StoreDot, a startup developing fast-charging electric vehicle batteries, and Circulor, a supply chain tracing company, unveiled a partnership Tuesday aimed at increasing transparency in the EV battery supply chain.
The companies will track carbon dioxide emissions from mining the necessary raw materials used in StoreDot battery cells and the cell manufacturing process. That will help showcase "responsible, sustainable and ethical sourcing," according to the companies.
Tracing battery material production and carbon emissions will allow StoreDot to make this information available to EV customers and regulators.
Specific information will boost confidence in StoreDot's batteries as they move toward mass production with major automotive partners, CEO Doron Myersdorf said. The startup plans to mass-produce batteries capable of giving EVs 100 miles of range in just two minutes of charging by 2032.
Circulor has done cobalt tracking for Volvo and works with other industry players such as Mercedes-Benz, Ellen Carey, a Circulor vice president, told Automotive News.
Consumers increasingly look for ethical sourcing in a multitude of products, and they no longer believe sustainability claims when companies don't provide the data behind them, Carey said.
"We have it in terms of our food now, when you buy organic," she said. "Increasingly, we're going to know that about our batteries in our EVs — the provenance of the materials and the journey they took in terms of getting into our vehicles."
Circulor, a London company, said European Union battery regulations, part of the EU's Green New Deal, now demand more sourcing information. Each battery produced and placed on the market will travel with something akin to a "battery passport," giving it a unique identification and carrying specific information about its production.
Traceability will soon become a required component of battery production, Guidehouse Insights EV analyst Michael Austin said.
"The critical mineral requirements of the [Inflation Reduction Act] in the U.S., plus upcoming EU rules on battery sustainability that go into effect in 2024 are signals (of this)," Austin said. "Right now, we're seeing the early stages of how the battery industry will figure this out."
Traceability of battery materials is important because you can't improve something you can't measure, Myersdorf told Automotive News.
"There will be a variety of batteries all over the world across multiple technologies and geographies," he said. "If we want to be able to ensure the sustainability and ethics of sourcing battery materials, there has to be a unified database adopted by all the players in the market."
