The Exchanges

Q of became the, the company it is today, but it was still really exciting. I mean, I, I remember when that Roadster came out in 2008, it was still kind of a novelty car, but. I guess you left to continue your studies. You went back to Stanford, but did you leave with the intention of like, okay, there's something to this battery thing, and I want to pursue this?

A Yeah, so I was a mechanical engineer, and the, the thing that vexed me was that battery performance was not improving at the rate that we had seen, even sort of in my solar car days just four years before that, and I knew nothing about the chemistry. I knew nothing of what went on inside the battery, and I looked at it and said, look, if these Performance curves are projected forward. They're going to stall out and we're not going to have EVs, you know, replace every gas car. So I left with the mission to study material science, physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, all of the disciplines needed to find a breakthrough in batteries. And I did that for a couple of years while also looking for a technology to build a company around. So it was very purpose driven. And, um, you know, I think I'm a, I'm a sucker for The hardest problems, and we had sort of figured out how to make battery packs for EVs, and, you know, now the hard problem was making the chemistry better.

AI assessment note: “I left with the mission to study material science, physics, thermodynamics, chemistry”

Q All right, so let's, let's dive into the problem for a moment. I mean, you're, let's, let's go back to 2011, because you've, you founded the company in 2011, and what was the, the problem you were trying to solve at the time? Was, was it the same problem you're still trying to solve today, or was it a different problem at that time?

A Same problem. And this is, this is one of the, the, the beauties of, of picking the right problem is you get to focus and you don't have to pivot. Um, so the problem we wanted to solve was that what I saw was that the performance of lithium ion batteries, particularly in energy density, the improvements were slowing down and reaching a plateau. And the reason that was so important isn't because you necessarily need longer range for EVs, but in the long run, you need cheaper batteries. And it turns out the more energy each battery cell can store, the cheaper the battery pack can be. And the way to think about the reason for that is if every battery cell you have stores twice as much energy, then you need half as many cells. And if you need half as many cells, you need less manufacturing equipment, less packaging, less labor, all of those things. So the best way to make EVs affordable long run is to make the highest performing batteries. And that was the thesis that we started with.

AI assessment note: “Same problem... the problem we wanted to solve was that what I saw”

Q Yeah. So you and Gleb basically joined forces and, uh, I know you, essentially, you had to raise some money to begin the process, and you raised about five million dollars back in, I think, back in 2011. Tell me what the pitch was to investors. You said, we are going to build a better battery that does X, Y, and Z. What, what were you saying to investors?

A So we, we told investors, we're going to make a battery that improves energy density, uh, meaning how much energy the cell can store, which will either enable us to increase range for EVs or, uh, lower costs. It'll also enable us to reduce charge times, which this chemistry has a side benefit of. And we could apply that same chemistry into consumer electronics because graphite's in every lithium ion battery. It's in Your cell phone, it's in the laptop, it's in your car, and so we can apply this chemistry across different markets, and we could start in consumer, where we could get to production much faster, and then we could scale into cars, where the opportunity is just, just mind-bogglingly large. So really, from day one, we laid out the plan that we executed, and, you know, we, 10 years in, we got into our first consumer electronics device, and, you know, it'll be Sort of around five years more from then to get into, you know, first car that folks can buy.

AI assessment note: “we told investors, we're going to make a battery that improves energy density”

Q All right. So let's talk about what the battery can do right now. All right. You've got a G-Wagon, an electric G-Wagon, let's say, and I don't know what the range is on it, but what, what does this new battery bring to the table? Why, how, how does it improve the vehicle from a consumer standpoint?

A So we tell our customers that we can deliver for them a 20% increase in, in energy density, which they can translate to 20% longer range. So if you've got an EV with 250 miles of range, we get you to 300 without having to redesign everything, without having to have a, you know, battery pack that has to replace your back seat. It just fits into the exact same space where your current battery is. Um, and so if, and if you've got 300 mile range already, then we can get you to three 60. And so that's where the technology is today, and then over the next few years, we'll get that to a 30% improvement. Eventually, we think we can get that to a 40% improvement over state-of-the-art graphite chemistries.

AI assessment note: “we can deliver for them a 20% increase in, in energy density”

Q for a moment, because essentially, a lithium ion battery, it stores energy, right? And from, and you'll do a better explanation, because you know the science, but essentially from, from what I understand, the lithium stores the energy, and then over time, that lithium transfers to the, for lack of a better description, the other side of the battery when it spends the energy. Is that more or less right?

