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Tech Brew

EV Batteries

Jordyn Grzelewski

techbrew.com

What do good rom-coms and electric vehicle batteries have in common? They’ve got the right chemistry.

To that end, the US auto industry is working to commercialize lithium iron phosphate (LFP), a battery chemistry that’s popular in China, as the sector aims to deliver more affordable EVs.

On Monday, Ultium Cells, a joint venture between General Motors and South Korean battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution, announced plans to upgrade its battery cell manufacturing plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, “to scale production of low-cost lithium iron phosphate battery cells,” according to a news release.

Ultium Cells will start the process of converting battery cell lines at the plant for LFP production later this year, with plans for commercial production to start “by late 2027.” GM plans to incorporate the battery chemistry into its EV lineup alongside nickel-rich batteries, the industry norm today, and 

“At GM, we’re innovating battery technology to deliver the best mix of range, performance, and affordability to our EV customers,” Kurt Kelty, GM’s VP of batteries, propulsion, and sustainability, said in a statement.

Andy Oury, a battery engineer and business planning manager for Kelty, previously told Tech Brew that GM would continue to use nickel-rich batteries for vehicles requiring the longest range, while introducing LFP batteries on entry-level vehicles and LMR batteries “in the middle.”

Another Ultium Cells plant in Warren, Ohio, will continue producing battery cells with nickel cobalt manganese aluminum chemistry, per the release. GM said its goal in introducing LFP battery tech to its EV lineup is to reduce battery pack costs compared to the nickel-rich chemistry it uses in its EVs today.

Lowering battery costs is viewed within the EV sector as crucial to bringing down EV prices.

“By far, the biggest factor that determines the range and cost of an electric car is the battery,” IDTechEx wrote in a January research 

 on LFP batteries. IDTechEx’s research indicates that LFP batteries made up 40% of the global EV market in 2024, and researchers see “a strong opportunity for LFP to continue its growth outside of China,” especially in light of improvements to energy density.

“LFP has a number of advantages over the nickel-rich chemistries that are predominantly used in North America today,” Sam Abuelsamid, VP of market research at Telemetry, told Tech Brew. “The nickel provides for a higher energy density…But nickel cells are much more susceptible to thermal runaway,” which raises the risk of battery fires that are difficult to extinguish.

LFP has lower energy density compared to nickel-rich chemistries, but it’s cheaper, made up of materials that are more readily available, and safer, Abuelsamid said. Despite having lower energy density, he explained, manufacturers can make up the difference by assembling LFP battery packs with more active cell material.

 LFP battery plant in Michigan and licensing technology from Chinese battery maker CATL. The automaker plans to start production on prismatic LFP battery cells and packs next year.

Lisa Drake, Ford’s VP of technology platform programs and EV systems, told reporters during a recent tour of the under-construction facility that Ford executives opted to license the technology rather than continue to invest time and money into their own R&D efforts, in the interest of speed.

“I think in the coming years,” Abuelsamid said, “we will probably see a lot more adoption of LFP in North America just because of its cost advantages and safety advantages compared to nickel cells.”

Image of a person working on an EV battery.

Why automakers like GM and Ford are investing in LFP battery tech

General Motors announced plans to produce LFP EV batteries at a plant in Tennessee.

 that it would build the first automaker-backed lithium iron phosphate EV battery plant in the US was touted as an example of the Inflation Reduction Act’s success.

 amid wrangling over the federal budget in the Republican-controlled Congress. And a House version of the controversial budget bill 

 credits for batteries that use Chinese tech—Ford’s exact model for the plant, per a licensing agreement with Chinese battery giant CATL.

But Ford executives say the company is staying the course on its $3 billion BlueOval Battery Park Michigan, which is now more than halfway complete—even as the project stands to lose major 

, namely the IRA’s 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit, which subsidizes investments in domestic battery manufacturing and could represent hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits for Ford.

“When we invest, we stick behind our investments,” Lisa Drake, Ford’s VP of technology platform programs and EV systems, told reporters this week during a tour of the Marshall, Michigan, site. “Ford is a company that will weather the storm until we get there. But there’s a great opportunity to help not only Ford, but all of the auto sector stay in this game and keep these battery jobs here. Now it’s going to just be up to the administration.”

Ford's BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall, Michigan.

Ford broke ground on the plant in early 2023, and is slated to start production on prismatic LFP battery cells and packs next year. The automaker will soon start installing the equipment, now en route from China. Drake confirmed Ford had to pay tariffs on the equipment.

