The electric vehicle boom is just getting underway. All as countries around the world push for millions of EVs, in an effort to reduce emissions. Helping,
General Motors Company
(NYSE:GM) just announced it will boost global spending on EVs to 435 billion through 2025. The automaker will build two additional battery plants in the U.S. That news comes just weeks after
Ford Motor Company
(NYSE:F) announced plans to spend $30 billion on electric vehicles. That’s also benefiting companies, such as
Tesla Inc.
(NASDAQ:TSLA),
Volkswagen
(OTC:VWAGY), and EV battery companies like
NEO Battery Materials Ltd.
(TSXV:NBM) (OTC:NBMFF).
In addition, “Ford and other global automakers are racing to shift their gasoline-powered lineups to all electric power under pressure from regions like Europe and China to cut vehicle emissions. Ford rival General Motors Co has said it aspires to halt U.S. sales of gasoline-powered passenger vehicles by 2035,” as reported by CNBC.
NEO Battery’s Cost-Effective, Mass-Producible Single-Step Silicon Coating Process
NEO Battery Materials Ltd.
(TSXV: NBM)(OTC: NBMFF) announced the initiation of a pilot plant project whereby NEO intends to use in house resources to design and test equipment that will use NEO’s single-step silicon (Si) nanocoating process.
Pilot Plant Design Initiation
Spencer Huh, President and CEO of NEO, commented, “We are pleased to announce that Dr. J. H. Park, Director and Chief Scientific Advisor of NEO, and Mr. Suk Joong Hwang, Member of the Company’s Scientific Advisory Board, have initiated the design of the pilot plant project. NEO’s team of scientists have also started to test and validate an equipment that will be used in the project by attempting to apply NEO’s all solution based one-pot nanocoating technology for commercial-level micron-sized Si materials. This research project has been launched at the request of several lithium-ion battery users.”
Mr. Sung Rock Hwang, Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President of NEO, said, “The goal of the project is to establish a basic pilot scale coating process design and to check the feasibility of NEO’s nanocoating technology for metallurgical-grade silicon. Moreover, we are further focusing on a cost-effective separation method since it will capture the largest portion of energy consumption during our nanocoating pilot process. The pilot plant project aims to prove the capacity of the Company to produce various sized Si materials ranging from ~50 nanometers to several micron-sized Si materials that are strategically important to conventional liquid-based Li-ion batteries and next generation all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs).”
Mr. Hwang added, “Based on my experience at Samsung SDI, NEO is on a fast-track to manufacture cost-effective silicon anode materials, concurrently providing the industry-required performance advantages. There are many more synergies to be realized within the team and externally, and NEO will provide updates on the progress pilot plant project on an ongoing basis.”
NEO Process Advantage
The scalability and mass-producibility of NEO’s silicon anode materials are enabled through a lean and efficient single-step process in which the Company can realize considerable cost-savings or economies of scale when manufacturing the proprietary Si material. NEO’s single-step and one-pot solution process effectively removes the need for a multistage manufacturing process, granting the reduction of processing time and improving the throughput rate through the elimination of unnecessary treatment steps, hence, bottlenecks.
Economical manufacturing is additionally facilitated through NEO’s single-step process that does not involve complex and expensive environments such as high temperature, high pressure, or a vacuum. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD), pyrolysis methods, or other high-cost engineering methods are not utilized when manufacturing NEO Si materials as these processes are not compatible for scalability and inexpensively mass-producing the materials. NEO, moreover, uses low-cost coating feedstocks to manufacture the silicon materials which further lowers the cost of its end-product along with safe synthesis.
NEO is looking toward the possibility of integrating its single-step coating process into various kinds of Si materials to realize a universal and innovative process. The capability to coat Si at a desired particle size will lead to a major manufacturing and cost advantage – a substantial value proposition for NEO –, enabling the Company to become an integrated silicon producer and anode material manufacturer.
Other related developments from around the markets include:
Tesla Inc.
released its financial results for the first quarter of 2021 by posting an update on its Investor Relations website. Please visit
https://ir.tesla.com
to view the update.
Ford Motor Company
announced it is acquiring Electriphi
, a California-based provider of charging management and fleet monitoring software for electric vehicles. Electriphi’s team and services will be integrated into Ford Pro –
a new global business within Ford committed to commercial customer productivity and to developing the most advanced charging and energy management experiences. While more commercial vehicle customers are considering all-electric vehicles, charging management remains a hurdle to mass adoption. Ford Pro plans on leveraging its leadership position in the commercial vehicle market, its vehicle offerings and Electriphi’s technology to help customers with this transition.
General Motors Company
announced
it will increase its EV and AV investments
from 2020 through 2025 to $35 billion, representing a 75 percent increase from its initial commitment announced prior to the pandemic. The company’s enhanced commitment will accelerate its transformative strategy to become the market leader in EVs in North America; the global leader in battery and fuel cell technology through its Ultium battery platform and HYDROTEC fuel cells; and through Cruise, be the first to safely commercialize self-driving technology at scale.
Volkswagen
is participating, with a contribution of US$620 million (about €500 million), in a financing round of its
Swedish battery partner Northvolt AB
with a total volume of US$2.75 billion. The Group will thus maintain its stake in the company constant at about 20 percent. The funds are to be used for capacity expansion in the fields of production, recycling and research and development. Among other activities, Northvolt intends to expand the capacity of its Northvolt Ett gigafactory in Skellefteå, Northern Sweden from 40 GWh to 60 GWh per year, in order to meet higher demand from customers.
Legal Disclaimer / Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this article contains forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Winning Media is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release. For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Winning Media is only compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation. Pursuant to an agreement Winning Media has been paid three thousand five hundred dollars for advertising and marketing services for NEO Battery Materials Ltd. by NEO Battery Materials Ltd. We own ZERO shares of NEO Battery Materials Ltd. Please
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