Thread by @AukeHoekstra

"Let me begin with the obvious: emobilily has won the race"
Herbert Dies CEO @volkswagen

VW just had "Power Day" and it is not just introducing electric vehicles anymore: it's reorienting the entire company from internal combustion to batteries.

For those able to read German (or if you don't mind reading translated webpages) here is a good write-up from @Stefan_Hajek: wiwo.de/technologie/mo…

Here the entire livestream. Diess highlights:

240 GWh/year through 6 gigafactories in Europe

A new battery cell to cover 80% of VW cars in 2030 and reduce prices by up to 50%

Create biggest fast-charging network in the world in Europe and China

Your car as a battery on wheel to optimize the grid: great!

I love it that they include heavy trucks in this picture

Also the focus on second life and recycling (97% is mentioned) is encouraging

Instead of defining batteries based on cars, VW will define cars around batteries

If this graph is not just for show, there will be quick scaling up from 2023-2026

Interesting that they see NMC iron phosphate and manganese as the dominant batteries and call solid state "the endgame"

Anode delivers charging speed, cathode cost/range/sustainability (12:46)

Iron phosphate is touted as cheap and great cycle life

But high manganese (with low nickel and no cobalt anymore) is touted as cheaper with same range as current state-of-the-art

Anode with silicon makes charging faster: VW Taycan and Audi eTron are benchmarks in charging speed

Solid state is simpler, lighter and cheaper, they say with 60 of charging time slashed. Current proof of concept batteries from partner QuantumScape charge to 80% in 12 minutes instead of 35 minutes.

Remarkable prediction: ID.4 will charge 450km in 17 minutes in 2025 and it will become 12 minutes after that. And remember: this is not Elon Time but @volkswagen which is less exciting but usually a lot more accurate.

"The battery cell is tomorrows combustion chamber"

I like it. It's a catchy one-liner. But what is remarkable that here it is said by the chairman of Porsche.

This sheet makes clear VW also wants to get into mining and battery chemistry. (Although they also say that they will sometimes work with partners or buy stuff from suppliers.)

"The unified cell will be the heart of our company and the integrated supply chain the heartbeat."

@volkswagen is also going for the dry coating process that Tesla discussed on battery day. This is very important news if you care about the planet because it takes much less energy.

THIS is interesting. Apparently the single battery will be much bigger than the cells e.g. Tesla is using and will not go into modules but be their own mini modules.

Structural batteries!
It's funny how VW seems to be copying battery day.
I must admit the presentation is much clunkier but that was to be expected: Germans are engineers, not presenters. However, if they say they are going to do something, you know they will.

Apparently I'm not the only one who liked "power day".
electrek.co/2021/03/17/vw-…