How to use the Terminal
What this is, what each part of it means, where the numbers come from, and what it deliberately does not do. If your question is not here, ask the desk in the corner — it can see the whole board.
What this is
What is the Terminal?
One page that gathers what a NAATBatt member would otherwise track across a dozen sources: the market for battery companies, federal funding, trade actions, materials prices, policy status, the events calendar, and a written brief that ties the day together. It is built for people who make or buy batteries, not for investors.
Who is it for?
Anyone at a member company. It is deliberately written for a reader who is not a battery specialist — an association executive, a policy lead, a CFO — on the view that specialists can always skip an explanation, while a non-specialist cannot invent one.
Do I need an account?
No. Everything on the board is open. The member directory at /directory is open too, so a non-member evaluating NAATBatt can see who is in it.
How often does it change?
Share prices refresh while the page is open. Headlines, funding, trade actions and the calendar refresh through the day. The brief is rewritten every few hours. The researched layer — policy status, materials prices, the event map, the supply-chain shares — is rebuilt by an agent on a schedule and carries its own review date, shown on each panel.
Reading the board
Where do I start?
The Brief, top left. Three paragraphs written each morning from the same board you are looking at, leading with what changed and what it means for an operating decision. Figures in it are clickable — each one scrolls to the panel it came from and rings it, so you can check the claim rather than take it on trust.
What do the US and China bars in Chokepoints mean?
Making a battery takes several separate steps — mining lithium, refining it, making the cathode and anode, the separator and electrolyte, assembling the cell, building the pack. For each step the bars show where in the world the capacity to do it sits: how much is in the United States, how much is in China, and how much is everywhere else. The three add to 100%. A step where the US bar is short and China's is long is one a US manufacturer cannot source domestically at scale, which is what makes it a chokepoint. The percentages are shares of world capacity, never shares of US demand.
Why does Where the Money Went not match the Funding panel?
They answer different questions. Funding lists solicitations you can still bid on. Where the Money Went totals what has already been awarded since 2021, grouped by step of the chain. Read it against Chokepoints: it shows whether federal money has gone to the tiers where the domestic gap actually is.
Can I rearrange it?
Yes. Drag any panel header and the board remembers the order on your machine. The numbered ribbon under the header jumps to a panel and highlights it. Palette, in the header, changes the colour scheme — six presets including a light one and a colour-blind-safe one — and that choice follows you across every page.
What are all the panels?
Brief · Market Board · Members · News Map · Countdown · Funding · Money Flow · Calendar · Trade Actions · Grid Storage · Materials · Chokepoints · Policy · Structure · BattChatt · News Wire. Press Tour in the header for a walkthrough that points at each one in place.
The numbers
Where does the data come from?
Share prices from CNBC, delayed where the exchange requires it. Headlines from Google News. Funding from Grants.gov and USAspending, both federal. Trade actions from the Federal Register. Grid storage from EIA Form 860M. Members, events and the business directory from NAATBatt's own records. Materials prices and policy status are researched and carry a source link and an as-of date on the panel itself.
Is any of it written by AI?
Yes, and it says so where it is. The brief is written by a model from the board's own data and names itself at the bottom of the panel. The researched layer is compiled by an agent that must cite a retrieved source for every item. Prices, quotes, filings and the member roster are not written by a model — they come straight from the source named above.
Is this investment advice?
No, and it is built not to be. The brief is explicitly barred from making a call on any security. The market panels exist to show whether the market is repricing the industry — useful if you are negotiating a supply agreement or timing capex. NAATBatt is a trade association and its members are operators, not a fund.
What if a number looks wrong?
Tell us — that is the most useful thing you can do with this page. Use Ask the Desk in the corner and say what looks off. Every panel carrying a researched figure links its source so you can check it first.
Asking it things
What is Ask the Desk?
A chat window, bottom right, that can see everything on the board — every panel, the calendar, the funding and awards, trade actions, and the member directory. Ask it what a panel means, what changed this week, or which members supply a given component. It points at the panel behind its answer so you can verify it. It searches the web when the board does not cover something.
Can I find a supplier through this?
Yes. /directory holds every member company that lists itself publicly, filtered by what each one says it does — industry role, application, cell chemistry, cell format, components, equipment, materials. You can also describe what you need in plain words and let it find the members whose own profiles match.
Can I connect it to my own AI tools?
Yes. The Terminal exposes its panels to AI assistants that support MCP, so a member using Claude or a similar tool can query the board directly. Press Connect your AI in the header for the address and setup.
What happens to what I type?
Questions go to the model that answers them and are used to improve the desk. Do not paste anything confidential — pricing, contract terms, anything under NDA. Palette choices are recorded anonymously, with no identifier attached, purely so the shipped default can follow what people actually pick.
Still stuck, or something looks wrong? Ask the desk, or write to NAATBatt directly at naatbatt.org/contact-us.