VALUE PROPOSITION CANVAS

Customer Segments

• Primary: 

  • Electric Vehicles

• Secondary: 

  • Medical Equipment 

  • Smart phones and laptop devices 

Gains

• More cost effective

• Safer and more compact battery design that is customizable and scalable 

• Durable physique and performance

• Eco-friendly/sustainable cathode component AKA an OIM - Organic Insertion Material

• Easier to source in supply chain due to wide availability of lithium across the world instead of ceramic or cobalt

Jobs 

• More energy in less space

• Reduce costs for the currently provided or higher energy density batteries

• Less temperature sensitive

• Reduce carbon emissions and strip mining

Pains​

• Lithium dendrite growth in battery materials

• Highly popular and financially strong, but environmentally hazardous competitors 

• Corrosive/heat-sensitive material

• Fire accidents 

• High costs of Electric Vehicles 

• Low performance rates of eco-friendly battery materials

• Difficult and expensive acquirement of cobalt, also ethically violates human rights who are used in labor practices while extracting cobalt 

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Product 

• Intangible, All-Solid-State Lithium Batteries Intellectual Property

• Product focus on battery materials, Organic Insertion Material, used to operate the battery in an eco-friendly manner

• Currently under research at Yao Research Group in Houston, TX 

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Gain Creators 

• Low flammability, higher electrochemical stability, higher potential cathodes, and higher energy density than conventional lithium-ion are crucial features in new-generation electric vehicle batteries

• The lithium-metal anode which replaces a graphite/silicon anode could reduce charging time

• Currently, the best lithium-ion batteries pack about 250Wh/kg, while solid-state batteries already exceed 400Wh/kg

• The lithium ion battery today provides 250 watt hours by kilogram. So you can get [an EV with] range around 350 to 400 kilometers (220 to 250 miles). And the lithium ion battery has a liquid electrolyte, which flammable.

• Solid electrolyte is not flammable so it’s safe. By using lithium metal as anode material, we can enhance the energy density by two times. So, we can go to 500 watt hours per kilogram. That would mean range increasing to as much as 800 kilometers (500 miles). And we could target cost down to $100 per kilowatt-hour for the pack - a 500-mile EV battery offered at the target price of $100 per kWh.

• Reducing operating temperature is expensive but achievable — from 80 degrees C to 50 degrees C by using ceramic oxide solid electrolyte as opposed to a liquid electrolyte 

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Pain Relievers

• EVs are far more efficient than conventional gas-powered vehicles: EV convert 59 to 62 % of energy into vehicle movement while gas powered vehicles only convert between 17 to 21 percent 

• A 70% increase in electric cars from today would save 14% of total carbon emissions. While it would also cause an increase in carbon emissions from electricity power stations, that will only be about 2%

• The batteries are recyclable and continue a high level of usability even after they maximize on 75 to 80 % of their original capacity. For a basic battery, that would mean the end of its lifetime cycle.

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Summary

We thought these batteries could be a one-shoe fit-for-all, and expected the start-up Solid State Battery sphere to be more developed than we found it. So we conducted interviews with industry competitors and physicists and very quickly realized the complexities, potential customizations, and financial barriers to market entry. We researched competitors and assessed their value propositions. While doing so, we learned that the market for solid state batteries has a very few but very strong key players backed by large corporations like Toyota, BMW, and Tesla. Through interviews, we learned that competitors are specifically having issues with battery interface and its unsuccessful runs with Polymer and Ceramic material. And this means we need to successfully score and highly emphasize our successful runs of the organic insertion cathode material, since it is our biggest differentiator. Lastly, we learned that we may have to pivot from commercializing till the last research step to selling our IP mid-research to a car manufacturer.