Chemistry? Composition? What Makes EV Batteries So Powerful?

This week, I’m sitting down *virtually of course* with Jack Johnson from Volta Power Systems. I’m sure most of you will remember the previous episode that we recorded – focusing on EV sustainability and hybridization.

We’ve received so much positive feedback from that episode, that we brought Jack back again to delve deeper into the conversation surrounding electric vehicle sustainability – in particular, battery chemistry and composition.

In this episode, we’re chatting about chemistry, about what actually makes up an EV battery and so much more.

Let’s dig in.

---

Here’s a quick summary of this week’s show:

“The challenge the engineers are working on is to get the range and the performance [consumers] need. They’re trying to compete with our traditional liquid fuels. And they’re really working hard to get more and more energy in that same weight as fuel that we use today.”


“Raw materials is a big challenge for the lithium-ion industry. Reason being, you got to throw in countries’ different requirements for missions like here, in the US, it’s really hard to get any type of mining permit.”

Jack Johnson, Chemistry? Composition? What Makes EV Batteries So Powerful? | Utilimarc Fleet FYIs Podcast

---

Chemistry? Composition? What Makes EV Batteries So Powerful? | Fleet FYIs: Season 2 Episode 12

Gretchen Reese (00:06):

Hey there. Welcome to Fleet FYIs, the weekly podcast by Utilimarc that reveals how you can make the most of your data for smarter fleet management. My name is Gretchen and every week you’ll hear from me and some of the industry’s finest in candid conversations that will shed some light on not only two decades worth of data insights, but some of the industry’s hottest talking points and key metric analysis with the aim to help you better understand your fleet from every angle.

Gretchen Reese (00:33):

But before we begin, if this is the first time you’ve heard our show, thanks for stopping by. I’m so glad you decided to come along for the ride with us. But I’ve got a quick favor to ask you. Once you’ve finished today’s episode, if you could take a few minutes to leave us a review on your favorite podcasting platform, we would really appreciate it. Give us a rating, five stars I hope, or tell us what you liked or leave us a comment or a question about what you’ve heard in today’s episode. But if we haven’t yet covered a topic that you’re interested in hearing more about, let us know we would be happy to go over it in detail in a later episode. If that sounds good to you, let’s get back to the show.

Gretchen Reese (01:09):

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Fleet FYIs podcast. I hope you all are doing well. I, for one cannot believe that it is already May. I mean, can you? Wow. Does time sure fly. Spring is springing and I personally am bit excited because my birthday month is also indeed in May, but I digress.

Gretchen Reese (01:41):

This week I’m sitting down, virtually of course, once again with Jack Johnson from Volta Power Systems. And I’m sure most of you will remember the previous episode that we recorded together, focusing on EV sustainability and hybridization, which if you haven’t listened to it yet, you absolutely should. You can search for it on your favorite podcasting platform or on our site, utilimarc.com by typing in Fleet FYIs or the episode title itself, Are electric vehicles as sustainable as they want us to think?

Gretchen Reese (02:10):

We’ve received so much positive feedback from that episode that we’ve brought Jack back again to delve deeper into the conversation surrounding electric vehicles’ sustainability and in particular battery, chemistry and composition. In this episode, we’re chatting about chemistry, about what actually makes up an EV battery and so much more, so let’s dig in.

Gretchen Reese (02:43):

Hey Jack, welcome back to the Fleet FYIs podcast. I’m so glad to have you back.

Jack Johnson (02:48):

Well, thank you for having me. It’s great to be back.

Gretchen Reese (02:52):

So today, I wanted to chat with you about battery composition and chemistry. Because, I told you this previously, but after our last episode, we received a ton of feedback from people that have been super interested in this topic, whether it’s the sustainability aspect or just the whole composition and chemistry piece to the conversation. Could you give me perhaps a high level overview on exactly what makes up an EV battery?

Jack Johnson (03:17):

Wow, that’s a fun one. Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for everybody with your questions. I think that’s really cool, everybody wanting to learn more about our changing world and power sources.