A Yeah, that's like, that's a pretty good start. So there are, as you say, there are two sides to the battery, two really important components. The anode, which hosts the lithium when the battery is charged, and the cathode, which hosts the lithium when the battery is discharged. And so when you're charging up the battery at night, you're forcing all the lithium to move into the anode. And then as you're using it, as you connect it to the motor, the The lithium ions kind of run back to the cathode, and the electron goes and does a bunch of work in your car. And so the anode side, the material that stores lithium on when the battery's charged, is today graphite. In almost every single battery in the world, it's just graphite. Same as your pencil lead.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, that's like, that's a pretty good start.”

Q All right, so let's, let's dive into the problem for a moment. I mean, you're, let's, let's go back to 2011, because you've, you founded the company in 2011, and what was the, the problem you were trying to solve at the time? Was, was it the same problem you're still trying to solve today, or was it a different problem at that time?

A Same problem. And this is, this is one of the, the, the beauties of, of picking the right problem is you get to focus and you don't have to pivot. Um, so the problem we wanted to solve was that what I saw was that the performance of lithium ion batteries, particularly in energy density, the improvements were slowing down and reaching a plateau. And the reason that was so important isn't because you necessarily need longer range for EVs, but in the long run, you need cheaper batteries. And it turns out the more energy each battery cell can store, the cheaper the battery pack can be. And the way to think about the reason for that is if every battery cell you have stores twice as much energy, then you need half as many cells. And if you need half as many cells, you need less manufacturing equipment, less packaging, less labor, all of those things. So the best way to make EVs affordable long run is to make the highest performing batteries. And that was the thesis that we started with.

AI assessment note: “Same problem. And this is, this is one of the, the, the beauties”

Q for a moment, because essentially, a lithium ion battery, it stores energy, right? And from, and you'll do a better explanation, because you know the science, but essentially from, from what I understand, the lithium stores the energy, and then over time, that lithium transfers to the, for lack of a better description, the other side of the battery when it spends the energy. Is that more or less right?

A Yeah, that's like, that's a pretty good start. So there are, as you say, there are two sides to the battery, two really important components. The anode, which hosts the lithium when the battery is charged, and the cathode, which hosts the lithium when the battery is discharged. And so when you're charging up the battery at night, you're forcing all the lithium to move into the anode. And then as you're using it, as you connect it to the motor, the The lithium ions kind of run back to the cathode, and the electron goes and does a bunch of work in your car. And so the anode side, the material that stores lithium on when the battery's charged, is today graphite. In almost every single battery in the world, it's just graphite. Same as your pencil lead.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, that's like, that's a pretty good start. So there are, as you say”

Q of became the, the company it is today, but it was still really exciting. I mean, I, I remember when that Roadster came out in 2008, it was still kind of a novelty car, but. I guess you left to continue your studies. You went back to Stanford, but did you leave with the intention of like, okay, there's something to this battery thing, and I want to pursue this?

A Yeah, so I was a mechanical engineer, and the, the thing that vexed me was that battery performance was not improving at the rate that we had seen, even sort of in my solar car days just four years before that, and I knew nothing about the chemistry. I knew nothing of what went on inside the battery, and I looked at it and said, look, if these Performance curves are projected forward. They're going to stall out and we're not going to have EVs, you know, replace every gas car. So I left with the mission to study material science, physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, all of the disciplines needed to find a breakthrough in batteries. And I did that for a couple of years while also looking for a technology to build a company around. So it was very purpose driven. And, um, you know, I think I'm a, I'm a sucker for The hardest problems, and we had sort of figured out how to make battery packs for EVs, and, you know, now the hard problem was making the chemistry better.

AI assessment note: “I left with the mission to study material science, physics, thermodynamics, chemistry”

Q Yeah. So you and Gleb basically joined forces and, uh, I know you, essentially, you had to raise some money to begin the process, and you raised about five million dollars back in, I think, back in 2011. Tell me what the pitch was to investors. You said, we are going to build a better battery that does X, Y, and Z. What, what were you saying to investors?

A So we, we told investors, we're going to make a battery that improves energy density, uh, meaning how much energy the cell can store, which will either enable us to increase range for EVs or, uh, lower costs. It'll also enable us to reduce charge times, which this chemistry has a side benefit of. And we could apply that same chemistry into consumer electronics because graphite's in every lithium ion battery. It's in Your cell phone, it's in the laptop, it's in your car, and so we can apply this chemistry across different markets, and we could start in consumer, where we could get to production much faster, and then we could scale into cars, where the opportunity is just, just mind-bogglingly large. So really, from day one, we laid out the plan that we executed, and, you know, we, 10 years in, we got into our first consumer electronics device, and, you know, it'll be Sort of around five years more from then to get into, you know, first car that folks can buy.

