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You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio. Well, speaking of technology, I want to bring in ci Uog. She's founder in CEO of Factorial Energy. She's been on our program before. Factorial is a company that's working on solid state batteries. It's partnered with automotive manufacturers including Mercedes, Benz, Delantis, Hyundai and more. She joins us once again from Massachusetts. See you good,
have you back with us. We're going to get to what you're doing at the firm and how these batteries are different at Factorial Energy in just a minute. But I do want you to weigh in on this evolved industrial policy, if we can even call it that, that we're seeing from this administration. It comes after the Department of Defenses promised four hundred million dollars to MP Materials, the supplier of and processor of rare Earth Materials. We
spoke to Jim Litinski, the CEO of that company. It comes after the news this week of AMD and in Nvidia sharing some of their Chinese revenue with the US government. It comes after the Golden Shared deal for US Steel. How do you think about this as the founder of a tech firm.
Yeah, I think the global competition on technology is precedented and this is a really good time for technology development, but also we have to be aware of the geopolitical tensions around it. And as factorial, I think we have been later focused on our key customers as you just mentioned mer Cities, Slantists, Hyunda, Nikiya, and those are global partners for US spent across multiple continents, and of course you have a great presence in the US as well.
For US, I think our focus is not only about our diversified global customer portfolio, but also diversified supply chain, which is critical here today. And we're excited to hear that you actually announced the program yesterday about supporting battery related material as well as battery manufacturing as well.
It's been quite a while since we had you on the program. It was before I believe we heard a lot about what the Trump administration's plans were for industrial policy and the way that the administration is thinking about EVS, the way it's thinking about batteries, its relationship and deterioration there.
So with Elon Musk and it's also before tariffs, and I'm wondering from a supply chain perspective, given what goes into solid state batteries, how your supply chain has been affected by tariff policy.
Yeah, so I would say there has been a lot of discussions about the rare earth metals recently how US is securing that. Fortunately, battery doesn't really have Those were earth metals and between lithium, cobalt, and nicole those are critical for LIMI batteries, but they're actually transition metals, and especially for victorial we're not using LLLP, which is also a critical material that has been quite constrained from the China market, and also we don't use that as well.
So I think to that extent we have been very well protected from the global supply chain constraints, but also we also want to be aware of the potential threats coming up right now. We actually have been actively working on not only just to work with direct suppliers and building the supply chain coalition, but also working with recycling partners.
You know, recently we announced this partnership with a Korean conglomerate called some Guilt, and they're one of the largest recyclers recyclers in the space, not only for the M batteries, but they have done a lot for solide battery as well.
So I think that's actually.
Going to be deeply protect us with a closed loop supply chain in the future, especially when the company is at scale.
Forgive me, So let's stay batteries. What exactly are they? I feel like we so often talk about ev batteries and what's going on. We throw terms around, but what exactly is a solid state battery? Which is your bread and butter?
Correct, Yes, yes, exactly, Carol, and I would say solid sea battery is like a traditional battery, but instead of using a liquid electroly like, it is a solid or quasi solid stained material, which means you combine a little bit of solid and a little bit liquid together, but the solid content will stabilize sou dramatically, and this makes a battery safer, longer lasting, and more powerful because it has dorm more energy and it's less likely to leak
or catch on fire. And as you know, like the biggest market for a battery is on transportation, but actually battery is not only limited to transportation.
It is in the.
Air, it's on the water, it's in robotics, and it's also everywhare of energy storage for homes and businesses. So it's fundamentally in infrastructure, technology and product rather than something very like narrowly scopting a very specific application.
And we mentioned that as Tim said earlier, that you partnered with automotive manufacturers including Mercedes, Benz, Stilantis, Hyundai. I'm just curious, so you guys are working together, is there actually products on the market. Give us an idea of kind of where you guys are in this process.
Yeah, that's a great question.
You know, we started the collaboration with those companies many years ago, and Kilonda and Kia were our first investor in the company and Mercedes A. Stalentists led our two hundred million around in twenty twenty two, and since then the company has gone a long way for product development.
We launched the first one hundred powered solid.
State battery with Stalentists in CES under the keynote speech.
It was very well received.
Since then, we have shipped thousands of batteries to our global partners. As of mid of last year, we launched the first B sample to Mercedes, which also marked the first B sample shipment to a global automotive globally for a solid state battery company, which is quite a breakthrough.
And with that b sample, we actually were able to build the first vehicle together with Mercedes earlier this year and has the first vehicle rolling on the street in Scude Guard and that also marked the first electric vehicle that's been built by a solid state battery. And it's not only the first application a debut for a solid battery in the vehicle, but it's also in the broader
immobility sector as well. And what is even more exciting is that recently, not only with the automotives, but we also a major breakthrough with the first shipment to a droll maker in North America. So that's going to be a very important near term application for the technology at a small scale.
A couple of quick questions, so go back to and I think you talked about this in terms of, you know, batteries part of the problems. I mean, evs yay like, people like them, but then there's the batteries, right that you know, the waste and what happens with batteries because you kind of can't do much with them. So I'm just curious about what happens with these batteries if they after they don't work. What's the kind of I don't
know recycling abilities or capabilities. Just give us an update on that.
Yeah, recycling is definitely a very important party close the loop, and not only just from the circular economy perspective, but it's important for the cost and supply chain resilience in the future. And I think in the near term what we see is that a lot of the battery recycling is coming to two pieces. One is for the scrapping of the battery and the vehicle as a whole and
number party numbers. Two is about using those scrap materials to turn that into a black math, and from the black math to refine that into the raw materials and turning back to the battery again. So that's the recycling process that most of the recyclers have been adopting globally, and that's why we've been very aggressively working with actually two Korean recyclers right now, and both have a strong
presence in the US, like you and Young Poo. That's the one we had actually announced last year in front of Sun Gil. What is more important that I think we also need more presence in the US for sali C battery recycling in the future, which will become a mainstream for our any storage and immobility. So yeah, we're actually working very closely with one of the US recyclers today to increase and enhance our recycling capabilities in the US.
We're speaking with ci Wong. She's founder and CEO of Factorial. She has a PhD in chemistry. But I'm still trying to understand what how to build a battery myself. She knows how to do it well.
What's interesting is you sound like you're making progress and you talk about the first vehicle with Mercedes and the first chipment to I think it was a drill company I think in the US. Forgive me if I didn't hear it correctly.
A good company. So that will probably be the first application.
It's actually not only for commercial but also defense applications for batteries.
So how do you ramp up?
When do you ramp up? So it sounds like you're still kind of finding your way forward. So when when is there a mass production point that makes you a viable financially viable company going forward.
Yeah, so we are actually having another fleet coming.
Up from the first vehicle.
So as we announced with more cities for the first vehicle this year, which we built and delivered already, and we're actually announcing with the fleet coming up in twenty twenty six with Stalantists. We just announced a major milestone that both companies achieved last month to deliver this twenty twenty six fleet that's led by Dodge Charger Daytona, and it's not only just for Dodge, but it's also spent across the still a large platform which including g Chrysler
of Romeo and the Maserati. And so with the fleeting twenty six, we're looking at twenty seven for the first commercial deployment and as early as twenty eight or twenty nine that we can see the scale coming up for this market. But even before that we may say, like Jove market and some of the defense applications may come even ahead of twenty twenty seven.
All Right, we're gonna leave it on that note. Listen, so good to check in with you, and here are some of the progress that you've may look forward to hearing more in the future. Si Yongwang she is founder in CEO Factorial Energy, joining us from Massachusetts