Exclusive From The Electric: The Lead Inventor of Dry Electrode Coating Exits Tesla for a Startup

Hieu Duong, lead inventor of a process touted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a way to sharply cut the carmaker’s battery costs, has left Tesla for a startup that’s pursuing the same advance using a different approach. In a surprising development, AM Batteries, a tiny Chelmsford, Mass., company with no revenue, hired Duong as chief manufacturing officer and Lie Shi, president of battery separator maker Celgard, as CEO. Both took the jobs in July, but the company did not announce the hires and neither changed his social media profile until this week; the moves have gone unreported until now.