The battery industry has largely coalesced around lithium-ion technology to power everything from consumer electronics to electric vehicles, but Group14 has come up with its own variation on that chemistry.
Replacing the usual graphite-based anode in a battery with a silicon-carbon composite anode material it markets as a drop-in replacement called SCC55 can yield as much as a 50% increase in energy density. That’s a huge improvement over addressing range-anxiety concerns by bulking out EVs with increasingly large and heavy batteries.
In 2023, Group14 moved to boost its manufacturing capabilities by buying Schmid Silicon, a European producer of a key precursor material. It also began construction of a factory in Moses Lake, Washington, that will supply enough materials for 200,000 EVs’ worth of batteries, backed by a $100 million Department of Energy contract. It says its “modular manufacturing” approach will have that facility online in one to two years instead of the usual three to four.
In the meantime, Group14 is already delivering to 80-plus customers around the world, including the smartphone-component manufacturer Amperex Technology Limited. Next year, it expects Porsche to ship EVs that include SCC55-upgraded batteries.
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