US engineer to make silicon batteries for e-cars to cut reliance on China’s graphite

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A battery startup founded by a former Tesla engineer announced plans on Tuesday for mass production of next-generation materials in the US to cut costs, increase driving ranges of electric cars and reduce the industry's dependence on China.</p>
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Sila Nanotechnologies will invest in a new plant in Washington state due to open in 2024, Sila CEO Gene Berdichevsky told Reuters.</p>
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Berdichevsky said Sila would use the new plant to make silicon-based anode materials that can store 20% more energy than anodes that use graphite, 70% of which comes from China.</p>
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He pointed out that in recent years the price of electric car batteries had plateaued rather than coming down, so new materials could help lower the cost to consumers.</p>
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Auto giant Daimler AG has a minority equity stake in unlisted Sila and the company is also backed by BMW. Sila raised an additional $590 million last year and has a valuation of around $3.3 billion. </p>
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Unlike graphite, silicon is not on the U.S. critical minerals as the Biden administration is keen to reduce reliance on China in the battery supply chain. </p>
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He said its new facility aims to deliver annual silicon-based anode production sufficient to power 10 gigawatt hours of batteries in 100,000 electric vehicles, with a goal to increase the capacity to power 2 million electric vehicles a year, according to the Reuters report.</p>
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Sila runs a test production facility at Alameda in California that can produce battery materials for about 1,000 cars a year which it plans to scale up.</p>
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk had also announced a plan to use silicon-based anode in its new batteries at its Battery Day event in 2020.</p>