Gigafactories: The good, the bad and the future

In the second instalment of Byte Off Podcast, James and David are joined by our dear friend and expert from Arcadis, Natalie Sauber.  The three of them have a chat about one of the top buzzwords of today: Gigafactories. They delve into the investment, the supply chain, newcomers, getting down to the honest reality of gigafactories and the effects they will have on society. Again, presenting another challenge to the automotive industry, as we always aim to do. 

Transcript

David: 0:12

Welcome, everyone to the second episode of Byte Off. A podcast where we give you bite sized chunks of mobility for the future. We think that we want to actually give you some information for the next 10-15 years, we will try and do our best. Last episode, we actually were debating hydrogen. And this time we have another industry talents, in gigafactories. I'm here with my co host, James Carter, and we joined by our dear friend Natalie Sauber. Lady that don't need any introduction, but I'm gonna actually give you the floor to actually introduce yourself.

Natalie: 0:42

Thanks, David very much. So hi, everyone. I am Natalie Sauber, I am a director at Arcadis global design and engineering firm. And I guess the reason why I've been so graciously invited onto this podcast is really to talk about all things Giga factories. And I guess really just to sort of like lay a little bit the ground floor, we obviously know that there is a growth and increasing demand for electric vehicles. And we also know that this will not be met without the creation of several Giga factories producing batteries. So as a result, there's an unprecedented global investment in new battery capacity. So part of my job at Arcadis is really to work with clients around the site selection and due diligence, planning, sustainability, project management, and so forth. And as you can tell, it's super fascinating. It's incredibly fast paced, given that we are seeing new announcements every other week. So I'm excited to break the floor with James and David.

David: 1:39

Yeah. So Natalie, on your experience, what is the current situation now? We have a lot of conversations about Giga factories, in many places, everybody is - kind of like the buzz word now, right? So basically what is your view of the situation in Europe and US and how you think that the developing of these factories are progressing?

Natalie: 2:00

Well, you've already nailed it. Pretty much, David Gigafactory has become a buzzword, especially in investment promotion. And word is likely to be heard much more over the next decade, given you know, huge opportunities for economic activity, job creation, but also reviving a little bit of the automotive industry, which has obviously been sort of like quite at a shortfall over the last couple of years, decades. And now it's looking to almost sort of like revitalize itself, revolutionize and bring the sexy back into the the automotive industry. So there's there's lots of things happening right now around the increased demand of electric vehicles that obviously leading to increase batteries. And that, of course, leads to us needing to produce these batteries on a large scale. And giga factories being I guess, sort of like the most economical thing to do. So here in Europe, I think we're seeing anywhere between 30 to 35, or 38, even latest announcements of a lot of different Giga factories. I'm sure James can have similar sort of like viewpoints on on the states. And in China, obviously, we see a lot more. So it's incredibly exciting times for sure.

James: 3:13

Yeah, I would agree. You know, North America side, too. So much is happening over here we see all the OEMs partnering with some of the biggest battery companies in the world and proposing Giga factories that seems to be every month, there's a new announcement of some new factory that being proposed. And, you know, I remember back five or six years ago, when the term was first coined by Tesla, oh, we're going to build a giga factory in Nevada. And what we're thinking, Wow, that's crazy. But now it's just like, one every month, it's amazing how times have changed so fast in just the five or six years since

David: 3:47

What do you guys think actually is the main challenge? I mean, as I said, we've been in the industry for a while. So when we actually have basically this type of new, innovative ways to providing energy to old fashioned, automotive industry, I'm sure there is a lot of challenge, right. So what do you guys - with experience that you have on one side of the pond - think that is the biggest challenge that you will have to create in that particular giga factory.

Natalie: 4:17

Should I go first, I guess starting from the top and then James is going to break it down further. I think one of the- or a number of key challenges around Giga factories as a attracting the investment. So getting getting the money for the r&d phase, and then afterwards getting tied up with different OEMs to make sure that you actually have customers that you're going to supply to. So that initial stage of the lithium producers tying up tying themselves up with OEMs for long term contracts is quite key. Then obviously location plays a huge role in terms of where you're going to build your giga factory. What country is best suited? Here in Europe we definitely see that Germany is at the forefront, followed closely by France and Italy, UK is lagging slightly behind given Brexit, obviously. It was the first decision for Tesla to build the giga factory there. But then Elon did pull out due to the uncertainty around that. But also trying to find the right place to do that. And environment plays a huge amount of plays a huge amount, a role. Again, we've seen that with Tesla, they've had huge challenges, initially to build their giga factory in Germany, and we know how difficult it can be to build anything in Germany, thing that's going to take years, but the environment still challenges the access to water, making sure that the ground is ready to go, the animals are being protected, is quite, is quite keen, and just getting the incentives right, getting the strategy out, and also getting government state support on that, I think is quite key, and nevermind, supply chain issues further down the line. But some of the sort of like the key things that need to be happening first, incredibly difficult to achieve.

