Rivian CEO warns that battery shortage makes chip supply problem look like ‘small appetite’.
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe has warned that the impending battery shortage will make the current chip deficit look “small.”
The warning comes after automakers sent similar warnings to the auto industry nearly a decade after Tesla announced plans for a battery gigafactory.
In fairness to Schering, Rivian was in no position to work in the Battery Gigafactory 10 years ago, but it highlights how many players in the auto industry who are not taking those warnings seriously face serious difficulties in securing battery supplies. For their EV ambitions.
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe
In an interview reported by the Wall Street Journal, the “relatively small supply-demand imbalance” with semiconductors led to “aggressive over-buying and inventory” and ultimately this huge shortage, which still affects many industries and especially the automotive industry. .
The same will happen for Scaringe batteries but warned that “the order of magnitude is worse.”
The CEO added:
“Semiconductors offer a small appetite for what we are able to revel in in battery cells over the subsequent decades.”
The problem is that the imbalance with batteries is much bigger, as demand for electric vehicles is increasing rapidly as more people in the industry see it coming.
In a separate interview with CNBC, Scaringe said:
This is the beginning of the end of fossil fuel-powered consumer vehicles – in relation to Scaringe. The 39-year-old believes the production and sale of such vehicles will soon end in his lifetime. Without putting an exact date on it, Scaringe said the end of that era is now closer to 50 years than it was 50 years ago, as companies were forced to make way for fossil fuels due to need and potential pressures from Wall Street and regulators. . “Most countries around the world stop selling gas engine powered cars. It’s hard to fully appreciate the magnitude of the shift,” he said. Businesses that recognise the ultimate state of combustion as zero will survive.
Some, like Tesla, saw it coming early and they are investing in all levels to solve the problem. The company has invested in a deep partnership with the major Gigafactory Nevada project with Panasonic. It’s been around 9 years since Elon Musk announced the Gigafactory in an earnings call.
It has invested heavily in securing raw materials for its battery production partners and has recently started producing its own battery cells.
Scaring says Rivian is taking a similar approach and is partnering with several different providers and is finally looking to make its own cells, although it still hasnโt had enough.
Rivian plans to have enough batteries and chips to produce 25,000 vehicles this year – about half what it had previously planned.
Many automakers with decades of experience managing large supply chains face serious difficulties in securing supplies for making electric vehicles.
And as Scaringe warns, this is only the beginning, and the next few decades may prove extremely difficult.
Read more Batteries:
We think
Not just difficult, but in my opinion some automakers exist. Some will not survive this transition because they have waited too long to invest in securing large amounts of batteries and battery equipment.
It is difficult to call them precisely because those supply deals are quite opaque.
We know some big partnerships with LG like GM and SK with Ford, but supply constraints are down to mines and Tesla has been talking about it for nearly two decades.
The only thing stopping them was financing and reliability to secure those supplies, but that changed about two or three years ago.
Definitely interesting to see in the rush. As Scherinz suggests, it looks like a chip deficiency, but still on a large scale
Here are some details we need to know about the battery.
Batteries play a number of important roles in everyday life, ranging from providing the initial power needed to start a car’s engines, to a power backup source in telecommunications, public transport and medical procedures.
Battery is a device that converts the chemical energy in its active material directly into electrical energy through an electrochemical oxidation-reduction (redox) reaction.
Inside the battery, heavy metals react with a chemical electrolyte to produce battery power. Wet-cell batteries, which have a liquid electrolyte, usually power vehicles, boats or motorcycles. About 99 million wet-cell lead-acid car batteries are manufactured each year.
China is the largest producer of batteries.
China is leading the battery race with about 80% of global Li-ion production capacity. The country dominates other parts of the battery supply chain, including mining and refining of battery minerals such as lithium and graphite.
Worldwide Lithium-Ion Battery Production Capacity Share By 2021 & 2025. In 2021, China will dominate the worldโs lithium-ion manufacturing market. That year, China produced about 79 percent of all lithium-ion batteries that entered the global market.
Read more Battery Industry.
- Building the European Battery Industry.
- Tesla has been shut down for months due to the worldโs largest battery investigation, but it is still proceeding with expansion.
- Google โexcitedโ for capacity of battery-primarily based totally technology at statistics centres.
CATL is the largest battery manufacturers in the world
CATL tops the list of EV battery manufacturers in the world. It is the worldโs largest electric car battery maker running its fifth year in 2021.
CATL remains the largest battery producer by capacity, CATL tops the list with 32.6% of all EV batteries installed in 2021. In 2021 alone, CATL’s installed electric battery capacity was 96.7 GWh, up from 36.2 GWh the previous year – an increase of 167.1
What replaces lithium?
One of the most promising alternatives is the use of sodium-ion batteries on lithium-ion batteries. Na-ion batteries have several advantages over conventional Li-ion batteries. Both lithium and sodium are alkali metals and are adjacent to each other in the periodic table.
