Emin Askerov
Cleantech FOAK Advisor

Last year, I visited JR Energy Solution for the first time — walked the factory floor, saw multi-chemistry electrode production, watched how a Korean contract manufacturer handles global shipping logistics for electrodes and cells. This week I'm back. The only thing that changed here is that more people are working, and all are much busier, while back in Europe, the battery picture looks different enough to warrant explaining what changed and what it means for JR's fit. Three

I spent the past week at InterBattery in Seoul — walking the floors, sitting across from engineers and business development teams, and following up on partnerships between European battery startups and Korean manufacturers. Here is what actually happened, and why it matters for how you should be thinking about your battery supply chain right now. It Was Bigger. Meaningfully Bigger. 75,000 visitors. That is not a rounding-up-to-sound-impressive number — the difference in energ

What scrapping the Europe's EV target really mean

Every time someone says software-defined vehicle, I imagine driving 250 km/h on the Autobahn and seeing: “System has unexpectedly crashed. Reboot in progress.” That thought led me to dig into SDVs, money, and who actually benefits.

This is a review of key successful and key failed FOAKs in 2025

Construction sites and factory floors are places I’m far more used to than a laboratory. But last week I was in the Netherlands, meeting a client and visiting two universities to see how their new chemical product is getting ready for its demo project. And I have to say: I haven’t yet seen this level of preparation — on both the R&D and project sides. Every assumption challenged, every risk logged, every experiment linked to a downstream engineering decision. It’s the sort of

Robotaxis still don’t make money — not in San Francisco, not in Shenzhen. Yet both the US and China keep pushing, each for their own reasons. I dug into two Economist articles this week and wrote a breakdown of why both countries are accelerating into a business model that still has its unit economics stuck in reverse.

Your FOAK supply chain doesn’t start when you place the first order — it starts when you design your pilot. Miss that moment, and delays, overruns, and “unavailable parts” will follow. In my new post, I go through five steps to build your supply chain before your FOAK becomes real.

Takeaways from FOAK panel at VDS 2025

I spoke with a European founder developing his own battery cells. Just getting permits for the mixing and coating stages pushed his project back by three years. Those two stages alone would make up over 60% of total capex. That’s why building dedicated electrode toll-manufacturing foundries for scaleups makes so much sense — they can shortcut years of permitting and tens of millions in investment. At higher volumes, though, around 5–8 GWh, it flips. The economics start favour

Crossing one valley of death is hard enough for any startup. For aviation startups, there are three!

The lessons of Natron Energy collapse

In the end, it had to be a political decision. After half a year of sifting through more than twenty locations and countless meetings with local officials, our future 8 GWh factory came down to two options. Tatarstan: a highly industrialised region east of Moscow, with a strong industrial park, permits ready, and—most importantly—right next to our main customer, Kamaz. Kaliningrad: a Russian exclave in Europe, wedged between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea, on the unfini

Alternative business model for a battery factory

Image is AI-generated. Scaling up sustainable aircraft is like scaling up nuclear power—a comparable challenge in terms of regulatory obstacles, timelines, and the weight of responsibility. At least, that’s how it seemed to me, looking from the outside. I was sure that the climate tech community could learn many lessons from the aviation startup experience, so I’ve asked an expert. I’ve just finished recording the next episode of WattsUpWithStartups with Dirk Singer, aviation

Cleantech scaleup climate impact assessment framework.

What Renault 5 might mean for the EU car industry.

A review of possibly the most comprehensive collection of real-world examples for getting cleantech from the lab to steel-in-the-ground scale. If you’re in the weeds of building a FOAK (First-of-a-Kind) project, or advising someone who is, this report deserves a place on your desk.

This year, the mood at the Smarter E Europe expo in Munich is different. With many EU battery startups going under, the only way to survive is to find the right partner from Asia.

We don’t have a cleantech innovation problem — we have a FOAK execution problem. Over the past year, I’ve been building something I wish I had when I started scaling my first climate tech venture: a practical, experience-based framework for getting First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) projects off the ground. In my latest article, I’ve pulled together my 50+ posts into a structured overview that maps the FOAK journey—from the moment you decide to leave the lab to the day your NOAKs are r