Since 2010, the price of lithium-ion batteries has decreased by a factor of 10, leading to a boom in EV production in the U.S. and globally. But as most recent car buyers know, electric vehicles are still prohibitively expensive for most Americans.
But a number of companies are developing new battery technologies that they hope will make EV’s cheaper and more efficient.
Cuberg, a Silicon Valley start-up which spun out of Stanford University in 2015, is pursuing a lithium metal battery, which co-founder and CEO Richard Wang says could be twice as energy dense as standard lithium-ion. Its first customers are in the aviation industry, but EV battery giant Northvolt, which has contracts with Volkswagen and BMW, just acquired the company, with plans to put Cuberg’s batteries in cars, too.
If Cuberg and Northvolt can scale up their tech as quickly as they hope, we could see lithium metal batteries powering small planes and electric vehicles within the decade.
