The Electric

The Electric: 13 Teams Compete to Invent the Most Powerful Superbattery

Wright Electric CEO Jeff Engler, whose company is a contestant in Arpa-E's competition to invent a 1,000 watt-hour per kilogram battery. Photo: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg/Getty
By
Steve LeVine

Amid grave investor doubts about the viability of next-generation batteries, a half-dozen U.S. companies and seven universities are competing in a government-sponsored contest to quadruple the energy density of the world’s best commercial electric vehicle batteries.