Jeff Grampp: Understood. Great, thank you for the time.
Qichao Hu: Thank you.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Timothy Johnson. Timothy, please go ahead.
Unidentified Analyst: Yes, good morning and thank you for taking my question. My question concerns the lithium metal anode. There are many processes for making such an anode. They’re all problematic to one extent or another. Can you please elaborate a little bit more on the process that you use to lay down your lithium metal anode? And whether or not you have any major problems with this going forward? I’m also interested in the composite coating that you’re putting on the lithium metal anode. You mentioned today that you’ve got a new coating material and I’m wondering if you can elaborate on that? Thank you very much.
Qichao Hu: Yes. So also cover the landscape. The first one in terms of how you put lithium foil down as the anode. There’s about three main techniques for putting down lithium foil. And then one is execution, as you take the thicker lithium foil and then execute it’s like a pasta maker, execute it to a thinner foil and then you laminate onto your turn collector. And then another is physical deposition, basically inside the chamber, you evaporate lithium and then that falls onto your substrate. And then third is [slurry] (ph) coating. You can take the lithium powder, you make a slurry and then you coat it and then you drive off the solvent. And there’s pros and cons to each of the technique. I would say, the most mature currently is the extrusion and then lamination.
That’s by far the most mature process for putting down tin lithium foil. And there are disadvantages to that, for example, it’s hard to make the foil wide, but we have an internal process for making the foil wide. And then that’s why we’re able to make the large format 100 amp hour lithium metal cells. And then the other is in the extrusion and the lamination process for now. But we are actively testing the other two approaches, because the other two approaches may offer long-term advantages over the extrusion and lamination process. And for example, maybe in a year to 18 months, we might switch to the other processes. And will keep the industry updated. So — and for us, the different process basically comes down to which one gives the best metrics in terms of cost, manufacturing efficiency, and performance.
And then your second question about composite coating. So the composite coating serves two purposes. One is to improve safety, secondly, to improve the cycle life and we can’t really get into the details of exactly what material we use. And the industry has different types of coatings and there’s different ways and different places in the cell that you can put on the coatings. So I can’t really get into the details, but it’s basically used to improve safety and then prevent internal shorts and also to improve cycle line.
Operator: Our next question comes from Bimis Hugh from — it’s a Private Investor. Bemis, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Analyst: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. My question is — so previously, you have mentioned that A-sample JDA includes different cathode chemistry in addition to high nickel. Has any progress been made in other chemistry other than high nickel, such as LFP lithium metal?
Qichao Hu: Yes. So actually, in A-sample, we tested both high nickel, LFP and also mixtures of those two. And then in B-sample, we will continue to test these different cathodes. And the reason that we do that is not that we are in B-sample, and then we need to finalize the cell design. But the final output of B-sample is basically, we have to finalize the cell design. And one of which is what cathode we’re going to use. And then these different cathodes will have different points on the spider chart in terms of safety, cycle life, and cost. And this may vary for the different types of vehicles, even within the same OEM. Many OEMs will have, for example, the premium brand and the economy brand. And then, of course, they would wish to have one standard unified cell with a unified cathode, but that’s not likely.
