Lithium-ion battery

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a conditional loan of $2.5 billion for Ultium Cells, a joint venture of General Motors (GM) and battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution, to help finance EV lithium-ion battery cell factories in three states. The loan is intended to support the expansion of electric vehicle deployment in the US.

A Cambridge University professor’s ultrafast EV battery startup has raised $59 million in Series B funding. Nyobolt aims to develop a battery that can achieve 5-minute EV charging time.

Lithium is a vital component of EV batteries, and Winnipeg, Canada-headquartered Snow Lake Lithium says it’s committed to operating a fully renewable and sustainable lithium mine. What does that mean?

Global chemical giant BASF is going to build a commercial battery-recycling, black-mass plant in Schwarzheide, a town in Brandenburg, eastern Germany.

Automakers are racing to produce electric vehicles, yet few firms currently know how to recycle old EV batteries. Experts at the Argonne National Laboratory, a US Department of Energy science and engineering research center in Lemont, Illinois, are inviting the public to listen in as experts explore the challenges – and solutions – of recycling lithium-ion batteries.

The mineral graphite, as an anode material, is a crucial part of a lithium-ion (Li-on) battery. Electrek spoke with John DeMaio, president of the Graphene Division of Graphex Group and CEO of Graphex Technologies. Read on to learn what he had to say about why graphite’s so important for EVs, what his company is doing to ramp up US sourcing and processing, and what the graphite supply is expected to be in the next couple years.

Swedish EV maker Polestar and Israel-based electric vehicle battery startup StoreDot today announced that they have entered a strategic partnership.

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office has announced a conditional commitment to lend up to $107 million to Syrah Technologies for its Syrah Vidalia Facility in Vidalia, Louisiana. The facility produces a finished natural graphite-based active anode material (AAM), a critical material used in lithium-ion batteries. 

Volvo Cars has invested in StoreDot, an Israel-based electric vehicle battery startup, through its venture capital arm, Volvo Cars Tech Fund.

• KORE Power is now ready to build the first lithium-ion battery factory wholly owned by a US company.
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President Joe Biden will today authorize the use of Title III of the Korean War-era Defense Production Act (DPA) to rapidly step up US production of minerals for electric vehicle and storage batteries.

Graphex Technologies has entered into an exclusive non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) to form a joint venture with Emerald Energy Solutions to construct and operate a graphite processing facility in Michigan.

Big-battery manufacturing is ramping up to power EVs, but what will we do with the batteries when they’re dead? There’s a lot of money going into battery recycling companies, but equally important is how those companies actually procure the batteries in order to recycle them. Electrek spoke with Leo Raudys, the CEO of Call2Recycle, about how the Atlanta-based company closes the loop between producers, consumers, and recyclers and makes it easier to get dead e-mobility batteries into recyclers’ hands. 

Most of the materials required for batteries and other clean energy technology are dirty to mine. They’re also mostly controlled by China. Can a recycling technology startup change that?

Electrek spoke with Megan O’Connor, cofounder and CEO of Nth Cycle, a Beverly, Massachusetts-based developer of a recycling technology that extracts critical metals from batteries for a second life, about how to enable a clean, domestic, and streamlined supply of critical minerals for the clean energy transition. Nth Cycle’s technology was developed at Harvard and Yale universities.

In April, Nth Cycle received $3.2 million in seed funding led by Boston-based clean energy venture capital company Clean Energy Ventures.

StoreDot, an Israel-based electric vehicle extreme fast charging (XFC) battery startup, today announced that it has advanced technology that extends the life span of batteries, making them highly effective not only during the vehicle life span, but also for second-life applications. 

In what it claims is a “world first,” British Lithium has produced lithium at pilot scale from the mica in granite in its new government-backed pilot plant near Roche in Cornwall, England.

The lithium-ion batteries found in most modern EVs and hybrids tend to lose energy capacity as they cycle (get charged, get spent, and get re-charged). That happens because small bits of lithium can be cut off from the battery’s electrodes during the charging process. But, a team of DOE and Stanford scientists say they’ve been able to make this “dead” li-ion reconnect, partially reversing the unwanted loss of energy capacity and extending lithium battery life by 30%.

As the electric car revolution ramps up, so does the need for critical minerals used in batteries, such as graphite. According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, there will be a global graphite deficit starting in 2022, and demand from the battery sector is expected to rise 30% annually until 2030. The US has no manufacturing plants that can supply automotive-grade graphite at scale. Meanwhile, China controls 84% of the global supply. Electrek spoke with Don Baxter, CEO of Ceylon Graphite, about how graphite is used in EVs, the supply chain issue, and how EV battery manufacturers can successfully source the vital mineral.

Researchers have developed a prototype lithium-ion battery that uses water as an electrolytic solution. The water replaces a flammable organic solvent.

More than 1 million electric vehicles are now driving on US roads. What will happen when those cars go out of service? The plan is to recycle their batteries.

StoreDot, an Israel-based electric vehicle battery startup, today claimed that it has become the first company to produce silicon-dominant extreme fast charge (XFC) cells for electric vehicles on a mass production line.