Kann: Modular manufacturability drives steep clean-tech learning curves
Shayle Kann · Shayle’s “ask me anything” episode · May 12, 2022 · at 32:12
Climate tech investor Shayle Kann explains why modular technologies like solar and lithium-ion batteries achieve steep cost reduction learning curves.
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“I'm probably not the world's greatest expert on this question, but I think the fundamental thing that drives these learning curves is sort of manufacturability. Like, can you scale up manufacturing of the thing at, by number, not just by scale? So in the context of solar and lithium ion batteries, right, we just start producing, and these are, they're modular, so your single solar unit is a module. They're literally modular in the case of solar, but the single solar unit is a module and you, that is a manufacturing, it's a manufactured technology that you can optimize your manufacturing around, that you can automate, that you can scale up and produce more and more and more of, and that's where you start to see the learning rates driving down cost, at least on the manufacturing side.”
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