James: 5:48

Actually, I just wanted to follow up on something you said, Natalie, you've probably seen this a lot more. And you know, actually, it's a question for you is, you know, we're talking about that investment piece, and that it's, you know, potentially hard to to secure the investment both for the r&d side, and also later for actually building the factory. That to me, you know, that there's also that there's perhaps these two types of battery companies. One is perhaps those top five that we often hear and talk about Cardel, SK, Panasonic, Samsung, LG, obviously those those guys are not going to have any problems securing capital, but is it the small ones that you're possibly talking about? That having a challenge securing the money that they need? And these are, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billion dollar investments? Can you give a little bit more clarity or thoughts around that?

Natalie: 6:41

Really good question, James, to be honest, and I'll just tell you a little story about British Volt. One of the missions - one of British Volts mission, the mission of British Volt was to make Britain great again, clearly they stole it from some other country. But it did work, it did work with investors, because investors were highly invested in this initial startup, in trying to revitalize the auto industry in bringing back Britain, in terms of making it stronger, but also making sure that the auto industry in Britain still has something to stand on. And that was an incredible mission that you can get behind it. And you can sort of like see that sort of like unfolding over the over the next couple of the next couple of months and years going forward. Some of the other sort of like, I guess, companies we're also working closely with, it's a little bit more difficult to understand the vision, if it's just to build another giga factory, you know, just to basically bring another product out, why would you invest in Company A, if not in company B or in Company C. So having that sort of like understanding and that initial drive to attract investors. And that's basically what you need, because you need the angel seed investors before you can start talking to the big banks, and then they'll basically snowball that onto you. But it is becoming quite difficult because everyone wants to jump on that initial bandwagon, but it's not as easy

David: 8:02

It's really - sorry, James - it's interesting what you're saying, because basically, my thinking was- my main point was the justification of the demand, right? Because obviously, I understand that giga factories have been done for automotive OEMs, but basically some of the gigafactories, what is the demand, right? For me, the mission is important and the vision, but what is the demand? You put example, British Volt, right, what is the demand for British Volt? Who is going to be buying from them? Right? Who is going to be buying for the for those particular gigafactories is still not clear to me? Right? Maybe you can help me to understand that. But for me, right? Have an investor-

Natalie: 8:43

Well, to be frank, you have about 60 million brits, who are basically going to be your your key customers for electric vehicles going forward, given the fact that UK has rolled out their ban on petrol diesel cars from 2030 onwards. So we do need to settle that demand. Also, with Britain exiting the European Union, there is one of the new legislations that's going to come into effect, I think 2025, where if they want to export vehicles to other European members, the most, I think most of the capital, or most of the components from a car need to be locally manufactured. So for them, it's it's either die or live in that aspect of them it's incredibly important on that, but I do I do receive your point in terms of trying to establish, I guess the auto industry, but the supply chain, but also the demand around it, for sure.

James: 9:37

You know, I think, you know, my thoughts from this is, I actually think this decade is going to be the decade of the battery, you know, the 2020s it's to me, if you think about clean mobility, in some ways, it's about battery. And when we think about electric vehicles, were one of the key you know, we can see this demand curve going up, and we can see that every year as new OEMs come out with new vehicles. You know, I just remember the ionic five when it came out. It's, you know, certainly here in Canada. You know, we, we saw that you know that there was the launch phase, and they were amazed at how many pre orders there were. But as soon as the thing went and sell the thing was sold out for nine months, it was insane. The amount of demand and it's not just Hyundai, it's Tesla. It's Ford Mustang Mach-e, it's anything that's got a halfway decent EV out there is sold out. So, you know, I think we're continuing to see OEMs actually underestimate demand out there for electric vehicles.

Natalie: 10:39

Yeah, no, I mean, definitely good point. But you also have to remember James that most of the OEMs, if not all of them are still incredibly dependent on their petrol diesel sales, because that's all they've ever done. And that's all they're ever used to. It's a steady, you know, steady intake of customers and sort of like rolling that out there. And yeah, I think they are scared to certain aspects, or they think, what is it now? 2022? I think you cannot say that they're scared anymore. Because again, they need to go with the flow and accept a new business model and the new world or they are going to die, frankly.

