Western Australia’s Labor-led McGowan Government announced on Monday the members of its Future Battery Industry taskforce which will seek to grow the state’s future battery industry.

Western Australia plans to build one of the longest continuous electric vehicle networks in the world and has committed $100 million to a previously-mooted battery to stabilise the power network. The State Government has also committed to buying 25 per cent electric vehicles for the state fleet when possible, a move that will involve installing EV charging stations in government buildings.

The UK government has formally announced its much-anticipated plan to ban the sale of the internal combustion engine by the year 2030, as part of a broader ‘ten point plan’ for a ‘green industrial revolution’. The announcement comes only hours after a new alliance between Tesla, Rivian and Uber was announced in Washington, named “Zeta 2030“, targeting 100% electric vehicle sales as market share by 2030.

Volkswagen AG is accelerating development of a compact electric car that will cost less than 30,000 euros ($35,800) as tightening emissions rules and generous subsidies bolster sales of battery-powered vehicles, according to people familiar with the matter. The VW-branded car may be introduced as early as 2023, flanking the ID.5 crossover to be sold from next year as well as an electric iteration of the iconic hippie-era minibus slated for 2022, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal plans. VW is also working on a fully electric station wagon, dubbed Aero, with a battery range of as much as 700 kilometers (435 miles) to be sold from 2023, the people said.

GM will spend $27 billion on all-electric and autonomous vehicles through 2025, an increase of $7 billion, from initial plans announced in March. The increase in investment will support GM’s plans to release 30 new EVs globally by 2025, including more than 20 for North America. GM said it has moved up the release of 12 EVs, including pickups for its Chevrolet and GMC brands.

Panasonic is making a significant push into Europe with plans to set up its first battery factory in Norway, as the Japanese group tries to leverage its success supplying Tesla in the US to win more business from European carmakers. The group intends to team up with Norwegian state-controlled oil and gas major Equinor and aluminium company Norsk Hydro for a feasibility study on expanding its battery business in Europe to be completed within six months.

from the ASX...

Fully underwritten 1 for 14 pro-rata accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer and institutional placement to raise A$161 million.

Equity Financing proceeds to be applied to Sal de Vida Stage 1 which is expected to position Galaxy to meet its previously stated development timeline and progress James Bay to construction ready status.

Equity Financing provides funding certainty and mitigates pricing uncertainty of alternative funding sources for Sal de Vida created by COVID-19.

Galaxy now in a position to continue with the Sal de Vida capital program in advance of scheduled first production in late 2022.

New shares to be issued at A$1.70 per share, representing a 15.0% discount to last close, 12.5% discount to TERP, and 8.1% discount to the 10-day VWAP.

Positive results of up to 99.8% carbon achieved during testing with potential European customers on the recovery of high purity carbon anode material from battery black mass.

Engineering design commenced for a containerised pilot plant.

Funding for pilot plant to be sourced through the Company’s RnD programs and collaboration with potential customers.

Pilot plant to provide recovered carbon anode material for product qualification process, focussed on re-use of graphite in lithium-ion batteries and specialised industrial carbon products.

Opportunity to blend its high purity battery spherical graphite from its planned WA manufacturing facility to provide a unique recycled anode material to the lithium-ion battery market.

Galan overtakes POSCO as the third largest publicly disclosed lithium resource in the Hombre Muerto salt flat basin.

HMW Indicated resource massively expands by 65% with an additional 895 thousand tonnes (Kt) of contained lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) @ 946mg/l Li (no cut off).

Substantial resource increase arises from the strategic acquisition of Del Condor concession and an SRK review of average porosity data.

Galan’s total HMW resource estimate now stands at a world class 2.3 million tonnes (Mt) LCE @ 946mg/I Li.

POSCO’s $US280m transaction with Galaxy based on a resource of 2.5Mt @ 732mg/I Li.

Galan’s combined total resources in the Hombre Muerto basin ~3.0Mt Mt @ 858mg/l Li.

PEA/scoping study remains on track for delivery in Q4 2020.

Preliminary half-cell trials of Renascor’s Siviour Purified Spherical Graphite (PSG) in silicon-composite anodes deliver exceptional electrochemical performance results.

The addition of silicon in graphite anodes offers the potential to improve the storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries, with considerable attention focused on developing an efficient next-generation, silicon-enhanced anode.

The silicon-enhanced anode test program, undertaken by next-generation silicon-composite anode developer Sicona Battery Technologies Pty Ltd, was designed to assess initial discharge capacity, the amount of charge delivered by a battery during its initial use.

The tests, which were an initial, unoptimised trial of silicon-enhanced anodes produced with Renascor’s Siviour PSG, returned significantly higher initial discharge capacity than graphite-only anodes (up to 81% higher).

Silicon-composite anodes produced with Renascor's Siviour PSG met or exceeded the performance of all reference natural graphite previously tested by Sicona, a result attributed by Sicona to the favourable crystallinity, uniformity and surface area of Renascor’s Siviour PSG.

As a result of these positive preliminary results, Renascor and Sicona plan to undertake more extensive full cell tests to further validate the viability of using Renascor’s Siviour PSG in Sicona's silicon-enhanced anodes, prior to conducting a commercial trial at Sicona’s planned pilot production plant in Wollongong, New South Wales.

Successful testwork using emerging Silicon composite technology builds on Renascor's previously demonstrated performance in conventional graphite battery anode technology testing.

from Twitter...

@aglenergy: Today we’re announcing plans for another large grid-scale battery project – this time at Loy Yang Power Station in Victoria! It’s part of our proposal to develop an 850 megawatts (MW) multi-site, integrated battery system to increase Australia's Energy Storage capacity.

@sdmoores: UK and EV Battery Gigafactories. UK will require equivalent of half of the world’s lithium produced in 2020 if it is to fulfill its Green Industrial Revolution ambitions. A reminder it’s not just about EVs and batteries, it’s about supply chain

@Thematicafunds: Battery megafactory capacity worldwide was at 455.1 GWh 2019 according to BMI data. Tesla announced on Battery Day aspirations of 3TWh (3,000 GWh) of capacity alone by 2030 (6.5X or a ~17%CAGR). Add another +2TW of capacity already announced by 2030 from other OEMs.

@AlbemarleCorp: Today, we joined 24 US industry experts as a founding member in the launch of the Zero Emission Transportation Association @zeta_2030, an industry coalition advocating for national policies that will enable 100% electric vehicle sales by 2030.

@cleannrgcouncil: Victoria will deliver the biggest household battery program in Australia! Congratulations to the @VicGovAu for committing to a clearecovery.