Why did the U.S. miss the battery revolution? | Hacker News Reader

Why did the U.S. miss the battery revolution?

noahpinion.blog

21 pointspaulpauper20 comments

They're also missing one key element of why China really wants to electrify large things like cars and busses while the US and Europe don't seem to have as much drive: domestic (or very friendly) oil production capacity.

China has almost no oil capacity on their own. They can get oil from Russia through massively long pipelines, but a large amount of their oil imports are through ocean trade routes through narrow straights and contested waterways. The US just doesn't have the same level of concern.

Also, they kind of lightly touch on it, but the IP boondoggle surrounding high capacity NiMH batteries in the 00's, the US Auto Battery Consortium constantly trying to kill electric cars, the IP issues for LFP batteries (that seem like China just ignored), there's a lot of legal barries that slowed things down domestically.

As for battery technology, the US has still been decently competitive. LFP batteries were invented by Dr. Goodenough and Dr. Manthiram at the University of Texas after all. Material Science research is still a big thing in the US.

> China has almost no oil capacity on their own.

Pedantic: China produces 5 million barrels of oil a day, 4th in the world. That's far from "almost no oil capacity". The problem is that they consume 12.5 million barrels a day.

This means that electrification doesn't need to get them to 0 oil demand, they can still use their own oil for harder to replace uses like plastic production.

China's oil consumption is pretty insane when you consider how invested they are in solar. I guess oil does have the benefit of being fuel as well as storage and can sit in a Tank for a long time without losing any energy. But consider that China is the biggest buyer by far from several oil producing nations. In fact OPEC+ has tied oil prices to the Chinese economy for a few years now. Chinese demand for energy is ludicrous.

You're right, somehow I forgot China is up there on domestic oil production, unsure if its 4th in the world or not these days, but it is up there at least within the top 10. But as you mention, they're still nowhere near close to their domestic demand.

I think the major reason they want to electrify things is because it's a paradigm shift from things that they're not competitive at to a (relatively) green field. It took the Korean automotive industry many decades to go from making penalty boxes with rehashed Mitsubishi/Mazda/Opel IP to making cars that compete on more than value for money.

My mention of patents? LFP batteries were under patent protection until 2022, but "developing" countries got to use the patents royalty free. So China got a massive head start because the patent royalties made LFP batteries uncompetitive outside of China.

Patents are a huge weight around the neck of American companies that China can ignore at will.

Simple, Oil Industry Bribes (or Political Contributions). That is why.

TFA addresses this theory and doesn't find it very convincing.

"it’s worth noting that despite GOP domination and a strong oil industry presence, the state of Texas is charging ahead with battery storage"

That is true, but investments in battery tech would have to have started maybe 10 to 20 years ago.

Plus, it is private industry in Texas going "green", probably using what federal subsidizes are available. I doubt these are owned by the Oil Producers.

And the article is about Battery Tech, not really Battery use.

LFP batteries were originally designed in Texas.

Author seems oddly fixated on high density batteries with huge outputs. Imo the important changes to society are just the ones that are slow and big and cheap

I think Chinese industry as a whole is also fixated on high density batteries because they allow them to sidestep a lot of R&D. For example if they can get to electric aviation, they can drop their dependence on GE turbofans for passenger liners. You've already seen this play out in cars. There's probably a ~0% chance that Chinese auto manufacturers could come up with acceptable powertrains for the developed world in a reasonable timeframe: a lot of gasoline cars they export to poorer countries still use 90s Japanese and European tech. Going all in on electric allows the manufacturers to focus on their strengths like packing the car with electronic doodads.

Most every breakthrough gets invented in the US, but there is no realization by the government that supporting the manufacturing of these requires effort, and the free market will take advantage of environmental/osha arbitrage and build new things where there are fewer worker/environment protections.

New manufacturing investments are 1:100th that of APEC countries.

But the article is specifically not talking about that, e.g. it talks about the US being at the forefront of solar power tech, even if China leads in solar power manufacturing, and contrast that with how the US is nowhere near the forefront of battery tech R&D, never mind manufacturing. (Don't know enough to say whether I agree with his assessment, just that he pretty carefully explains in detail that he is not talking about "breakthroughs that get invented in the US but then aren't supported through to manufacturing").

Many of the fundamental battery materials breakthroughs have physically happened in the US (by many amazing immigrants) decades ago.

What is this talking about? Tesla makes the most advanced batteries.

CATL and BYD have more than 50% share of world's battery manufacturing capacity. And the trend is upwards. Same reason china EVs are edging out Telsa and EU EVs out in international market, where LFP is becoming more common.

China's EV market is about 60% of the global EV market. And no foreign battery competitors have been able to participate in China's local EV market (ie, shadow-ban) since 2015 and all EV OEMs, local or foreign, are required to use locally made batteries by local companies only. China's discriminatory and anticompetitive EV policies are the key reasons for the US IRA in 2022 and the EU's recent antisubsidy tariff against Chinese EV imports.

About 40% of Tesla's battery supply comes from those two -- the other 60% from Panasonic and LG. LFP is most widely deployed in China, but that is not why China's "edging out" Tesla -- LFP's market share outside China is not that big. LFP is just a low-end batteries for entry-level, low-range EVs.

Market share or most advanced?

Tesla is not a battery maker. It does some in-house production, eg, 4680, but most of their batteries come from either Panasonic, LG, CATL, or BYD (and L&F just for cathodes).

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