James: 11:16

Yeah. And that's exactly right. The longer they remain scared, the more opportunity there is for Tesla, so

Natalie: 11:22

And anyone else does just a startup thinking that, hey, if Tesla can produce electric vehicle from scratch, why can't I and there are a number of new OEMs out there, again, probably more on the Chinese side of things, who are coming up with incredibly luxury electric vehicle cars looking to break into not only the Asian market, but also the European and North American market, and customers are hungry for that. I mean, it's a think of it as like a substitute for the iPhone. Of course, why else? I mean, what else is there, you know, there's an Android, there's a Samsung, there's a Google. So similarly, you're going to have an influx of different EV providers out

David: 12:02

And how you think this influx, and this kind of like is there. going to be affect the supply chain now, because we have a little bit of a crisis on the COVID with the chip distribution, right? Because basically prompted for the battle between the consumer electronics and automotive? Do you think that we're gonna have the same problem with the batteries? That generation we have now is the battery year right on the battery generation? So do you think that we're going to have some challenges as well in this particular area to ensure that we have the right supply and the right partners for supply and dream of electric cars into the world?

Natalie: 12:40

James, why don't you start?

David: 12:42

Laughs

James: 12:44

I was Hoping you would haha

Natalie: 12:46

I just need to organize my thoughts, because I'm probably just going to vomit everything out there. And David is just going to be like, hold on, hold on, we need to sort of like follow an order

James: 12:59

Well, I will save you from vomiting and making a stab at this. So. So I think there's two things that we need to really think about in supply chain, what is the really early stage of where are the the minerals that we need to, the raw minerals that we need to go into batteries. And the second phase that we need to think about is what has to happen between when we dig this stuff up the ground to till we get it into, you know, a battery, we know and love. And the reality is, is there's quite a bit and understanding what happens from out of the ground to into the battery is really core. That was really key. And what we're really seeing is that of the last 10 years is that China has really played a dominant role in securing the supply of the raw material, processing it and then selling it as a value add. And you know, we've seen a very interesting chart I'm referencing here from visual capitalist that looks at copper, nickel, cobalt, rare earths and lithium, and of those five, and we can add another one we can add on top of this is manganese is that while except for Rarus, most of this is not sourced out of China, but they do control vast amounts of the processing of all those five or six key elements that go into both battery and electric vehicle production. And that's really key to understand. It's also not insurmountable because other countries can pick this up. It's just that everyone else is crazy late.

Natalie: 14:32

No I love I mean, honestly, that graph is amazing. And I think it puts, it paints a really- it paints a really scary picture because you can see that China controls all things to like the earth for rare materials on that. So I've graphite in that sense. And the other ones are nickel, Indonesia, copper, again, Chile, which is Latin America, and then Australia from lithium ion. We know that China hass been, I think we said that yesterday, James, and it was such a good thing. So I'm gonna repeat that and quote, but China is essentially buying Africa. And it's owning Africa. And it has been for the last decade or even longer than that. So there goes, a whole axis of that type of mineral access already, but China's also heavily investing in Latin America. And, you know, Chile being obviously the sole producer for copper is, again, a really scary aspect in terms of giving one country, one nation, so much access of some of the key materials that are being needed to electrify our world. I think one does definitely need needs to be hesitant and needs to think about what is our plan B, for getting access to these materials?

