<\/p>\n
The company itself has been silent, but this is the latest in a string of bad signs, and it\u2019s a big one\u2014at one point 24M was worth over $1 billion, and the company\u2019s innovations could have worked with existing technology. So where does that leave the battery industry?<\/p>\n
Many buzzy battery startups in recent years have been trying to sell some new, innovative chemistry to compete with lithium-ion batteries, the status quo that powers phones, laptops, electric vehicles, and even grid storage arrays today. Think sodium-ion batteries and solid-state cells.<\/p>\n
24M wasn\u2019t trying to sell a departure from lithium-ion but improvements that could work with the tech. One of the company\u2019s major innovations was its manufacturing process, which involved essentially smearing materials onto sheets of metal to form the electrodes, a simpler and potentially cheaper technique than the standard one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The layers in the company\u2019s batteries were thicker, which cut down on some of the inactive materials in cells and improved the energy density. That allows more energy to be stored in a smaller package, boosting the range of EVs\u2014the company famously had a goal of a 1,000-mile battery (about 1,600 kilometers).<\/p>\n
We\u2019re still thin on details of what exactly went down at 24M and what comes next for its tech. The company didn\u2019t get back to my questions sent to the official press email, and nobody picked up the phone when I called. 24M cofounder and MIT professor Yet-Ming Chiang declined to speak on the record.<\/p>\n
For those who have been closely following the battery industry, more bad news isn\u2019t too surprising. It feels as if everyone is short on money these days, and as purse strings tighten, there\u2019s less interest in novel ideas. \u201cIt just feels like there\u2019s not a lot of appetite for innovation,\u201d says Kara Rodby, a technical principal at Volta Energy Technologies, a venture capital firm that focuses on the energy storage industry.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
#Brutal #times #battery #industry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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