The Little-Known U.S. Company Challenging Tesla on Batteries
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Save the date: Three centuries ago, Prussian blue was a revolutionary hue for painters. Now it’s the main component of one of the most interesting new batteries. For the next Live Chat, I’m excited to host Colin Wessells, CEO of Stanford spinoff Natron Energy, to discuss the past and future of Prussian blue, sodium-ion and much more. Register here for this July 21 event, which will be held at noon ET. If you’d like to invite a guest, email me: [email protected].
For almost two years, people interested in batteries and electric vehicles have been fixated on the 4680, the concept battery that Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled on his company’s Battery Day two years ago. Much of this attention has focused on whether he could pull off an arcane technological feat—creating batteries using dry electrode powder, absent any solvent to moisturize the process. This week, we look at another American company that has already commercialized the dry process: 24M Technologies, a spinoff from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
One of the biggest mysteries in the electric vehicle industry is the status of a newfangled battery promised by Tesla CEO Elon Musk almost two years ago. Musk caused an industry stir when he unveiled the concept for the 4680 battery, which he said would halve the price of current batteries and make EVs affordable for ordinary buyers. Musk proposed a multitude of changes to the battery, from new electrodes to new manufacturing methods. The latter provided the single biggest savings—a possible 20% reduction in costs by eliminating vast, expensive manufacturing equipment and replacing it with a slimmed-down way to make electrodes.
To say the investor and battery world became fixated with the 4680 would be a gross understatement. No other future battery—not lithium-metal, silicon, solid state, or anything else—has so captured the industry’s imagination. Tesla has said little since the 2020 announcement, only that it is producing limited batches of 4680s in Fremont, Calif. But how many is it installing in new Model Y crossover SUVs, the vehicle for which it is first targeting the batteries? And how many of Musk’s promised cost-saving innovations made it into this first version of the battery? He hasn’t said.
