Automakers have high hopes for silicon.
San Francisco It hisses, hums and whirrs: In the laboratory of the battery specialist Sila Nanotechnologies, one huge test station is lined up after the next. In ever new experiments, dozens of researchers are optimizing different batteries to make them even more powerful. “We are making the battery of the future,” enthuses company founder Gene Berdichevsky.
The engineer, who trained at Stanford University, was employee number seven at the electric car manufacturer Tesla. Eleven years ago he started his own company with Sila on the island of Alameda in the Bay of San Francisco. The goal: to bring battery technology such as anodes made of silicon from the laboratory to series production. This is intended to further improve lithium-ion batteries, which are installed in most electric cars today.
Since the technology behind lithium-ion batteries was patented in 1982, prices have fallen and performance has increased due to new cell design, chemical optimization and production changes. Big technological leaps are still to come.
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