Jack Johnson (03:30):

When we talk about lithium-ion, one of the things that’s really fascinating about it is it’s not one thing. And so from a chemistry standpoint, like the old days of lead-acid, we defined a battery. It’s lead and it’s acid. Both parts of it was lead and acid. When we talked about nickel-cadmium, NiCad, they were nickel and cadmium. When lithium-ion comes up, it’s actually umbrella word. It’s almost like saying fuel, but we all know there’s all these different fuels and we call them by propane or diesel or gasoline, right? They all have their different chemistries. When you make a statement of, “Tell me about lithium-ion,” we got to break it down to, “Okay, first question, which type?” And that’s where the chemistry’s coming in.

Jack Johnson (04:19):

The most common chemistries today in the marketplace, but they’re evolving every day. They are going to break it down by referring to the anode and the cathode, the two sides of the battery. For what we use at Volta and a lot of the EV world uses, they have settled on a technology called nickel-manganese-cobalt against graphite. And some of your viewers, might’ve heard some of the latest news about solid-state electrolyte or solid-state batteries. You heard about that. And what they’re referring to is the electrolyte inside the batteries. They’re still going to use an NMC graphite electrode. So for your cathode, it would be NMC nickel-manganese-cobalt, on the anode, they would have a graphite and in the middle, they would use a solid-state electrolyte. And that’s where the ions can move back and forth that create the electron flow.

Jack Johnson (05:20):

And what’s fascinating is just like all the years and like your users, “Hey, what’s the difference between a Chevrolet or Ram and a Ford or a Toyota?” And all of your viewers probably have, especially in the industrial fleet world, they’re all going to have their opinions on the design of that vehicle. And they could probably come up with thousands of reasons, differences between all of those different brands, but in fundamentally they’re still a truck or a work vehicle.

Jack Johnson (05:50):

Well the funny thing is about lithium-ion, is you have that many types of variation in each manufacturer cells, how they build them, and then there’s the uniqueness of the chemistry and putting them all together. That’s why you’re going to see all these different types of EV battery packs coming out from, pick any major branded automotive company you can think of, and where our brains want to say, “Oh, that battery would be the same in all those vehicle.” What’s really going to be fascinating is they’re all going to be different. Like that four-cylinder here is a four-cylinder, but it might be a four-cylinder turbocharged. It might be a different type of design. You’re going to have all of this proliferation of technology under the guise of chemistry or lithium-ion.

Jack Johnson (06:40):

I know that’s a long speech, but you’re back to chemistry would be NMC graphite, or a lot of technologies you’ll see in the aftermarket world is called lithium iron phosphate, which is an iron-based electrode. And then there’s probably four or five others, lithium-titanate is another one, lithium manganese oxide, LMO. There’s just lithium, lithium straight metal. There’s several versions out there, but for in the EV world right now, most of the product you’re going to see in the US and Europe is the NMC, nickel-manganese-cobalt. You’re going to see a little of the nickel cobalt aluminum, NCA, and you’ll see some lithium iron phosphate.

Gretchen Reese (07:30):

Okay. So I’d love to delve more into the lithium side of these power batteries, because you did mention a few different chemical combinations or just these battery compositions that involved lithium. And again, we spoke about it the last time that we were chatting, but I’d love to delve in further because it’s fascinating to me on a personal level, but also I feel like it’s been making a lot of headlines in sustainability news, as well as when General Motors introduced their Ultium battery technology focused on lithium. It’s said to be one of the most powerful elements of their battery. Could you explain a little bit more about why that would be?

Jack Johnson (08:11):

Sure. So lithium, it’s really cool. Do you remember the element charts in school? When you look up periodic table of elements?

Gretchen Reese (08:24):

Oh yes. We had a song to memorize it.

Jack Johnson (08:27):

Excellent.

Gretchen Reese (08:28):

I won’t sing it for you though. Don’t worry.

