Interview with Mo-Hua Yang, President TD HiTech Energy

We recently interviewed Dr. Mo-Hua Yang, President of TD HiTech Energy, a spin-off company from the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwan. Dr. Yang has extensive experience in EV battery development, specializing in Li-ion battery, with more than 120 publications, 7 patents and more than 50 conferences presentations to his name.

We asked Mr. Yang which battery solutions he felt were the most suitable for EVs and most likely to survive in the long term. He felt that Li-ion batteries were certainly the most important, but was quick to point out that there are various different chemistries within that are possible and currently under use. He predicted that the future trend would be the lithium-iron-phosphate chemistry, in the next 3-5 years, as it was a very practical way for current products like the NMC (Ni-Mn-Co) material.

We know that the price of lithium is one of the main concerns for battery and car manufacturers, and that the price is expected to continue to rise as the demand increases. Mr. Yang acknowledged that new low cost material was surely needed otherwise less efficient batteries might be more likely to survive in the long term because of this need for low cost solutions. The cost of a cell was already USD$300/kW-hr, which amounted to billions for mass production (like 18650 type Li-ion cell). Hence, many companies were focusing on separators and finding a low cost material.

Mr. Yang mentioned 2 business models for partnerships between car and battery companies that he found the most likely to succeed. The first one, which has been seen in Japan, was a joint venture between battery and car companies, where both would invest money and form new company. This would provide them an advantage as they would be able to address the whole supply chain, and other car manufacturers would have difficulty in reaching the same level of expertise. The second type of model was that of joint research where a car company possesses the know-how of the battery system and its integration, keeps a list of 2-3 battery manufacturers with different models of the current technology, and works together with them. He felt this was a good and right way for progress.

Mr. Yang also argued that before governments bothered too much with battery standards, they should be more concerned with building public infrastructure so as to provide convenience to customers who want to use EVs such as charging stations and venues for battery swap. Just like with other products, there are many different technologies, sizes, shapes and chemistries which currently appear in the market. It is likely that over time, only a few would survive depending on what customers liked, thus converging to 1-2 battery chemistries. He felt that battery standards were quite a distant call, and could be the second stage. If governments were to standardise now, it would be quite challenging, and might even hamper the market.

When asked what kind of future he saw for EVs, Mr. Yang said that he could say with some confidence that EVs would be successful in the long term. Though those who expect to see an EV in every home in 1-2 years would probably be disappointed, but with continued support, EVs could become quite popular in 3 to 5 years.

For the long term, he believes that new players who are able to provide total solutions – material to cell to battery to car, complete with integration of individual parts and how to link electro-chemistry of battery system to the energy storage system, would be the most successful.