“It’s a long-term play,” she said. “Even with 

, this is still the right thing to do.”

Ford plans to have about 1,700 employees at the plant, which spans 2 million square feet and will have an annual production capacity of 20 gigawatt hours.

Ford is now producing C-sample cells—the final prototype versions—at an offsite “equipment supplier location” and will soon use them for “design-confirmation sign-off in our next-generation electric vehicle program,” according to Drake.

Ford aims to have three battery chemistries in its EV portfolio: nickel manganese cobalt, or NCM, today’s dominant chemistry; LFP, the cheapest option; and the 

The automaker has three other battery plants in the US: two in Kentucky and one in Tennessee, all joint ventures with South Korean battery maker SK On, and all focused on NCM.

Drake said that Ford leaders faced a choice on LFP: continue to pour resources into R&D or license the tech and bring it to market faster.

“It probably would have taken us a decade to catch up and have LFP technology on our own with our own R&D,” she said. “We didn’t have time. And that’s not where you want to spend the investment. If Ford has capital, we want to spend our investment creating the manufacturing jobs here.”

Under its licensing agreement with CATL, Ford controls the equipment, plant, and workforce; CATL employees will train BlueOval Battery Park workers on the equipment.

Though the policy landscape has shifted dramatically, Drake said Ford executives still see this as the right choice, in part because it gives the company more control over its supply chain—but they’re still lobbying for federal support.

“When EV adoption slowed, it just became a huge headwind to us. It’s going to pick up; we believe we’ll ultimately be there by the end of the decade” she said. “In this interim period where that adoption slowed, but we still made this big capital investment, the [production tax credit] will allow us to keep on that path and keep going.”

Workers inside Ford's BlueOval Battery Park in Marshall, Michigan.

Why Ford is advancing a Michigan EV battery plant that could lose federal support

Ford’s 2023 announcement of a new LFP battery plant in the US was touted as evidence of the IRA’s success. 

Cobalt? So yesterday. Nickel? Passé. It’s manganese that’s all the rage these days.

That’s one takeaway from recent announcements from General Motors and Ford about advancements in so-called lithium-manganese-rich, or LMR, battery cells for EVs that they’re racing to bring to market.

This innovation is sought-after in the EV sector because LMR cells promise to deliver impressive battery ranges for EVs while lowering costs. Reducing 

 is a key goal across the automotive industry because 

 make up a significant chunk of the overall cost of EVs, and price is a barrier to higher EV adoption.

“It’s kind of the best of both worlds,” Sam Abuelsamid, VP of market research at Telemetry, told Tech Brew of manganese, a raw material used in lithium-ion batteries.

“It’s roughly the same cost as [a lithium iron phosphate] cell, but only slightly less energy density than nickel,” he said. “So it gives you the advantages of both.”

GM and LG Energy Solution—which have a battery-making joint venture called Ultium Cells—on May 13 announced plans to “commercialize [LMR] prismatic battery cells for future GM electric trucks and full-size SUVs” in what they described as “a new battery technology breakthrough.” GM said its goal is “to become the first automaker to deploy LMR batteries in EVs.”

Ultium Cells plans to start commercial production of LMR cells in the US by 2028, according to a news release, with pre-production slated to start by late 2027.

Their announcement came on the heels of Ford 

 what it described as a “breakthrough” around LMR battery cells. The automaker said that it was working to scale LMR battery cells and integrate them into its EV lineup by decade’s end, according to a 

 by Charles Poon, Ford’s director of electrified propulsion engineering.

“LMR is the answer to ‘what next?,’” Poon wrote. “Our goal is clear: to achieve cost parity with gasoline vehicles and deliver affordable customer solutions tailored to their needs. The introduction of LMR is a key enabler in offering electric vehicles that are both accessible and desirable.”

Andy Oury, a battery engineer and business planning manager for GM’s VP of battery, propulsion, and sustainability, told Tech Brew that GM’s pursuit of LMR cells, which dates back to 2015, is driven by the goals of improving battery performance, establishing an independent supply chain in North America, and bringing down costs.

“We don’t think anybody’s making cheaper cells than we are,” he said. “We want to build on that by taking our cell costs lower, and by making sure we’re the leaders in battery pack costs.”