Jack Johnson (08:31):

I’m sure your viewers would hear a song.

Gretchen Reese (08:34):

Oh no, no. We’re going to pass on that one.

Jack Johnson (08:37):

Okay. Okay. But it really comes down to the magic of differential materials. So you got to have, if you remember backing in basic chemistry, they talked about reactivity of some materials and we talked about specific energy of materials and lithium, when you look at it as a metal and you look at the difference between it on one side, its reactivity, and then to the other material you’re looking at, what you’re looking at is the potential of voltage between one element and the next. And that’s one of the reasons that lithium is used. Lithiums are really good material for reactivity. And what’s fascinating though is, and I don’t want to turn this into a one-on-one physics course, but what’s fascinating about how the lithium works is there’s not a lot of lithium in a lithium-ion battery.

Jack Johnson (09:36):

And in fact, some of the products I’ve used, is less than 1% by weight is actually lithium in the batteries. The lithium is, it was called intercalated is the technical term, but I always like to imagine it as a sponge. If you think about the electrodes and you think about their structure, their kind of look like in a microscopic level, you want to think kind of like a sponge and that’s those open pores. And the lithium you want to get all the way down inside everything. And it’s intercalated within the structure of the cathode and the anode.

Jack Johnson (10:15):

And then there’s some lithium also in the electrolyte. And when you charge and discharge, it’s the lithium exchanges an ion. So one size and it ionizes one side to the other between the anode and cathode. And that’s what creates the electron flow. In a lead-acid battery, we always had lead and lead oxide where we actually, you oxidate one side and that made the electron move. And lithium doesn’t work that way. It works through the movement of stimulating the ion transfer. And that’s really the magic of lithium-ion. If anybody’s really interested in that, I recommend jumping in and looking up John Goodenough or doing some good Wikipedia searches on how it works, as it works a lot different in its electrochemistry than traditional batteries, what we’re used to.

Gretchen Reese (11:18):

Okay. So I’m curious then, because you did mention that lithium is less than 1% of the total battery chemistry make up. How does that lithium component then affect the charge range of an electric vehicle? Because it’s been making a lot of headlines saying that this is going to be the next big thing, it’s going to be a huge aspect to changing the way the EV battery works. How does that affect that?

Jack Johnson (11:44):

Sure. Well, each battery, so say you pick a manufacturer and they’ve got, they’re spending their dollars and investment on innovation development around the raw material. So as I mentioned, less than 1% by weight and in some of the product I’ve worked with, the amount of lithium can vary based on the manufacturer’s design of the electrochemistry. It also varies based on the structural design of the mixed metal oxides on the cathode and on the structure of the anode. So for instance, you want to move electrons back and forth, or so the ions move back and forth, but you got to have a place for the electrons to total energy density. And what they do is, you’re going to engineer, for example, let’s use an NMC electrode.

Jack Johnson (12:40):

So you got on one side, you’ve got the mixed metal oxide with the lithium intercalated into the material. And you want to have the most service area and the most amount of material you can for energy density on one side of the equation. So imagine a bucket and you want to be able to say, “Okay, whatever that size of that bucket is, on the left side is how much energy I can store.” Now on the other side of the separator, so draw a line in your mind, you’ve got a bucket setting on the floor. If you draw a line in the middle, and then now you got to put a bucket on the other side, which represents the anode. Well the anode, if you’re going to take the energy on the left side and port in to the right side bucket, which is currently empty, your bucket needs to be at least the same size as a one on the other side. And if it’s not, you’re going to overfill the bucket.

Jack Johnson (13:39):

Well in a lot of chemistry right now, there’s a thing called anode-limited, meaning the anode technology, that the way you make up the, and this is where the graphenes come from and sometimes you might’ve heard the word silica nano or silica additives. What they’re trying to do is maximize the storage capability of the anode because the cathode can carry more energy than the anode. And so they’re trying to make that bucket equal to the size of the cathode capability. And that’s where these competition about who’s making the better one is coming from. That’s also why the research in electrolytes. Now, if my electrolytes, I don’t have limitations of the electrolyte, I can create more energy or I can make the voltage go higher and higher because I’m not worrying about materials that break down under certain voltages.

