Battery, energy storage tech & value chain | Cathode. @BBC alum. Re-tweets≠ endorsement; Views my own.
London, England
Joined November 2012
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This account is run by a group of well-respected Chinese battery supply chain researchers. Highly recommend following if you want to understand what’s really happening in China’s battery industry. #battchat #lithium #batteries
2026 #LFP price negotiations are finally seeing real progress. It is reported:
1 Manufacturing cost: except for a few major clients still negotiating, most customers have accepted a +RMB 1,000/ton increase from some suppliers.
#lithium #battchat #batteries
Personal update: excited to share that I’ve joined Masdar as Manager, Procurement (Battery Storage)!
Grateful for the incredible insights and connections I’ve gained through this platform over the years — they’ve played a big part in my journey. Thank you!
🇺🇸 Department of Commerce ruled that 🇨🇳 is wrongfully dumping #graphite active #anode material into the US.
As a result, AD tariffs of 93.5% placed on AAM imports from #China, including AAM within finished lithium-ion #batteries. The total effective tariff rate for AAM is 160%.
🔥Proposal locked in on July 15 — now in full force
1. #Cathode side test pressure scaled down 300 → 220 MPa. Signals a focus on high-end LFP/LMFP tech
2. Iron phosphate’s tap density takes a dive 2.1 → 1.2 g/cc. 👀broadening the scope of restrictions
#battchat #BatteryMetals
Kevin Gunan Shang retweeted
strong speech from Von der Leyen ...
The EU - China Summit later this month should be interesting......Von der Leyen said China started flooding global markets with cheap, subsidized goods, to wipe out competitors, and entire Western industries closed as a result. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Kevin Gunan Shang retweeted
Last European solar glass manufacturer files for insolvency. “This means that the EU is knowingly running into dependence on Chinese products.” pv-magazine.com/2025/07/08/g…
“We are relieved that the AMPC will be maintained and the clause on foreign entities of concern has been strengthened, making it more difficult for 🇨🇳companies to benefit from 🇺🇸 tax scheme, which is good for us,” said 🇰🇷 LGES.
#Battery #EnergyStorage #battchat
Kevin Gunan Shang retweeted
Morrow and SEEL to fast-track LNMO battery cells
bestmag.co.uk/morrow-and-see…
BYD’s 10C fast-charging battery teardown reveals a wet-process separator with 66.58% porosity, way above the typical 35–55%.
High porosity = better electrolyte uptake → faster ion transport → lower resistance: Huge factor behind insane 10C performance. 🔋#EV #BatteryTech #BYD
China to accelerate high-quality development of PV sector. An attendee of the symposium revealed that "manufacturers are required to report their product costs. Those who sell below cost will be severely penalized." #Solar #SolarPower #SupplyChain
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on Thursday held a symposium for manufacturing enterprises, focusing on accelerating the high-quality development of the photovoltaics industry. #XinhuaNews
Kevin Gunan Shang retweeted
A reliable source inside Tesla has provided me with the following additional tidbits on Tesla's LFP cell production in Nevada:
1) The LFP cell production lines are what's known as "Project Howard" within Tesla.
This is new information.
2) The cell production lines are indeed inherited equipment from CATL to produce LFP batteries that are assembled into modules and packs.
This aligns with media reports, but adds that the modules and packs will also be produced on site.
3) The battery packs will be used to power the Megapack XL and Megapack 3 that will be produced in Lathrop and at the new Megapack production facility in Texas.
This aligns with advice from the last earnings call and what we could reasonably assume based on past comments by Elon and the team.
Note: Megapack XL is the current Megapack and Megapack 3 is the upcoming version of the Megapack that Tesla said will incorporate more of the grid equipment into the container itself to accelerate deployments. (coming 2026?)
4) The LFP cell production equipment in Nevada is enough for 7-8 GWh of cell production.
This doesn't align with media reports, which stated 10 GWh of cell production.
My guess is that 7-8 GWh would be two LFP cell production lines.
5) The source advised these cells will not be used for vehicles.
This aligns with what I've said in the past and common sense:
EV and grid storage cells are different and you can't just swap between those two cell types without a prolonged shutdown.
Yes, technically, they could run two different cell types on what appears to be their two LFP cell lines in Giga Nevada, but it would introduce unnecessary complexity and inefficiency into such a small and preliminary production facility.
Not only would it require setting up two different cell lines, but also setting up and running manufacturing processes for two different assembly lines for the modules and packs, and the supply chains in and out of the factory to support them.
Three questions answered on Tesla's new LFP cell production lines:
1) Will this factory use a dry or wet coating process?
Several images indicate a wet coating process, especially the one below that appears to show drying ovens.
This was expected, and there are two reasons for using the wet process in my view:
-They likely bought this equipment at low cost from CATL over 18 months ago because CATL had surplus equipment (according to the rumors). CATL uses a wet process.