David: 15:46

Like I'm gonna give you a thing, it's another curveball, but basically, they're for the Saudis, because the Saudis do a similar thing, yes, they control the whole raw material of production of the minerals. And then you can have in your economy. Now, if you want to your explore that- I would maybe we will have another conversation is joined up with crypto, right, and align cryptocurrency to the raw value of the raw material, or the of the raw material? Do you need producing batteries? Right? And then you have another economy of scales, right? I mean, I always I don't want to actually get crazy with this, but basically, is just, if you see the currency structure that we have these days, the dollar and all the currency structures is based basically on the price of petroleum and the land. Right. So basically, the price of petroleum is because energies will move everything. And we change this sort of energy from basically fossil fuel to lithium fuel, right, the economy landscape at macro level is changed as well. So I always actually, the reason I want to lay down this is how we were come this is one of the things I've been discussing with a few guys as well, of the theoretical basis, but I think is what is happening, basically, it's that you need to- the only way you can actually do is play in the actual rules of the map or around the map. Right. So basically, my point of view with- and I'm gonna lay in the controversial point of view from you the giga factories is the only ones that can play that role is the government's the OEMs. One, that's the only one to play the role. Because basically, if you the only way you can secure investment for me and my point of view, and then you can cut my throat later on. But basically, the only way to see they're actually putting investment there is actually said, Okay, which is your demand of batteries, right. And assuming your demand of batteries for the next 10 years, so you can assure the amount of material that you need upfront. Right? In order because it's even the Chinese is dominant in supply chains, the rule of business is a rule of business, right. And I think one of the changes we've seen last year with the activation of a lot of electric cars is just basically to play that game, you need to play the game of demand, otherwise, they're gonna be owning the whole production of batteries in China, that is kind of like what they want to control. I think a certain point, I think that it's something that is interesting to bring it on. But I actually can't provide that particular change of economy of scale. But at the same time, you need to actually play in that game that we see now with a lot of extremely large amount of production of batteries to secure raw material. This is the only way to actually you can enable raw material, right? But you think as well, that is only raw material the challenge? Or as well is the chipsets is a challenge as well to the scale on electrification and as well in the development of giga factories.

Natalie: 18:37

I mean, I welcome James's opinion on that. But frankly, I think it's both, it's the chips and it's the raw materials, we've been trying to get the batteries down to a price that's affordable for us to be to be using it. And we're actually I think we're at the lowest point yet in terms of price for evey batteries. But an EV still consists of over 1000 chips as well. So you can't build any EV without one or the other, frankly, and both of them are incredibly important. Unfortunately, both of them are being regulated hardly by the East, not so much regulated, in fact, just owned by the east. And I think we are, and if I say we I mean, the Western world, we are incredibly late to the game. It's not too late. But we do need to come up with different ways of trying to mitigate some of these challenges. And just one more point, David, and I'll shut up. But I read an interesting article about how do we sort of like; what is the plan B everyone talks about supply chain issues. Everyone mentions that you know, we're running into these these issues, but no one really talks about solutions. And I actually thought that was really interesting thing, those articles and journals as well. But there's barely any solutions on that. One thing though, that I did notice is that it is actually really difficult to create new operational minds and I actually did not know that but to produce these minerals from these reserves. And moving a mine from discovery to operational phase takes indeed 16 and a half years, that's a long time, for a mine to basically be up and running. And there's so much bureaucracy and red tape running all over it that at any point in time it can be shut down. So I think we need to be better at state regulations, we need to be better in terms of enforcing some of these, I guess, projects on a faster scale. But we also need to be mindful in terms of what does it really mean for the environment, because humanity is known to move at a rapid pace without potentially thinking about the consequences. So we do need to be mindful about what does it actually mean, for us to be increasing mine operations, for us to be digging, you know, deeper into the earth? And I think that can only really happen in a collaborative approach instead of just every country going at it at its own will

James: 20:51

Yeah, Natalie, I 100% agree with that, that's really important points there. You know, I think one thing is, it's just going back to the the chip crisis that we mentioned, I really see some strong parallels going on here. One is, I think that the most important point is this idea of sourcing, because if you look at chips, the vast majority of the semiconductor business is actually focused on Taiwan. And, you know, while that may or may not be problematic, it's perhaps, you know, too much of a central focus, you know, on that, and particularly on that country, and a lack of focus in the United States, North America, Europe to really actually bring and multisource those technologies across there as well. And really, when we look at batteries, in some ways, the same thing is happening, you know, we've got this very, very high focus on China. And if we continue down the same path, we might just end up in the same place for the same reasons.