Jack Johnson (14:41):

And so that’s the science of balancing how a battery works and what we see as consumers or users. We only get little snippets of the meaning of what they’re working on. And then unless you’re really into it, kind of like a few of your viewers or gearheads, they’re really into their hydraulics or they’re really into how their vehicles work. You have to get into those details to actually start understanding how the engineers are tweaking the variables of the cell to get what we’re hearing is better and better energy density. And that’s really what they’re focusing on is how do I get more electrons, usable electrons in a smaller space.

Jack Johnson (15:25):

And that all comes back to science of the materials, the electrochemistry, and finding ways to make that thing work a little bit better, no different than I would say a lot like the evolution of an engine. If you think back a hundred years ago, and you think of Model T engine, see the evolution of engines today. Still, base design but innovation, material science, manufacturing has evolved that piece of technology into what we see today. And that’s what’s going on when you hear about the news and the whole goal is how do I put more and more energy in a small space?

Jack Johnson (16:06):

Now here’s the funny thing, that maybe make it simpler for people to grasp, is when you think about a gallon of gasoline, that gallon of gasoline we think about how many miles we can get on that one gallon of gasoline, right?

Gretchen Reese (16:20):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jack Johnson (16:22):

And that really is a measure of how much energy, right? Because if we want to drive our vehicle or do work, that gallon gasoline represents how long we can do that work. And so that’s energy. Now in a lithium-ion battery, even the absolute best battery technology we’re talking about, gasoline still has almost around a 30 times more energy density per pound than this technology working with today. And so that’s the challenge the engineers are working on is to get the range and the performance they need. They’re trying to compete with our traditional liquid fuels. And they’re really working hard to get more and more energy in that same weight as fuel that we use today.

Gretchen Reese (17:10):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). You want to know something fascinating that had been kind of going into a rabbit hole surrounding, and this is kind of off topic of batteries, but just to total fascination.

Jack Johnson (17:19):

Yeah.

Gretchen Reese (17:20):

I’ve been researching a lot on e-fuel and seeing how not only that compares to the efficiency of regular petrol based fuel, but then also the idea that it’s going to be, I think they said right now, it’s currently four times less efficient than an EV battery. But apparently when you look at comparisons in 2030 or projected comparisons I should say, projected comparisons for 2030 and 2050, they said, they don’t know if it’s going to keep up, but potentially it could be a way to keep internal combustion engine sustainable because you don’t have to change the type of liquid fuel refueling process nor the actual motor itself or the way that it burns the fuel. It’s just a synthetic fuel rather than fossil fuel. But the whole efficiency piece is just like.

Jack Johnson (18:09):

Exactly. So that’s the interesting thing, you just brought up a really good point is efficiencies. And that’s one of the things that gets thrown around a lot about how electric vehicles more efficient than internal combustion engine. And it’s all depends on how you look at it, because right now, as you just said, if I have a liquid fuel and I put it in my vehicle and I burn it and I process it, and if I’m only, let’s say I’m 30% efficient at the source, but you processed it at the source.

Jack Johnson (18:47):

In an EV, you have to process the energy, that fuel source somewhere, either in a power plant, which right now US is heavily natural gas, coal, little, tiny bit of nuclear and a little bit of solar and a little bit of wind. But the challenge is, is you’ve got to produce that energy somewhere off, away from your vehicle. You have to put it on, not only do you generate it there, then you got to transport it. So you have to put it in a different form, put it on the power lines, transport it. Then you’ve got to change its voltage again. Then put it in your vehicle, that vehicle, a charger has a loss, then you put it in, then you burn it. And the end to end efficiency of the electric vehicle, sometimes they take away all of that transportation efficiency out of the equation when they just compare the two.