AI assessment note: “we told investors, we're going to make a battery that improves energy density”

Q All right. So let's talk about what the battery can do right now. All right. You've got a G-Wagon, an electric G-Wagon, let's say, and I don't know what the range is on it, but what, what does this new battery bring to the table? Why, how, how does it improve the vehicle from a consumer standpoint?

A So we tell our customers that we can deliver for them a 20% increase in, in energy density, which they can translate to 20% longer range. So if you've got an EV with 250 miles of range, we get you to 300 without having to redesign everything, without having to have a, you know, battery pack that has to replace your back seat. It just fits into the exact same space where your current battery is. Um, and so if, and if you've got 300 mile range already, then we can get you to three 60. And so that's where the technology is today, and then over the next few years, we'll get that to a 30% improvement. Eventually, we think we can get that to a 40% improvement over state-of-the-art graphite chemistries.

AI assessment note: “we can deliver for them a 20% increase in, in energy density”

Q to develop this, right? Because you, you were essentially, this was not off the shelf technology. You guys had to Figure out the science behind this. So kind of walk me through a little bit of what you did during that 10 year period, because that is, man, that's a, that must be, you have to have a lot of patience, right? Waiting for that moment where it's gonna work.

A Yeah. So the best way I can, I can summarize it is, uh, I, I think innovation, and this is a slight twist on, on what you've heard before, is one percent inspiration and 99% iteration. So it's all about how fast you iterate on your ideas. It matters how smart you are to start. It matters how good of a, you know, professor you've got on the team. But what matters more than anything is the machine to drive that invention and those Turn those ideas over and discard the bad ones as quickly as possible. And so in this case, because we were inventing an entirely new materials class, uh, we also had to invent the processing techniques for synthesizing those materials. And so the first thing we did wasn't to get in the lab and start cooking materials. The first thing we did was build a bunch of reactors to do the synthesis work. And instead of Doing it in a typical grad school fashion where it kind of held together with duct tape and bailing wire. We built really nice automated, uh, machines that would be just bulletproof and execute every recipe that we gave them to synthesize these materials with extreme precision. We outfitted them with hundreds of sensors and we built a dozen of these machines pretty quickly. And then we honestly just turned the crank, right? Ideas in. Results out. Discard the bad ideas. Recycle the good ones. Put them together. And iterate, iterate, iterate.

AI assessment note: “The first thing we did was build a bunch of reactors to do the synthesis”

Q of lithium ion batteries and so on. Does this help Solve some of that challenge? I mean, if, if silicon is, unlike graphite, it's plentiful, it's available everywhere, it's, and you're talking about a U.S.-based company, um, it can be mined in the U.S., right? It's, um, is, does this change that, you know, that equation, or, or is the whole idea of a shortage kind of a, uh, overblown?

A It does change the equation. Um, you know, it, it, it democratizes where you can produce anode materials, and there's a lot From a national security standpoint and from a regional security standpoint, there's a lot of good reasons that we want production of anode materials in the U S Europe wants production of anode materials in Europe. And by the way, and cathode materials and separators and electrolytes, all the key components and the batteries themselves. So this is the energy sector of the 21st century. And just like, you know, it really, really mattered where energy was produced in the 20th century. And we fought wars over it. We should really get ahead of the curve and ensure our own energy security by having domestic supply of anodes. And if we're going to do that, rather than trying to compete on a unlevel playing field and try to catch up to what, you know, a dominant position that has been established in China on graphite, we should do it with new technologies where we have the advantage. And to your point, they require dramatically less mining. They require really much less labor. These technologies are much more efficient. They require clean energy, which we have in, in Washington state where we're building our factory from the Columbia river. And, you know, they require innovation, which America is incredible at. It is our best asset. And so what, what's critical i…

AI assessment note: “It does change the equation. Um, you know, it, it, it democratizes”

Q they had a vehicle to sell, which is a long time when you've got investors and you've got, you know, people working on this. You said that it took a few years before you could start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, which would still take another Six or seven years. How did you just persevere? I mean, were you sure this was going to work?

