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No companies listed in article - anyone have a list of companies developing new battery technology? Been something I've tried researching in the past with litt

by volak 7y ago

No companies listed in article - anyone have a list of companies developing new battery technology? Been something I've tried researching in the past with little luck

dharma1 7y ago
Maxwell, now owned by Tesla. I think Tesla will become a big player in the battery tech space
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Maxwell dry battery electrode tech [1] is going to rapidly drive down cell costs (while increasing energy density) for Tesla. I posit this is also how they intend to pack 200kw of storage into the 2020 Roadster. Disclaimer: TSLA investor [1] https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/02/tesla-buys-maxwell-to-eventually-triple-battery-energy-density.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/02/tesla-buys-maxwell-to-...
  - ridewinter 7y ago
    If this tech allows BEVs a significantly higher range it would be a game changer. Currently the range is about the same as gasoline cars with a longer refueling time. For your average consumer that’s not an improvement. But if I can go 800 miles per charge all the sudden my BEV looks like an iPhone X compared to your flipphone traditional vehicle.
    - dharma1 7y ago
      I think it's 20-30% better energy density than current batteries
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Model S and X with the new Raven drivetrain is already pushing 370 miles of range. Very few people are going to drive 4 hours at a time without a break, definitely not going 600-800 between stops, although I could see this as beneficial to the Tesla Semi and their truck offering (where higher energy density is crucial).
  - rsuelzer 7y ago
    So far Tesla has not really done much in terms of battery tech. Pretty much everything they are doing with 18650 cells in their cars and power walls is hardly ground breaking science. They have managed to make things look incredibly beautiful, but 18650 batteries have been around for a long time. If Tesla starts to do more with different chemistries that will be interesting.
    - dd36 7y ago
      Thermal tech and longevity have been pushed by Tesla. 18650 is a form factor not a chemistry.
mooreds 7y ago
Maybe start here? http://energystorage.org/membership/members http://energystorage.org/membership/members
mlthoughts2018 7y ago
This is just armchair analysis, but my perception from easily Googleable sources on mining & resource companies for battery tech is that it doesn’t actually look like a good investment for casual investors. The lithium market seems crazy and susceptible to high volatility from Chinese stockpiles. Meanwhile, battery technologies, even at the high end, are becoming rapidly commoditized and experiencing price wars, meaning new investment even into state of the art battery tech probably isn’t exposed to a lot of upside because all the consumer markets it can feed into will have consumers expecting the highest quality at bargain basement prices. The exceptions will likely be highly industry-specific and involve complex military or enterprise consumers with special needs, and I doubt casual investors will have access to information necessary to reliably speculate about those opportunities.
- darkerside 7y ago
  Seems to me that an immature market that is on its way to becoming a commodity is a great time to invest, as opposed to post commoditization
  - maxerickson 7y ago
    They caveat their comment with "casual investors". To win, you'll probably have to have a quite wide basket or get lucky and pick the right companies.
  - philipkglass 7y ago
    Maybe. That could have described the solar photovoltaic manufacturing business in the first decade of the 21st century, but it would have been a real gamble making money trying to invest in any of the individual companies or even baskets of companies. Commoditization comes quickly, and with "too much" competition even proprietary advances benefit buyers more than manufacturers. The fracking revolution looks similar, for that matter. So far it has delivered a lot more value to buyers of fossil fuels than to producers.
  - JamesBarney 7y ago
    Commoditization drives down profits which will limit the returns on your investment. Generally you want to invest in complements to things that are going to be commoditized. The drop in price and profits for the commodity drive increased profits for the consumer of the commoditized good.
iams- 7y ago
In the united states the main commercial option for non-lithium batteries is Nant who is developing zinc-air batteries (but for usage alongside lithium) Then there is Redflow out of Australia and Voltstorage in Germany. Not sure on vanadium flow batteries
- merrymoccasin 7y ago
  I worked for a vanadium flow battery startup which went out of business. Vanadium provides a higher degree of safety due to the chemistry not being flammable. The chemistry also cycles (charges and discharges) without degradation in energy storage capacity. However, vanadium flow batteries are far less energy dense, have moving parts (pumps), and a poor track record of reliability. There was a lot of interest in vanadium flow batteries when Li-Ion was way more expensive, but now that prices have plummeted (and will continue to do so) I don't see much of a future outside of certain applications.
- ggm 7y ago
  Redflow is doing good targetting to telecoms for reliable power at the radio mast. Africa, Asia, Latin America rural and remote like them. They struggled to be market viable in Australia head to head with Li-ion on price but if you understand their powerbudget and want a system on standby from binary chemicals they're a good way to go. (Not a shareholder, but been following them for years)
Gravityloss 7y ago
It is in general more efficient to do basic research in universities and publish the results so that everybody does not need to do the same large amount of experiments. Then do the productization in companies. I don't know which part is harder regarding batteries, but I assume we have still quite a lot of basic research to do as well.
- RobertoG 7y ago
  Is that how it works? My impression was that the basic research was done in universities (with public funding) until there are some good patents, then the patents are transferred to some kind of private company that take the profits. I don't know the procedures very well, so, I would be happy if somebody assure me that this is not the case.
merrymoccasin 7y ago
Sila Nanotechnologies (https://silanano.com https://silanano.com) is doing interesting things with battery chemistry. They recently raised a bunch of money from Daimler.