-Tesla is still struggling to ramp a fully dry 4680 and a wet process would have just been easier for the time being.
-A bonus third point might be that intermittent coating is required for prismatic cells, and a dry process can't do that (something I still need to look into)
2) Will the line produce 4680s or Prismatic cells?
My assumption is prismatic cells for three reasons:
-Tesla implied these cells will be used for grid storage in the last earnings call. Prismatic works better for grid storage.
-Again, this equipment was likely purchased from CATL. CATL mostly produces prismatic.
-Some people might point to a circular winding at 28 seconds as evidence of it being a 4680 line, but that might just be to wind and transfer some material for one of the process steps:
At 35 seconds, it appears to show prismatic cells in the lower left hand corner of the screen.
3) When will this facility hit production scale and how much will the production rate be?
It's probably going to take 1-2 years to hit volume production and the rumor is that the initial production capacity is 10 GWh.
That is, still pretty small by Tesla standards but a VERY meaningful first investment.
Over time, I expect Tesla to massively grow their in house LFP prismatic cell production, and possibly roll-in some of their learnings from the dry 4680 production lines in Austin.
Kevin Gunan Shang retweeted
Tesla's LFP cell manufacturing facility in Nevada is nearly complete!
God damn this is exciting.
A couple of Chinese battery manufacturers announced an ambitious timeline for producing and using all # solid-state batteries. Can they achieve it?
#battchat
Kevin Gunan Shang retweeted
Sorry - I already reposted this once. But, it's been sitting with me... I'm just starting to realize how absolutely incredible this graph is. We've been talking about virtual power plants for 20+ years. And, it's now happening at a meaningful scale. And it's not just Tesla - @Sunrun, leap.energy, @basepowerco and many others are doing the same thing. Tesla is just so much better than others at telling the story.
I'm going to guess this event leveraged 50,000-100,000 homes with Powerwalls, all providing a portion of their stored capacity, discharging in unison, providing the power equivalent to a large gas power plant or a third of a nuclear power plant. On command. For 2 hours. Highly controllable (those stair steps look like someone flexing the system). Charged with mostly solar - either the homeowner's own solar, or grid solar during peak sun hours when electricity is cheap and CAISO has excess solar it often curtails. Extremely cost effective.
People power.
The potential for this technology to transform the grid is enormous. There are 80 million+ single family homes that could be doing this, and getting backup power when they need it. 80 million x 5kW is 400GW of power. That's 5 states of Texas worth of peak power. 11.5kW per home (which every Powerwall is capable of), and we can power nearly the whole US friggin' grid. For 2-4 hours. Every day. We are literally still at the starting line of a marathon.
Today - battery systems for US homeowners are very expensive. But, they don't have to be. The underlying LFP battery cells in those Powerwalls are *dirt *cheap. And unfortunately, as with residential solar, we've layered all kinds of soft cost crap on top of it to make it unaffordable to the average homeowner. Many companies working on fixing this... @signaturesolar_ @stormentum and many more.
More of this, please!
Kevin Gunan Shang retweeted
This is the way.
(Battery systems are super effective at stabilizing the grid once you give them the right incentives.)
Kevin Gunan Shang retweeted
People still don’t seem to understand why Moore’s law happened.
1. Substrate material is the cheapest on earth
2. Solid state operation which means ZERO opex costs ONLY capex
3. Capex can be amortized over more and more chips
4. Reinvest in lower capex and higher throughput
5. Repeat until costs approach materials costs
Chips, solar, batteries. It’s all the same. Solid state devices and their scaling laws will kill anything in their way.
Notice, NONE of these steps involve massive net profits, because you REINVEST as much as you can!
Hithium's 1175Ah is for 4-8 hour "long duration" #energystorage markets, slightly different from what we often talk about in Europe/US regarding LDES >=8 hours.
The new grid storage battery cell that CATL unveiled last week is about twice the size of a typical lithium-ion battery cell.
Now Hithium has started manufacturing one that's double the size of the CATL grid storage battery cell.
The significance is that lithium ion is starting to target the long duration market, which prioritizes energy capacity over power capacity
xitter.gq/BatteryBulletin/status…
Kevin Gunan Shang retweeted
The story of the last few years of the U.S. economy has been that of a manufacturing boon, particularly in the electric vehicle and battery sectors.
Kevin Gunan Shang retweeted
Batteries are booming and just now starting to bring real value to the grid. BBB and tariffs will cripple their growth.
Some good news: ERCOT is predicting a less than 1% risk of rotating outages this August. That's a big drop from last year's forecasted risk of 12%.
The main reason for the reduced risk? The rapid growth of battery storage, @sara_dinatale writes: expressnews.com/business/art…