GM now has a dozen EVs on the market, all powered by nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries. Going forward, Oury said, the automaker wants to introduce options across its EV lineup by offering LFP and LMR battery cells as well.

Battery engineers, he said, worked for a long time to reduce the amount of cobalt—which is expensive, and the 

 is rife with human-rights concerns—in battery cells. Now, they’re working to reduce nickel content and substitute it with manganese, which is cheap and easy to source in North America.

“Going forward, we’ll be offering multiple chemistries where NMC will continue to offer the longest range or fit into the tightest spaces for specialty and premium vehicles,” Oury said. “We’ll have LFP for entry-level vehicles. And then the new entry we’re talking about today, LMR, squarely in the middle. Hopefully we can take a really big chunk of the market with LMR.”

An employee holds a full-size prototype LMR battery cell at the General Motors Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center in Warren, Michigan. 

GM aims to bring lithium manganese-rich battery cells to market by 2028

General Motors aims to bring lithium manganese-rich battery cells to market by 2028.

This emerging battery cell chemistry has automakers optimistic about longer ranges, lower costs

Tricia Crimmins

The big battery innovation boom doesn’t just mean companies are discovering new ways of manufacturing batteries: It also includes startups figuring out how to make existing batteries last longer.

Two startups that increase the lifecycle of large-scale batteries each received more than $10 million in venture capital funding this month. Sonocharge Energy, which uses acoustics to make batteries last longer and charge quicker, secured $23.5 million from Honda and investors Cycle Capital, Temasek, and Khosla Ventures. And Moment Energy, a Canadian large-scale battery repurposer, got $15 million to build the world’s first second-life battery factory from the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and Voyager Ventures.

Both investments are tied to electric vehicles—Sonocharge Energy batteries can be used in EVs, and the batteries that Moment Energy recycles are from EVs—but have applications relevant to large-scale energy storage, too: Sonocharge batteries can help power data centers, and Moment Energy’s battery energy storage system can provide backup power for hospitals, remote communities, and manufacturing facilities.

“Sonocharge Energy is an exemplary case of how technology can facilitate electrification by improving performance and scale its deployment,” Andrée-Lise Méthot, Cycle Capital’s managing partner, said in a statement.

Moment Energy’s $15 million in funding comes on the heels of the company receiving more than $20 million from the Department of Energy to fund its second-life gigafactory, which will be built in Texas.

“Our mission to provide worldwide access to clean, affordable, and reliable power aligns perfectly with the DOE’s goals,” Moment Energy CEO Edward Chiang said after the Department’s funding was announced. “This facility will be instrumental in our commitment to enable all retired EV batteries to be repurposed by 2030.”

Amazon and Honda back startups aimed at increasing battery lifecycles

Amazon and Honda contributed to multimillion-dollar funding rounds for battery startups. 

Big-name funders back startups aimed at increasing battery lifecycles

 of mining critical raw materials for them, how well they hold a charge––and crucially, how much they degrade over time.

That last consideration is the subject of a new paper 

 this month by researchers at Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

The report, titled “Dynamic cycling enhances battery lifetime,” reaches a conclusion that was surprising to its authors: Contrary to popular belief, the ways that batteries discharge power in real-world driving conditions can actually 

 the lifetime of lithium-ion EV batteries by as much as 38%.

“We cycled batteries in ways that are representative of real EV driving, and tried to compare that to how batteries are regularly cycled—meaning, charged and discharged—traditionally in the lab,” Alexis Geslin, a lead co-author of the paper and a PhD candidate at Stanford, told Tech Brew. “Usually in the lab, they are charged and discharged with a constant current, just because it’s easy to implement. But in real life, you don’t drive your vehicle at a constant pace.”

The findings, he said, have implications for the way researchers conduct experiments on battery cells––and for the ways that battery management systems are designed. And it’s good news for EV buyers because it suggests that their vehicles’ batteries might hold up longer than they expected.

“Instead of having to change your battery every 10 years,” Geslin said, “you may just be able to keep your battery for 15 years.”

To conduct the study, researchers cycled 92 commercial EV lithium-ion cells over the course of two years. They tested four different “discharge profiles.”

The research also involved using machine learning to help unravel some of the complexities of real-world driving conditions, Geslin said.

In the report, the authors explained that lithium-ion batteries’ performance depends on how, exactly, the batteries are used. “Understanding how degradation occurs across realistic use cases is essential to accelerate material design and improve battery management systems,” they wrote.