David: 21:46

I mean, I have an opinion on that, because I agree with you, but it's really strange, it's really strange in the sense that we're going to take this example of semiconductor, right, because it's a really interesting one, because all production of the chips are made, basically, in Asia, all the intelligence of the chip, are creating in Silicon Valley. Right? That is a funny thing. Because at the end of the day, when we're talking about semiconductors, people thinking there is a lawyer, the reference architecture and is the software on top of it, that actually is not value added the only value added in producing is the actual chip, right, that when you creating a chip, the reference architecture, the chip on how you developing the chip is designed for the people for- I just said for the US and for Europe that have the knowledge of how to build in the software on top and in the batteries, a little bit similar to be fairly honest, right? The main knowledge of the battery of developing battery supply systems for many, many, many, many years is being actually Japan, the US and Europe right. Now, I think the thing is, like we change for the economy of scale before to the low level kind of manufacturing capability to back in the day, right only 10 years ago, they started to putting in a country with low cost resources, because doing batteries, and I mean, literally building batteries, building chips, basically automate the whole process of basically using a country with low level type of labor, right to building it. And adding to enter to be Asia, right. So basically, there's kind of like advanced setup in terms of the knowledge of how to bring a system to a robust level of development is hosted on the US, and Europe and Japan and Korea, right. But the knowledge of building those particular systems, right, is halted in China. In China and other countries in Asia. And one of the things that we've seen now, right is basically, for the last 10 years, it's time to equal up the knowledge of how you're designing a system. Right? And I've always starting to seeing more chip developments actually being based in Asia, more AI, more value in developing countries more actually investment for cars as well, because it's starting to equalize the level of know how that we're having in US and Asia. So that's kind of my opinion. So I think it's easier. Right, depending on you understanding the supply to understand understanding supply chains, and who want the value adding of it, and basically how you can make it scalable to the point that is safe to deploy, depending on the market regulations, right. Because at the end of the day, it's just a lot of companies in China, when we're seeing a lot that we're trying to come to Europe, there's a barrier there in terms of entry when the US for regulations, because the systems are according with the level of understanding of technology that they have. Right? Because it's the first iteration of the particular product or the second iteration of the particular product. Right. So I think that's kind of my view, maybe standard. James, I think is that that's how I've seen it on that sense, right.

Natalie: 24:36

But you know what the sad thing is, David, that it always takes a global crisis for us to realize our mistakes, right? We've seen it with the semi semiconductor chip shortage. We've seen it now with the raw minerals. We've seen it with COVID, basically destroying all things supply chain, and now we're seeing it with Russia invading Ukraine and everyone relying on you huge amount of deal on Russian oil. Germany, for example, has put loads of his politics behind Russia in terms of supporting that shutting down its nuclear reactors, basically saying no to anything else other than oil. And now they're paying the price for it. And it's a similar sort of like situation that you see that we just generally do not seem to learn from our mistakes. But at the same time, it does make me hopeful that, you know, given things will only work so good to certain extent. And at some point, things will just break down. And we are basically forced to rethink the way that we've been doing things and hopefully, we'll come up better at it. And being basically faced with these types of issues, is hopefully going to work in our favor. Long term wise, definitely not short term wise, but it's, yeah, interesting

David: 25:48

You bring up an interesting point, humans will - time. I mean, that's a conversation for another podcast. But is why I'm scared that humans design artificial intelligence. Right? Because we don't learn about mistakes. And we forget it all the time. Right? Because history itself, basically, we said, oh, we don't have been this thing. Natalie, you said that I hear it like three or four times already? Well, we don't know. Yeah. Humanity, it needs to be fixed as well, that's where the call is heading.

James: 26:18

That's really true. I think, you know, one of the things that Natalie touched on before that I think is important, and maybe you did too David, that was that, really, in some ways that this is we need to almost elevating this into a political, you know, move forward in a political way, such that, you know, we see the Biden administration now just starting to say, oh, yeah, we need to do something about these critical minerals. And no one else has really actually had that, like spark go off. And, you know, say we really have to move forward. And we're so far down, you know, China's dominance right now that that I think every other country like Canada, UK, Europe, Australia needs to really sit back and start at a political level, say, what do we want to do, this is going to be a huge problem, if we don't start putting in the right regulations and the right legislation, to make sure that we not only capture the value of things like energy, mineral processing within our country, but understand that, really, it becomes a battery security problem, just like we have energy security problems, or, you know, security and other ways, we really need to start this and focus this is at a political level to really drive out the problems and move

Natalie: 27:34

In an ideal case scenario, indeed, yeah. forward.

James: 27:38

Okay, I'm being idealistic, I get that.

David: 27:42

Often the audience, we can reach some politicians in one side of the pond. So basically, I can start to activating this particular conversation. I'm thinking, think of a process and externalization and legislation because I 100% agree with you, James, I think this is something that you need to reach to the right level, right need to be the right loving as well. And ethical, loving, right. We know that in a capitalist environment is difficult, but we should we actually have an ethical lobbying to actually ensure that it protects the integrity and the safe worthiness of the citizens in each of their countries. Because basically it's affecting, the energy crisis is affecting every single one of us, right? people maybe don't realize it before, but I'm sure in the last five months, they're realizing with the petrol go to the level we went and the energy gases, I don't know, in the US, but in Europe James, the energy prices go skyrocketing. Right? So basically, it's something that I think governments need to start to have a look of it more in advance, not when it happened. No, from here, we're encouraging. If any politician is listening us, we're happy to help. Right. But at the same time, we'll well, it will be good to actually can bring some of these particular conversations into the table. Right. For the next 10-15 years, we're gonna see a lot of interesting activity. So yes, to go back to the Giga factories, right? What do you think will be the the main future for the Giga factories based on what you just actually described? Right? What do you think will be the future for the gigafactories? And basically, the successful gigafactories?