A Uh, no, uh, certainly not in the early days. Um, and so, you know, we, we, we talked about this explicitly in the early days when it's a science project, you, you have to decide what you're going to measure yourself by. If you're Measuring yourself only by the result, then you will never take on something where you might fail. So, you know, you have to measure the inputs and the inputs are, did we work as hard as we possibly could? Did we, you know, come up with the best ideas we could? And then do we do it with integrity and respect? Because if you sort of, you know, if you lose your integrity, it sort of, the whole thing falls apart. And so I think we were all committed to the mission. Um, and you know, we all believed we could get there. We certainly believed we could crack the code that, you know, the, the, the thermodynamics said it was not impossible, which is all you have to know. Once you know, it's not impossible. It's really just a question of how long and how hard is it going to get.

AI assessment note: “Uh, no, uh, certainly not in the early days.”

Q to develop this, right? Because you, you were essentially, this was not off the shelf technology. You guys had to Figure out the science behind this. So kind of walk me through a little bit of what you did during that 10 year period, because that is, man, that's a, that must be, you have to have a lot of patience, right? Waiting for that moment where it's gonna work.

A Yeah. So the best way I can, I can summarize it is, uh, I, I think innovation, and this is a slight twist on, on what you've heard before, is one percent inspiration and 99% iteration. So it's all about how fast you iterate on your ideas. It matters how smart you are to start. It matters how good of a, you know, professor you've got on the team. But what matters more than anything is the machine to drive that invention and those Turn those ideas over and discard the bad ones as quickly as possible. And so in this case, because we were inventing an entirely new materials class, uh, we also had to invent the processing techniques for synthesizing those materials. And so the first thing we did wasn't to get in the lab and start cooking materials. The first thing we did was build a bunch of reactors to do the synthesis work. And instead of Doing it in a typical grad school fashion where it kind of held together with duct tape and bailing wire. We built really nice automated, uh, machines that would be just bulletproof and execute every recipe that we gave them to synthesize these materials with extreme precision. We outfitted them with hundreds of sensors and we built a dozen of these machines pretty quickly. And then we honestly just turned the crank, right? Ideas in. Results out. Discard the bad ideas. Recycle the good ones. Put them together. And iterate, iterate, iterate.

AI assessment note: “The first thing we did was build a bunch of reactors to do the synthesis”

Q of lithium ion batteries and so on. Does this help Solve some of that challenge? I mean, if, if silicon is, unlike graphite, it's plentiful, it's available everywhere, it's, and you're talking about a U.S.-based company, um, it can be mined in the U.S., right? It's, um, is, does this change that, you know, that equation, or, or is the whole idea of a shortage kind of a, uh, overblown?

A It does change the equation. Um, you know, it, it, it democratizes where you can produce anode materials, and there's a lot From a national security standpoint and from a regional security standpoint, there's a lot of good reasons that we want production of anode materials in the U S Europe wants production of anode materials in Europe. And by the way, and cathode materials and separators and electrolytes, all the key components and the batteries themselves. So this is the energy sector of the 21st century. And just like, you know, it really, really mattered where energy was produced in the 20th century. And we fought wars over it. We should really get ahead of the curve and ensure our own energy security by having domestic supply of anodes. And if we're going to do that, rather than trying to compete on a unlevel playing field and try to catch up to what, you know, a dominant position that has been established in China on graphite, we should do it with new technologies where we have the advantage. And to your point, they require dramatically less mining. They require really much less labor. These technologies are much more efficient. They require clean energy, which we have in, in Washington state where we're building our factory from the Columbia river. And, you know, they require innovation, which America is incredible at. It is our best asset. And so what, what's critical i…

AI assessment note: “It does change the equation. Um, you know, it, it, it democratizes where you can produce”

Q they had a vehicle to sell, which is a long time when you've got investors and you've got, you know, people working on this. You said that it took a few years before you could start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, which would still take another Six or seven years. How did you just persevere? I mean, were you sure this was going to work?

A Uh, no, uh, certainly not in the early days. Um, and so, you know, we, we, we talked about this explicitly in the early days when it's a science project, you, you have to decide what you're going to measure yourself by. If you're Measuring yourself only by the result, then you will never take on something where you might fail. So, you know, you have to measure the inputs and the inputs are, did we work as hard as we possibly could? Did we, you know, come up with the best ideas we could? And then do we do it with integrity and respect? Because if you sort of, you know, if you lose your integrity, it sort of, the whole thing falls apart. And so I think we were all committed to the mission. Um, and you know, we all believed we could get there. We certainly believed we could crack the code that, you know, the, the, the thermodynamics said it was not impossible, which is all you have to know. Once you know, it's not impossible. It's really just a question of how long and how hard is it going to get.

AI assessment note: “Uh, no, uh, certainly not in the early days.”