The Electric: Fast-Charging Silicon Comes to EVs

Engineers have improved lithium-ion batteries little by little since the debut of the first modern electric vehicles a decade and a half ago, making tweaks that together have tremendously reduced cell prices and boosted driving range. But a truly blockbuster breakthrough has evaded the industry, something that in a single stroke could make EVs go farther, cost less or both.

Now, though, an increasing number of automakers, including Mercedes, Porsche, Tesla and Lucid Motors, appear close to debuting EVs powered by next-generation batteries. These batteries will be costly at first. But they could later become that more widely available blockbuster advance. 

The advance is in anodes with a high concentration of silicon, whose development as a battery material has been held up because it relentlessly expands and contracts during cycling, eventually killing the battery. Battery makers have figured out how to contain the swelling within hard shells around the anode and cavities inside it, and are now scaling up factories in Kansas, the state of Washington, South Korea and elsewhere.