Natalie: 29:17

Do you mean like a wish list? In terms of where where we

David: 29:21

Well, you see, that says, because I think it's a lot of said, things that can be contributed. I want to see your views as well, in terms of what is the success factor for that? Would you see the future for that as well, and how are you seeing growing as well? On the next 10 years? Are we going to be Giga factories everywhere, every city gonna have a giga factory? You think so? We are going to be on a wall in basically we're going to have access to energy at the same level that we're going to have for petrol. What is your views on that?

Natalie: 29:50

Look, I mean, at the end of the day, we know that the importance of critical minerals to our energy transition and future economic growth is undeniable, right. And we've also discussed that how nations and private companies - because it is a tie up between the government and private companies- decide to guarantee those environmentally sound, you know, affordable, dependable access to these resources will bring far reaching geopolitical, environmental and social ramifications. You mentioned the giga factory in every city, I'm not sure we're quite there yet. I mean, if that would be the case, and I think we need to have a data center in every city. And frankly, we already have quite a lot of data centers, we still need more of data centers. So I think we need to become smarter in terms of how do we power not just transportation, but also how do we power our homes? You know, we talked about rising energy prices. The same goes with rising food prices, as well. So there needs to be a bit of a hand in hand solution, how do we become smarter at powering ourselves, and, and our industries, and we cannot look at it in siloed things. So I do believe that for the likes of giga factories and data centers, they need to work hand in hand and they are already working. There are already some tie up loose tie ups, that also includes hydrogen, and James is going to shake his head now. But we need to look at alternative fuels in terms of how do we sort of like power that up? My concern would be more What if not so much, what if we're wrong with regards to EV batteries, but what do we do with those batteries when they run empty when when when they end of lifecycle. So the recycling piece is incredibly important. And it needs to be even brought higher up the agenda. So it can't just be that you're giving the green light to an OEM to build a giga factory, but they need they need to have a backup plan in terms of what are we going to do in terms of recycling? Because yes, we're putting up we're putting up all this supply, but we also need to take care of it afterwards. So the aftercare is incredibly important. How do we integrate those batteries back into into the world and how do we deal with them needs to be discussed and I think the conversations are definitely starting but they're not as sexy and as exciting as gigafactories are, but they need to be brought to the forefront because we do not want history to repeat itself and we do not want to be learning from our mistakes one more time. So definitely needs to be a few more conversations and also action around that.

James: 32:27

So yeah, I think the first thing Natalie is that dead batteries are exciting. Is there a reason why dead batteries are exciting and sexy. The reason is because because actually when you get these batteries together, they're actually very very highly concentrated in the metals that we need. So it's really about making sure that the processes to get those minerals out and to put them recycle them back into new batteries you know it's all part of that circular economy and perhaps there needs to be ways and means to make sure those batteries are recycled properly and that the supply chain includes those batteries but you know over here in North America we're seeing companies like American manganese, Redwood, anyway that tell you the JB Straubel Tesla guy spin off one and Lee cycle all really start to dig deep put put Santos in the ground and connect themselves back up you know, we saw even Hyundai in Canada come to an agreement with one of the suppliers so I really think this is starting to happen simply because there's a realization that recycling is a great way in a concentrated way to get these minerals out and back into the vehicles that we need.

David: 33:48

Sexy, you know I'm gonna make a t shirt

Natalie: 33:50

So sexy.

David: 33:50

But we do have amazing ways like the dead batteries are sexy. All right, okay. With that note, we actually thank you very much for your time Natalie. Thank you James as well for actually bringing that your views as well and then continue with us and phase that is Byte Off of mobility to provide you some chunks of mobility. I hope you guys enjoying the podcast and then we can keep doing these particular episodes with some guests like Natalie and some of our future speakers. So with this thank you very much, guys. Thank you, Natalie, for your support. Thank you, James again. I'm enjoying doing this with you. So let's keep doing it. And then we speak with all of you on the next episode.