The most widespread type of battery, lithium-ion, still costs around $140 per kilowatt-hour for a pack.
Instead, manufacturers have started to explore sodium-ion batteries, not as a replacement, but as a complement to lithium-ion.
To deliver that many batteries, Unigrid isn’t going to be building its own factories.
Small vehicles like these are popular in India and Southeast Asia, where the intense heat can make lithium-ion batteries prone to overheating.
To get its sodium-ion batteries into production, Unigrid has raised a $12 million Series A.
Alsym wants to ‘light up homes for a billion people’ with its new batteryLithium-ion batteries have transformed the global economy, making possible everything from smartphones and laptops to electric vehicles, e-bikes, and more.
With the advent of cheap solar, making electricity has never been cheaper or easier.
The electrolyte is water-based, a departure from the flammable organic solvents used in lithium-ion batteries.
Alsym also says its batteries will be cheaper than lithium-ion, thanks to the less exotic materials and simpler packs.
Ultimately, it will partner with existing battery manufacturers, since Alsym’s batteries can be produced using existing equipment.
Coreshell, a battery materials startup, revealed a breakthrough this week that could lower the cost of lithium-ion batteries.
Forecasts for cheaper EVs are counting on a steady stream of technological improvements, including better battery materials.
Coreshell’s first product will be a silicon anode paired with a lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cathode.
Coreshell predicts that its silicon anodes might even give LFP an edge over traditional NMC cells with graphite anodes.
Granted, their silicon anode materials will cost more, but they’ll have the benefit of scale and experience to help bring costs down.
Unlike nearly every other lithium-ion battery chemistry, TAQ is an organic compound — not the free-range hippie type, but the kind made primarily of carbon.
Researchers have been investigating organic materials as cathodes, the negatively charged part of the cell, because they could store more energy at lower cost.
TAQ, short for bis-tetraaminobenzoquinone, is composed of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen arranged in a row of three neighboring hexagons.
The structure is similar to that of graphite, which is almost universally used today as an anode material (the positive terminal).
Lamborghini, which previously used a supercapacitor developed in Dincă’s lab in its Sian model, has licensed the patent on the material.