Jack Johnson (19:43):

And what we really got to look at, like you just mentioned is that it’s pretty efficient to convert liquid fuel directly at the source. And if you found a way to eliminate the emissions and have a fuel that can recapture and use it like we’re using a battery, yeah, you could have. They could innovate a better solution for the internal combustion engine. If we’re not, I think the main concern here what we’re talking about is, CO2 emissions and global warming emissions of our fuel bi-product has that’s creating the concern globally.

Gretchen Reese (20:18):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. It’s definitely a fascinating conversation, it was one that I was initially drawn to because apparently the production of this e-fuel, it actually takes CO2 emissions out of the atmosphere in order to fuse it with hydrogen in order to create this synthetic field. But it’s a full, I’m telling you like five day rabbit hole I went down and I still can’t stop thinking about it because I’m just fascinated by where it could go. Granted, it was initially revived by Porsche and their new 911 GT3, which is, a racing vehicle, but still, I think it could be interesting just to see how it affects transportation industry is they’re talking about shipping via water or airlines and just for sustainable travel overall. It’s just kind of cool and slightly a bit of a step away from an EV conversation, but they were very [crosstalk 00:21:11].

Jack Johnson (21:10):

And that’s excitement of seeing innovation. When you set a part of a task and you get a lot of people that have a goal and you let them, and there’s a market to be satisfied, innovation happens. And that’s one of the things I enjoy most about what I do is seeing innovation and seeing the ideas and some will fail and some will succeed. And I mean, that’s what makes our systems great, right? That’s what freedoms [inaudible 00:21:38], go out there and innovate, develop and find solutions and you find a good one, you get rewarded. I think it’s really amazing to see that in the real world.

Gretchen Reese (21:49):

Oh, absolutely. And I kind of want to switch gears a little bit and bring it back to the sustainability aspect that we had spoken about the last time we were chatting again, in that last episode, talking about EVs and the lithium mining. Surrounding those kind of top talking points, I think that a lot of people are focusing on, and a lot of people are saying that EVs or they think EVs will always be the most sustainable alternative to a petrol fueled internal combustion engine. Do you think that these hangups, or I guess I could say, what would the biggest hang ups in your opinion, when it concerns lithium mining be for a new battery technology? Do you hear about that a lot when you’re speaking about it to people?

Jack Johnson (22:30):

Yeah. Raw materials is a big challenge for the lithium-ion industry. You’ve probably heard of the cobalt controversies, the Congo and kids moving in cobalt, and there’s some big articles about that. And then you’ve got the challenges of where we’re getting lithium-ion or lithium for lithium-ion, but then, you got thrown in the global trade scenario. Then you got to throw in countries’ different requirements for missions like here, in the US, it’s really hard to get any type of mining permit. It’s really hard to get any type of raw material [inaudible 00:23:09. We have so many limitations on extracting minerals from the ground here in the US and that then pushes a lot of that stuff offshore. We need it, we have a demand for it, but US domestic supplies really aren’t there. And that’s one of the things that’s going on right now with how do we make sure we have a stable supply chain if we’re not going to get those materials domestically? And that then drives demand.

Jack Johnson (23:39):

Now, some of it’s, they don’t always tell you the whole story behind it, like where lithium comes from. Lithium is very, actually very prevalent and there’s quite a bit of it in Nevada. A lot of time, it’s in dried lake beds, it’s in the ocean, precipitated seas. That’s why there’s a lot of it down in South America, up in the Highlands. And that’s where a lot of lithium comes from today. Cobalt the other one. Yes, Congo, very poor country. They have what I think, I believe it’s the remains of an ancient asteroid strike. There’s a large concentration of cobalt there.