Historically, researchers have conducted testing on lithium-ion batteries in labs using constant-current discharge profiles. In real life, however, drivers are often stopping and starting––meaning, the battery is discharging in more dynamic ways.

“This work illustrates the importance of testing batteries under realistic conditions of use and challenges the broadly adopted convention of constant current discharge in the laboratory,” the researchers concluded. “Evaluating batteries with realistic cycling profiles is necessary to properly understand aging mechanisms at the chemistry, material, and cell levels.”

Geslin said that while the findings may not have direct bearing on the costs of manufacturing batteries, they suggest that EV batteries may last longer than previously thought.

The findings could help alleviate concerns about how battery degradation influences EVs’ 

 that there are growing efforts in the EV battery sector to validate battery performance and health in used EVs, prices of which also influence the new-vehicle market.

Battery degradation is a common concern for prospective EV buyers. But there may be growing awareness that EV batteries hold up pretty well.

“We have a lot of good science that explains how batteries age and what accelerates their degradation,” Liz Najman, director of market insights for EV startup Recurrent, told 

. “That data comes from laboratory testing on battery cells, so the way it translates to EV battery packs…is still a bit of an open question. But from everything we’re seeing, EV packs are holding up a lot better than these test cells.”

Stanford research finds EV batteries hold up better than previously thought

“Instead of having to change your battery every 10 years, you may just be able to keep your battery for 15 years,” one of the report’s lead co-authors tells Tech Brew.

Large bags full of powder emitted steam as they sat on the floor of Cirba Solutions’ lithium-ion battery processing facility in Lancaster, Ohio.

The powder is a material known as black mass. It’s made up of critical metals that are refined to battery-grade sulfates, which are used to make cathode materials for EV and other batteries.

Tech Brew recently toured the plant, where a $400 million expansion is in the works. We got to see the plant’s initial lithium-ion processing line, an expansion that prioritizes larger-format products like EV batteries, and under-construction buildings on the site that will help Cirba produce battery-grade sulfates and lithium carbonate equivalent in the coming years. The expanded facility, which was the first to get funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and has been awarded $82 million from the Department of Energy (DOE), is slated to produce enough recycled battery materials to power 250,000 EVs annually.

“The largest mine in the world is driving around our streets right now,” Cirba CEO David Klanecky previously told us. “And we have an opportunity to make sure that mine doesn’t go back into the ground.”

The project, which is slated to create 100 jobs, is just one example of 

 in the clean-energy sector under the Biden administration. Now, the sector’s near-term prospects are murkier as a second Trump administration 

 to rescind the federal government’s support for the clean-energy transition.

Nevertheless, Cirba’s expansion continues. The company recently hosted a topping-out ceremony to celebrate the placement of the final beam on a new building on the Lancaster site.

Danielle Spalding, Cirba’s VP of communications and public affairs, told Tech Brew that despite uncertainty around the pace of EV adoption, Cirba remains bullish on the sector’s long-term growth trajectory, due in part to consensus around the need to reduce reliance on foreign supply chains.

“From a bipartisan perspective,” she said, “the one thing everyone agrees on is that the US needs to have a stronger critical materials strategy to be more globally competitive.”

A worker at Cirba Solutions' Lancaster, Ohio facility holds a white bag that is used to contain black mass.

The battery is arguably the most important part of an EV, and solving battery-related 

, size, and range––is a key priority for automakers as they try to make their EVs more competitive.

EV batteries contain metals such as nickel, cobalt, and lithium. One of the benefits of recycling is reducing reliance on mining, which, as Tech Brew previously 

 concerns. Recycled materials have about four times lower emissions than virgin materials, per a 2023 

Recycling can also help bring down battery costs. It’s expensive not only to acquire critical minerals but also to ship them around the world.

“The quicker we can get to economies of scale for domestic refinement and bringing in the key areas that we’re missing in supply chain, like cathode development,” Spalding said, “those together are going to help bring down the cost overall and demonstrate that we have this resilience of a supply chain.”

 By 2030, end-of-life EV batteries are slated to make up the majority of Cirba’s inputs, as opposed to the manufacturing scrap that’s more prevalent today.

McKinsey estimated that 100 million vehicle batteries will retire by 2033, and that battery recycling revenues will grow to more than $95 billion a year globally by 2040.

The BIL made $16 billion in funding for battery manufacturing and recycling available through the DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC).

In August, Cirba hosted DOE officials at the Lancaster facility to showcase the site’s progress.

