What does (and who founded it) Factorial, Stellantis’ partner on new batteries do
Stellantis has announced an agreement with Factorial Energy for the development of solid state batteries. Here are managers, shareholders and partners of the company
The Stellantis automotive group today announced an agreement with the American company Factorial Energy for the development of solid-state batteries for electric vehicles.
WHAT ARE SOLID STATE BATTERIES
The most popular battery technology for electric cars is lithium – ion . Solid state batteries – so called because of the electrolyte, which is solid -, however, promise both better performance for duration and recharge times, and also greater safety: in fact, they have a higher energy density and are not flammable, given the absence of liquid electrolyte.
Making solid state batteries is technically complex – the difficulty lies in ensuring sufficient and constant contact between the solid electrolyte and the positive and negative electrodes – and their production is still very expensive. Nevertheless, many car manufacturers are investing in their development: for example Toyota, Volkswagen, Ford, NIO and – indeed – Stellantis.
WHAT TAVARES SAID
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said, referring to the agreement with Factorial, that "initiatives like this will speed time-to-market ", ie the commercialization of a technology, "and a more cost-effective transition to technology a solid state ".
Last July Stellantis said it wanted to bring the first competitive solid-state battery technology to market by 2026.
WHAT FACTORIAL DOES
Factorial Energy is an American company – headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts – that has developed solid-state batteries that offer 20-50 percent more driving range per charge than traditional lithium-ion batteries.
The company has developed its own solid electrolyte technology (called FEST, from Factorial Electrolyte System Technology) that has been successfully tested in 40 amp-hour electrochemical cells and compatible with most existing lithium-ion battery machinery.
Factorial told Bloomberg that its batteries reach the energy density of 350 watt hours per kilo, but the goal is to reach 400 Wh / kg: for comparison, Tesla's best lithium-ion batteries reach 300 Wh / kg. . Factorial's batteries can also fully recharge in an hour and go through 460 charge-discharge cycles before their capacity drops below 80 percent.
FACTORIAL PARTNERSHIPS
In addition to Stellantis, Factorial has already entered into partnerships on solid state batteries with Mercedes-Benz (Daimler group), Hyundai and Kia .
WHO ARE THE FOUNDERS OF FACTORIAL
Siyu Huang, co-founder and managing director of Factorial, spoke of the agreement with Stellantis as a "great honor" and an "incredible opportunity" for the development of the company's technologies.
The other founder is Alex Yu.
The two met while studying at Cornell University in upstate New York.
Huang obtained a PhD in Chemistry here in 2012. Prior to joining the battery industry, he worked for Johnson & Johnson from 2014 to 2017.
Yu, on the other hand, is president of Factorial. He also received a PhD in Chemistry from Cornell in 2014.
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND INVESTORS
On the board of Factorial are Joe Taylor (ex-president and chief executive of Panasonic in North America), Dieter Zetsche (ex-president of Daimler) and Mark Fields (ex-chief executive of Ford).
Last April the company – which had not yet entered into a partnership with any car manufacturer – declared to Bloomberg that it had a "capital commitment" of 40 million dollars, mainly from the British Gatemore Capital Management fund and the American one WAVE Equity. Partners.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/stellantis-factorial-batterie-stato-solido/ on Tue, 30 Nov 2021 14:47:04 +0000.