Jack Johnson (24:22):

And I think something like 40 to 60%, I don’t know their numbers exactly. A big chunk of commodities, driven cobalt trade come out of there. And so a lot of EV companies are out looking for stable supply basis and they’re buying up futures. They’re buying up mines. I believe Tesla has gone vertically integrated, buying actual mines, or at least buying pieces of mines, tie up and make sure they have a good stable supply of raw materials. And it’s really going to be a global trade, just like oil less, right? Areas. People have got to find those resources and you got to buy them in bulk to be competitive.

Gretchen Reese (25:08):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Absolutely. So can you tell me a little bit then about how this lithium battery technology, not just from a sustainability factor, but just in general, how does it affect the work that you do at Volta?

Jack Johnson (25:22):

Well, the thing for Volta is, we’re all about trying to make this easy for people. So we just spent the last, 20, 30 minutes, literally just touching the surface. But I bet, I look forward to the comments you get because I bet we have a lot of your viewers going, “What were they talking about?”

Gretchen Reese (25:39):

Hey, you never know. Maybe I’ll bring you back for another one again.

Jack Johnson (25:43):

It’s a complicated subject and it’s all new and the terminology is new and it’s going to be challenging for any, especially fleet managers, small company. They’re right now, I think about your customers often, another thing, what do they worry about? They’re worrying about keeping a vehicle operational. They’re worrying about getting recruits in the field in and out safely. How do I make a better work environment? How do I maintain talent? What’s my operational costs, right? They have these struggles. They’re trying to run a business every day. And then all of a sudden they’re saying, “Oh, you got to go to this new technology. You’re going to be mandated to do it.” Well, no one likes to hear that word. Then you’re going to hear, “Oh, well they don’t work well. So and so had a bad experience that had lithium on it. And since that had lithium on it, all lithium are bad.”

Jack Johnson (26:34):

They don’t have time to research it and study it. That creates a challenge for adoption. And so for what we do, and knowing lithium-ion, our goal is to make this not so scary. Make the transition simple for our customers, simple for the users. And that’s what we focus on. So we work heavily with the EV industry, almost all of our team members come from the automotive world. We stay up with our colleagues knowing what’s going on with the big investments in automotive. And since that’s what we do, we stay up on that. And then we can bring that in to make simple products that work, that make it simple to integrate onto the industrial fleet manager or a world, in the industrial users world, same with our RV customers and Marine customers. So staying close to lithium-ion, understanding it, understanding the players and understanding where the IP, the intellectual property, the patents, material supply, that is the, you can understand what’s going on there and you have access to it. We create value for our customers.

Gretchen Reese (27:54):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). So what do you think, or are EVs the next big thing for fleets?

Jack Johnson (28:00):

Well, we think so. We really see, for us jumping all the way to an electric vehicle on a fleet truck, it’s a great goal, but the budget constraints, the resource constraints, the infrastructure constraints and the sheer need of energy onsite. So for example, a lot of your customers who run a hydronics for one air conditioning, just the loads to run the work side would exceed the battery power capability for driving. I mean, the fact that you can consume more energy than it would be running down the road in some cases.

Jack Johnson (28:39):

So the range just won’t be there for the level of work you need on the field. But so what we do is we right size for the application. Many of the work trucks don’t, their job is to get to this job site and work all day long, not drive around all day long. And the EV model is heavily focused around someone driving all day long. And we flip that up for our customers is like, we understand you need reliability and you need the horsepower to get the job site, but what you need is real reliable high-performing power. So I don’t have to run that engine at the job site. And that’s what we focus on.

Gretchen Reese (29:20):

It’s going to be a fascinating thing, I think, as people are starting to transition to hybrids and electric vehicles, especially just to see how like we were talking about earlier, the efficiency thing starts to come up. And then also if people start to widely adopt it, once they realize that electric or even hybrid power can actually be as powerful and who knows, potentially in the future be powerful than internal combustion engines. I’m really excited to see where that goes.

