The COVID-19 crisis is bringing into the public eye the US’ dependency on importing goods, particularly batteries for advanced energy storage and electric vehicles, the CEO of a battery materials startup has said.
Dr Francis Wang, head of Nanograf, a US company working to commercialise a high energy density battery anode made with a composite of silicon and ‘curved’ graphene, replacing existing anodes which use graphite, said that the situation created by the novel coronavirus “is bringing to light… cracks in US infrastructure and the supply chain”.
Asked by Energy-Storage.news for an upstream technologist’s opinion on how supply chains have been impacted by the shutdown of operations in factories first in China and then elsewhere in the world, Wang said that “the US doesn’t make anything anymore, and we are having trouble because we don’t make equipment or materials and batteries is one of them”.
“Most battery production is split between Japan, Korea and China. It used to be roughly one-third, one-third, one-third, in terms of output. But in recent years it’s become closer to 60-70% of lithium ion batteries being made in China. That’s a big deal,” the Nanograf CEO said.
“Energy storage, especially portable power, for electric vehicles or iphones, iwatches, consumer electronics, and other use cases — it’s all linked to China. Coupled with the trade war – and the increased tensions generally between the US and China – you wonder whether the US might be in trouble because China isn’t very happy with us right now.”
All the US has these days in terms of advanced battery technology production, is the Nevada Gigafactory operated by Tesla-Panasonic, Wang pointed out, with legacy battery companies like Duracell and Rayovac largely reliant on alkaline tech: “a relatively antiquated technology”.
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