by volak 7y ago

No companies listed in article - anyone have a list of companies developing new battery technology? Been something I've tried researching in the past with little luck

dharma1 7y ago

Maxwell, now owned by Tesla. I think Tesla will become a big player in the battery tech space

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Maxwell dry battery electrode tech [1] is going to rapidly drive down cell costs (while increasing energy density) for Tesla. I posit this is also how they intend to pack 200kw of storage into the 2020 Roadster. Disclaimer: TSLA investor [1] https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/02/tesla-buys-maxwell-to-eventually-triple-battery-energy-density.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/02/tesla-buys-maxwell-to-...
- ridewinter 7y ago
  If this tech allows BEVs a significantly higher range it would be a game changer. Currently the range is about the same as gasoline cars with a longer refueling time. For your average consumer that’s not an improvement. But if I can go 800 miles per charge all the sudden my BEV looks like an iPhone X compared to your flipphone traditional vehicle.
  - dharma1 7y ago
    I think it's 20-30% better energy density than current batteries
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Model S and X with the new Raven drivetrain is already pushing 370 miles of range. Very few people are going to drive 4 hours at a time without a break, definitely not going 600-800 between stops, although I could see this as beneficial to the Tesla Semi and their truck offering (where higher energy density is crucial).
- rsuelzer 7y ago
  So far Tesla has not really done much in terms of battery tech. Pretty much everything they are doing with 18650 cells in their cars and power walls is hardly ground breaking science. They have managed to make things look incredibly beautiful, but 18650 batteries have been around for a long time. If Tesla starts to do more with different chemistries that will be interesting.
  - dd36 7y ago
    Thermal tech and longevity have been pushed by Tesla. 18650 is a form factor not a chemistry.

mooreds 7y ago

Maybe start here? http://energystorage.org/membership/members http://energystorage.org/membership/members

mlthoughts2018 7y ago

This is just armchair analysis, but my perception from easily Googleable sources on mining & resource companies for battery tech is that it doesn’t actually look like a good investment for casual investors. The lithium market seems crazy and susceptible to high volatility from Chinese stockpiles. Meanwhile, battery technologies, even at the high end, are becoming rapidly commoditized and experiencing price wars, meaning new investment even into state of the art battery tech probably isn’t exposed to a lot of upside because all the consumer markets it can feed into will have consumers expecting the highest quality at bargain basement prices. The exceptions will likely be highly industry-specific and involve complex military or enterprise consumers with special needs, and I doubt casual investors will have access to information necessary to reliably speculate about those opportunities.

darkerside 7y ago
Seems to me that an immature market that is on its way to becoming a commodity is a great time to invest, as opposed to post commoditization
- maxerickson 7y ago
  They caveat their comment with "casual investors". To win, you'll probably have to have a quite wide basket or get lucky and pick the right companies.
- philipkglass 7y ago
  Maybe. That could have described the solar photovoltaic manufacturing business in the first decade of the 21st century, but it would have been a real gamble making money trying to invest in any of the individual companies or even baskets of companies. Commoditization comes quickly, and with "too much" competition even proprietary advances benefit buyers more than manufacturers. The fracking revolution looks similar, for that matter. So far it has delivered a lot more value to buyers of fossil fuels than to producers.
- JamesBarney 7y ago
  Commoditization drives down profits which will limit the returns on your investment. Generally you want to invest in complements to things that are going to be commoditized. The drop in price and profits for the commodity drive increased profits for the consumer of the commoditized good.

iams- 7y ago

In the united states the main commercial option for non-lithium batteries is Nant who is developing zinc-air batteries (but for usage alongside lithium) Then there is Redflow out of Australia and Voltstorage in Germany. Not sure on vanadium flow batteries

merrymoccasin 7y ago
I worked for a vanadium flow battery startup which went out of business. Vanadium provides a higher degree of safety due to the chemistry not being flammable. The chemistry also cycles (charges and discharges) without degradation in energy storage capacity. However, vanadium flow batteries are far less energy dense, have moving parts (pumps), and a poor track record of reliability. There was a lot of interest in vanadium flow batteries when Li-Ion was way more expensive, but now that prices have plummeted (and will continue to do so) I don't see much of a future outside of certain applications.
ggm 7y ago
Redflow is doing good targetting to telecoms for reliable power at the radio mast. Africa, Asia, Latin America rural and remote like them. They struggled to be market viable in Australia head to head with Li-ion on price but if you understand their powerbudget and want a system on standby from binary chemicals they're a good way to go. (Not a shareholder, but been following them for years)

Gravityloss 7y ago

It is in general more efficient to do basic research in universities and publish the results so that everybody does not need to do the same large amount of experiments. Then do the productization in companies. I don't know which part is harder regarding batteries, but I assume we have still quite a lot of basic research to do as well.

RobertoG 7y ago
Is that how it works? My impression was that the basic research was done in universities (with public funding) until there are some good patents, then the patents are transferred to some kind of private company that take the profits. I don't know the procedures very well, so, I would be happy if somebody assure me that this is not the case.

merrymoccasin 7y ago

Sila Nanotechnologies (https://silanano.com https://silanano.com) is doing interesting things with battery chemistry. They recently raised a bunch of money from Daimler.