Jack Johnson (29:45):

Me too. And it’s so much fun if we got a second for a quick story. One of our early adopters, we had a hybrid boom truck in town. I think it was a 35 foot lift boom. And we had several line workers come in from our community and they have heard about some electric trucks and they were, they had kind of some bad experiences, very slow didn’t work very well. And we’re like, “Well, this is a lot different. This is equivalent to a 40 horsepower output. So your PTO you’re used to is probably 12 to 15 horsepower. And this one units actually turned down.” And they were like, “Oh yeah, yeah, that’s a salesman.” I said, “Make sure you put your harness, use your safety gear,” right? We’re telling them this thing has a very quick reaction time, instantaneous torque and they don’t believe us.

Jack Johnson (30:41):

So the 30 year experienced lift operator jumps in the bucket and he hits the fuel and the bucket goes woo. And he takes off, and he’s, “My balls are as big as silver dollars.” And he’s like, “You weren’t kidding.” And I’m like, “Yup.” And so then all of a sudden they were like kids in a candy store, couldn’t believe the throttle response. So excited to see that much power at their fingertips. And we couldn’t get them out of the bucket truck.

Gretchen Reese (31:11):

Oh God. It’s like trying to get kids in a bath. They don’t want to go. And then the second you put them in the bath, you can’t get them out an hour later. It’s basically like that. Oh gosh. Well, is there anything else you’d like to add when it comes to batteries or battery technology? I know, like you said, we are just kind of scratching the surface here, but I’m sure there’s probably something else.

Jack Johnson (31:35):

Yeah. I mean, those that are really curious about this technology, it’s not as scary as you might think. It’s going to fall within a lot of the knowledge you already have, it’s just different terms. You might have to think of things a little differently. Just do your research, find trusted partners, make sure you’re looking back in that supply chain and understanding where the product’s coming from, how and what stands behind them. And you’ll probably have a good experience. Sometimes it’s easier to embrace the change and make sure you guide it down the river versus fighting the river. And that’s the best advice I can give.

Gretchen Reese (32:20):

Awesome. Well, I appreciate it. And I know we covered this in our last episode together, but once again, for our audience, if there’s anyone that would like to continue this conversation outside of Fleet FYIs, where can they find you?

Jack Johnson (32:32):

You can find this at voltapowersystems.com. You can also find us on YouTube, just type in Volta Power Systems. You can find a lot of links to what we’re doing or check out our website.

Gretchen Reese (32:45):

Sounds good. Well, Jack, again, I appreciate your time. It’s always so fun to have you on the podcast. And I always feel like I walk away from every conversation a little bit more knowledgeable than what I walked in.

Jack Johnson (32:56):

Well, thank you very much. You’re very kind and thanks to your viewers and listeners.

Gretchen Reese (33:13):

Jack is one of the people that truly just, he knows his stuff, especially when it comes to batteries, battery composition, EVs and hybrid vehicles. And he’s what I like to call a knowledge powerhouse. And when it comes to speaking about everything that’s involved with creating this new battery technology from the ground up, especially for fleet vehicles, there’s still a lot to be said, efficiency, range, charge speed, and so much more. They’re all aspects that we can always dig into more in a later show. And I’d love to hear your thoughts. Are you keen on EVs? Do you have any questions about efficiency or EV battery, chemical make up? Send them my way on LinkedIn or via email. Just remember if you want to make sure that your question reaches me on LinkedIn, use the Utilimarc Fleet FYIs hashtag so that I can see it. And I look forward to reading all of your feedback. Until next week, that’s all I’ve got for now, but I will see you in your headphones next Thursday. Ciao.

Gretchen Reese (34:11):

Hey there, I think this is the time that I should cue the virtual high five because you’ve just finished listening to another episode of The Fleet FYIs podcast. If you’re already wanting more content head over to utilimarc.com, which is Utilimarc with a C, U-T-I-L-I-M-A-R-C.com for the show notes and extra insights coming straight from our analysts to you. That’s all for me this week. So until next time I’ll catch you later.

If you or someone you know is interested in being a guest on Fleet FYIs, please email our content manager with your request.

---