The positive reactions to the meeting contrasted with uncertainty about the state of the industry as a whole.  No one really knows what is going on in Washington, D.C.  It appears that the Trump Administration has not yet taken a position, favorably or unfavorably, on advanced battery technology.  During a first 100 days filled with chaos and radical change, the fact that no one in the Administration seems to be paying attention to batteries may well be a good thing.

Yet while the chaos and radical change in Washington grabs headlines, the presentations made by speakers and NAATBatt member firms during the NAATBatt 2025 meeting underline the fact that Washington is a side show.  Technological advances will determine whether the manufacture of advanced battery technology in North America will be commercially successful, not government policy.  And those advances keep coming.  A session on AI in the battery industry made some interesting predictions about where the most important technology advances are likely to occur in the battery space.

The “What Would a Moonshot in Advanced Batteries Look Like” panel focused less on new technology and more on the importance and challenges of reducing cost.  A culture of innovation is the key advantage of  North American advanced battery makers.  But commercializing that innovation will remain challenging as long as oversupply in China keeps prices artificially and unsustainably low in North America.  Panel members Stan Whittingham, Craig Rigby, Joern Tinnemeyer and David Howell agreed upon the centrality of this problem, but could not agree on a solution.

The best part of NAATBatt 2025, as always, was the Member Update Presentations.  This year, 170-member companies signed up to give presentations.  Collectively those presentations provided a better understanding of who is working on what in the North American advanced battery market than any study or report.  The presentations as a whole were as inspiring as they were impressive.

2025 will likely see continued technological progress in advanced batteries and, hopefully, greater certainty about federal government policy supporting it.  NAATBatt looks forward to reviewing that progress and that certainty at its 18^th annual meeting, NAATBatt 2026, on February 9-12, 2026, at the JW Marriott Starr Pass hotel in Tucson, Arizona.

The program of the meeting continues to develop.  Monday will be the golf and tennis tournaments and tournament dinner.  Tuesday will see meetings of the Battery Recycling Committee, the Manufacturing in North America Committee, the Second Life Battery Committee and the Zinc Battery Committee.  The program in chief will start on Tuesday with annual reports about the state of the science and the state of the technology of advanced batteries by Chief Science Officer and Nobel laureate Stanley Whittingham and by Chief Technology Officer and former CTO of CATL, Bob Galyen.  The day will continue with reports by leading analysts about the outlook for business development in various sectors of the advanced battery market, including EV’s, ESS, cell, pack and electrode manufacturing, micro-mobility and beyond lithium-ion technologies.

Wednesday will see a discussion about just how constrained the supply of energy materials might be for North American lithium-based battery manufacturers.  That will be followed by presentations by the finalists in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Battery Recycling Prize Phase III competition.  The program on Wednesday will conclude with presentations by the winners of this year’s Top 10 New Battery Companies competition.  The winners for 2022, just recently announced, are: AM Batteries, Battery Resourcers, Lyten, LiCAP Technologies, South 8 Technologies, C4V iM3NY, Intecells, Solid Power, Pure Lithium, and OnTo Technology.  The NAATBatt annual dinner will be held on Wednesday evening and include presentation of the 2022 NAATBatt Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Thursday will include a panel of financiers and investment bankers talking about the alternatives for early stage battery companies to raise money, though venture investment, private family offices, SPAC’s and IPO’s.  That panel will be followed by another looking at new approaches to controlling lithium battery fire propagation risk.  The day will end with a tour of an ESS project run by Salt River Project located near the Wigwam Resort followed by a Farewell Reception.

Interspersed with regular program sessions on all days will be the Member Update Presentations.  Member Update Presentations are the hallmark of NAATBatt annual meetings.  Each NAATBatt member is encouraged to give a short talk during the meeting describing exactly what it does and highlighting its most important products and technologies.  These short talks have historically generated a large number of new business opportunities for the members that give them from new customers, suppliers and partners who, prior to the talk, did not really understand what the presenting member did.  NAATBatt is all about maximizing transparency in the North American advanced battery market and encouraging our members to do business with each other.  The annual Member Update Presentations are an important and surprisingly effective way of doing just that.

Finally, a word about the elephant in the room: Covid.  The last two weeks have been worrisome as infection rates have risen sharply around the country.  We take encouragement in recent news reports from South Africa noting a sharp if inexplicable fall in the rate of infections following several weeks of sharp, omicron-fueled increases.  There is some speculation that the United States is just a couple weeks behind South Africa.  Omicron may be burning itself out.  We will know for sure by the time of NAATBatt 2022.

But one thing we know for sure is that NAATBatt has been lucky with Covid in the past.  NAATBatt 2020 was held just a few weeks before the first wave of Covid shut down all trade shows and a good part of the economy.  I am hopeful that NAATBatt 2022 will dodge the same bullet a second time.  NAATBatt is committed to going forward with an in-person meeting in Arizona next February.  We will take all precautions necessary to maximize the safety of those who attend.  Please stay tuned to this newsletter for updates on exactly what those precautions will be.  But I hope and expect that by February the worst of Covid will be behind us and that we will all have the pleasure of meeting again in person at the Wigwam in Arizona.