“Cirba Solutions is demonstrating how a strategic commitment to a circular, domestic battery supply chain can move the US forward, create incredible economic opportunity, and strengthen our energy security,” Giulia Siccardo, director of the MESC, said in a statement.

 to roll back the Biden administration’s clean-energy agenda, yet some expect that he’ll keep parts of the IRA in place because so many of the investments spurred by the legislation 

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has been working to get 

 awarded ahead of the inauguration. The DOE, for example, recently finalized a $475 million loan for a Li-Cycle Holdings battery processing plant in New York, per 

. In October, the department announced the allocation of nearly $45 million to support eight EV battery recycling projects.

Cirba is expanding elsewhere, as well. In September, the company announced it had been selected for up to $200 million in DOE funding to support production of EV battery-grade salts at a South Carolina plant.

For now, at least, it’s full steam ahead.

“All of these are being paced,” Spalding said. “It doesn’t mean that pace won’t change based on what market adoption is, but it’s a constant evolution and evaluation.”

The under-construction campus at Cirba Solution's lithium-ion processing facility in Lancaster, Ohio.

Behind the scenes of a battery recycler’s efforts to adapt to an evolving EV market

Tech Brew recently toured a lithium-ion processing facility in central Ohio that was the first company to get Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to support a $400 million expansion.

 of the EV transition have to do with batteries—from consumer concerns about charging to industry-wide 

 to make batteries cheaper so plug-in vehicles are more accessible.

Tech Brew went deep on all things battery tech this week at Detroit’s Battery Show, a conference and expo featuring roughly 1,150 battery and hybrid/EV suppliers. The schedule was chock full of informative discussions on everything from emerging 

Here’s a roundup of some cool tech that caught our eye.

Tech Brew caught up with Don Wright, VP of engineering at Unico, which provides EV test solutions. The company unveiled the BAT350, the latest iteration of its battery cell formation and testing technology.

Wright explained that the tech could significantly speed up the battery-cell manufacturing process, enabling automakers to either reduce the size of their battery plants or as much as triple their output of battery cells. It could also help drive cost efficiencies, a key consideration for automakers looking to bring down the cost of EV batteries.

“Instead of it taking three weeks to make a cell, it might take you one week,” Wright said.

The BAT350 is based off of Unico’s IDAC power platform, and it’s now being sent to pilot customers. Wright said he expects it to be widely available in Q2 2025.

“It is really the thing that kick-starts the electrical, chemical process that’s going on in the cell,” he said of the formation process. “So, it’s extremely critical.”

Unico's BAT350 battery cell formation solution

Cars aren’t the only forms of transportation going electric. The show featured a presentation by David Donovick, president and COO of Zin Boats, on the state of maritime electrification.

The benefits of electrifying boats are similar to those of electrifying cars, Donovick explained: savings on fuel and maintenance. “That $100,000 boat’s gonna cost you $20,000 a year to maintain, fuel, use,” he said. “What’s great about electrifying our fleets is we can make those problems go away.”

Though the history of electric boats dates back to the mid-19th century, Donovick noted, the industry’s electrification efforts have gone through fits and starts over the decades. Now, he described the state of affairs as a “massive gold rush focused on replicating what we’ve done with automotive.”

“It makes sense, right? We’ve got Teslas. We’ve got Rivians,” he said. “Why don’t we have electric boats?”

Zin is among the players trying to make marine electrification a reality. The startup recalibrated after facing some setbacks during the pandemic, but it’s now back at it—and working on an electric tender, dubbed the Z11, for what Donovick described as “the world’s first hydrogen-powered megayacht.”

Tech Brew also checked out precision equipment manufacturer Marposs’s solution for leak-testing battery cells.

The solution is designed to detect the presence of liquid electrolytes, which are a crucial component in lithium-ion batteries. Marposs’s process involves vaporizing and discarding the volatile organic compounds found in lithium-ion batteries in the case of a leak, “and then tracing and quantifying their presence in the vacuum chamber,” per the company.

Marposs's battery cell leak testing solution

Making sure that each battery cell in a module is in good shape is an important part of assembling battery packs, because even small defects can have significant impacts on the battery.

A leak is “a bad thing. It has to be set aside and discarded,” Alberto Tomirotti, product manager for electrical testing and vehicle solutions for Marposs, told us. “You don’t want to have anything like that [assembled] into a big battery.”