Gene Berdichevsky is the co-founder and CEO of Sila Nanotechnologies and an early Tesla engineer.
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Berdichevsky: Autonomous EVs will be an order of magnitude cheaper than gas
“And as you can imagine, with the cost of recharging an EV being almost nothing compared to the cost of refueling a car, you know, autonomous EVs are going to be not just a little cheaper than gas powered EVs, but they're going to be an order of magnitude.”
Prediction Held up
Berdichevsky: Automotive scale will make lithium-ion dominate electrical grid storage
“Being somebody who's in lithium ion, I actually think the scale of automotive will also lead lithium ion to dominate most of the grid.”
Opinion
Berdichevsky argues climate change is no longer a technology bottleneck
“I don't believe that solving I don't believe solving most of climate change is going to be a technology problem. I think we have the technologies. I'm watching them get invented. I'm watching them get scaled right now.”
Assertion Partly supported
Berdichevsky: Graphite-metal oxide battery chemistry has completely flatlined
“This graphite metal oxide chemistry went through an S curve and flatlined, totally flatlined. And that's sort of when I started to see it flatlining at Tesla as part of the, was part of the impetus for starting Sela.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2030
Berdichevsky predicts battery costs will reach $50/kWh by 2030
“And so you can plot that out and you can see the costs. If technology improves trending to kind of 50 bucks a kilowatt hour, which would have been unthinkable to people, you know just a few years ago. I mean, a hundred seemed like a real stretch for everybody.…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Berdichevsky: Autonomous vehicles will drive 1-2M miles per decade
“Is as we get to autonomy, which obviously is going to take a little longer than everybody expected, you know, vehicles are going to go from driving a 100,000 miles in 10 years to driving a million or two million miles in 10 years.”