Sila nanotechnologies has a battery that uses silicon and charges in 5-10 minutes from 10 to 80% and stores 20% more electricity than a lithium ion that a uses graphite anode. They plan to improve the battery to the point where it can hold 40% more. There are possible other advancements that can be made too as the science improves — silicon can theoretically hold 24x as a lithium ions as graphite can. The challenge is to make the battery structure stable since adding and removing that many ions causes the battery to physically grow and shrink, which causes degradation.
They have a contract with Panasonic to produce these batteries and the first will be available in a Mercedes-Benz EV in 2026.
Gasoline has 100 times the energy density of lithium ion batteries. From a technical standpoint, increasing capacity by 20% is a huge scientific breakthrough, the issue is that batteries are so much weaker/heavier that 20% is negligible. Going from 100 to 120 is a great increase but when you’re competing against something that is at 1000 it’s not even a drop in the bucket.
Sila nanotechnologies has a battery that uses silicon and charges in 5-10 minutes from 10 to 80% and stores 20% more electricity than a lithium ion that a uses graphite anode. They plan to improve the battery to the point where it can hold 40% more. There are possible other advancements that can be made too as the science improves — silicon can theoretically hold 24x as a lithium ions as graphite can. The challenge is to make the battery structure stable since adding and removing that many ions causes the battery to physically grow and shrink, which causes degradation.
They have a contract with Panasonic to produce these batteries and the first will be available in a Mercedes-Benz EV in 2026.
Gasoline has 100 times the energy density of lithium ion batteries. From a technical standpoint, increasing capacity by 20% is a huge scientific breakthrough, the issue is that batteries are so much weaker/heavier that 20% is negligible. Going from 100 to 120 is a great increase but when you’re competing against something that is at 1000 it’s not even a drop in the bucket.