toyota Tsusho began in January 2010 through a definitive joint-venture agreement to develop the lithium brine project. Orocobre holds 72.7% of the joint-venture holding company and Toyota Tsusho 27.32%.

The provincial government of Juyuy became a project partner in June 2012.

Today the holding company owns 91.5% of Olaroz and the Juyuy provincial government owns 8.5%.

Olaroz began operations in April 2015 and has an estimated mine life of at least forty years.

The joint-venture approved the final investment decision for the stage 2 expansion of the Olaroz facility in November 2018.

The stage 2 expansion will increase the production capacity by about 25,000 tonnes per year of lithium carbonate, bringing total production capacity to 42,500 tonnes per year.

Total capex is estimated at about $295 million, including a contingency of $25 million.

Over the last year, Orocobre’s shares on the TSX have traded within a range of $2.74 and $5.95 per share. At market close they were trading at $3.33 apiece.

The company has about 261 million common shares outstanding for a market cap of around $868 million.

Medical devices are a challenging environment for batteries. But lithium ion batteries can meet many of the needs of medtech and provide the high energy and charge capacity necessarily for devices ranging from heart rhythm monitors, neural stimulators, and even innovative injectable devices.

Ilika, a UK-based specialist in solid-state battery technology has just launched its new Stereax M50, a miniaturized solid-state lithium ion cell designed exclusively for the needs of the medical device industry.

“The need for this technology is really been driven by a wave of innovation that is sweeping through the medtech industry, which is really all about making devices smart,” Graeme Purdy, CEO of Ilika, told Design News. “Historically, a lot of medtech devices have been passive implants, or passive wearables, and actually now they are becoming Internet-enabled, or communication-enabled, and this brings with it the demand for mobile power. So implants are being developed that actually have miniature batteries in them.”

Electric vehicles (EVs), cell phones, personal electronics, and large scale electrical renewable power grid support are grabbing all the lithium ion battery headlines, but powering medical devices is a small, but vital, role that often hides in the background – in part because of its difficulty.

The batteries to power medical devices must be biocompatible, so that they pose no risk of leakage, and also small enough to be used in implantable devices. They also need to have as long a life as possible to avoid repeated surgical interventions to change the battery, and must be chargeable in a way that does not restrict the patient. Moreover, different devices may require different sizes and form factors of batteries.

Going a Different Direction

Many researchers who are looking at replacing the flammable liquid electrolyte of commercial lithium ion cells with a safer, solid electrolyte also are working with lithium metal anodes (negative electrodes). But Ilika has gone a different direction.

“We use silicon as the anode in all of our cells. In that respect they are not dissimilar to a lithium ion architecture,” explained Purdy. “We do that because we think there are some advantages from not only a safety perspective, but also from a longevity perspective—our cells will last for more cycles when we use this kind of structured anode instead of a lithium metal anode. They are designed to go through about 5,000 charge and discharge cycles.”

One of the advantages of solid-state electrolytes is that the spikey, dendritic crystals of lithium metal that grow on the anode during charging have difficulty penetrating the solid electrolyte material and are suppressed. “One of the advantages of going to a silicon anode is that you don’t plate out lithium at the interface between the anode and the electrolyte, therefore the intrinsic architecture of the cells is less susceptible to dendritic formation,” said Purdy. “The lithium is actually absorbed into the silicon structure.”

“The solid electrolyte is a ceramic. We use an oxide and have been working in this area of electrolyte optimization for about 10 years now. We have selected some oxide materials that have got adequate ionic conductivity, and have got good electronic insulation properties. What’s more you get those properties at room temperature—there is no point in having those properties at elevated temperature when you are trying to make a medical device,” he said. The cathode is a typical lithium-cobalt-oxide mixture that is commonly used in the electronics industry.

Building a Goliath

Ilika has also worked to find other niches for its solid-state lithium ion technology. Its M250 solid-state lithium ion battery is in production for automation devices and its P180 solid-state battery is designed for high-temperature industrial applications. “We’ve launched the M250 and P180 in previous years—today, we’ve miniaturized the footprint of the cells and come up with the M50 format,” Purdy said.

Ilika says its technology is scalable and the company has a strong interest in building larger format solid-state lithium ion batteries for applications like EVs. But Purdy acknowledges that it will require a few more years of development before the company can do a launch similar to the M50 for an EV product.

“Goliath is our in-house codename for large-format cells. [With solid-state cells] one of challenges is ensuring that you get rapid enough commercial adoption. Trying to compete with [standard] lithium ion batteries is actually quite a challenge because they are quite mature now, and they are made in massive quantities around the world in gigafactories. So they have a pretty aggressive price point,” Purdy said. “So our approach has been to say, can we develop a solid-state cell that is suitable in a really strongly differentiated way or in a niche market?”

With solid-state lithium ion batteries already in production by Ilika, Purdy is optimistic that solid-state batteries will show up in the mass market by the mid-2020s. “We have two development programs. One of them is with Honda and Ricardo based in the UK. We have a second collaboration with McLaren and A123 Batteries, headquartered in the US. That particular program is designed for high-end performance vehicles,” Purdy said. “Our view on this is that the early adopters in the automotive industry for solid-state will be performance vehicles, where the price point for solid-state will not be such a sensitive issue, as it would be for the mass-market,” said Purdy.