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  • David
    David

    Sila bringing revolutionary lithium-ion chemistry to market and scaling it for electrical everything.

      Sila is not just a materials science company, but a material solutions company scaling their solution for millions of EVs.

    There is a war that has just started in the auto industry, and this is the transformation from ICE or internal combustion engine autos to EV or electric vehicles. The battle ground will be as much in the variations of the EVs that come from the global auto companies as will it be the power train and especially the battery packs.

    Sila the material solutions company spent the last 10 years perfecting their material science to move away from rare earth elements as much as possible and to increase density of today's lithium-ion battery packs. To move into the next decade as a material solutions company, Sila has purchased a 600,000-square-foot warehouse in Moses Lake, Washington home to Carbon fiber manufacturing used by Boeing and BMW. Moses lake can now add lithium-anode battery materials to their manufacturing portfolio.

    Snag_5cf17696.png

    Sila HQ is based in Alameda, CA, but like all things, they wanted as green as possible production of their new lithium-anode battery materials and was attracted to Washington state due to the abundant hydropower. Here Sila will manufacture their silicon-based anode battery material that will allow them to produce enough material yearly to power 500 million mobile phones and up to 500,000 EVs yearly with growth on-site to produce enough material to power up to 10 million EVs per year.

    Depending on the size of the cells, power density will be increased greatly as the next-gen batteries and the Sila Lithium-Anode battery material drops straight in to replace old graphite anode battery material without changing the process or equipment battery cell manufactures have in place, enabling battery suppliers to increase density and factory output without any real downtime.

    Snag_5cf2eeee.png

    Due to density improvement with Lithium-Anode material, the batteries get smaller while keeping the same power or if size is perfect, the density allows the small batteries to get more powerful. Best part is this new Lithium-Anode material allows all batteries to charge quickly as it is compatible with current DC fast charging technology up to 800V.

    Gain to all industries that use this new anode material, but especially to the auto industry where longer range is achieved in the same battery footprint, faster charging performance equaling efficient charge times and lower cost batteries due to material drop into existing production systems helping to push down the cost per kWh.

    Example of the gains made is in the WHOOP 4.0 personalized digital fitness and health coach wearable devices and the first to use the Sila Lithium-Anode material. The gain made for this device (WHOOP 4.0 Press Release) was a 17% energy density improvement in a smaller battery, 33% reduction in device size, 5-day battery life with a waterproof battery pack for on-the-go charging and more. 

    WHOOP Body | Optimized for Any-Wear™ Heart Rate Monitoring

    Sila Lithium-Anode material is in wear-able products and will soon be on the market in mobile phones, they talk about EVs, but who will be their first customer?

    Mercedes-Benz has chosen Sila as their Lithium-Anode material supplier for the production EQG electric G-Class SUV giving this SUV their most advanced battery pack with more than 800 Wh/I at the cell level.

    2024_mercedes-benz_eqg_f34_hero_316223_1600.webp

    The testing of the Sila Lithium-Anode battery material made headlines in the real world road test of the VISION EQXX cover here earlier by Cheers and Gears.

    Per Mercedes the G-Wagon will be available for sale mid-decade, so around 2025 or so. The Sila Lithium-Anode battery technology while starting in the EQG electric G-Wagon will eventually get pushed into all of the EQ product line as Mercedes uses this to replace their current battery cell tech that is being sold in the first release of their EQS sedan.

    Mercedes has stated that as their principal Lithium-Anode supplier, depending on model of the EQ product line, their EVs will have up to a 40% increase in power density depending on model chosen.

    Sila has committed to America global leadership in the transition to new energy storage era as this new production facility sits on 160 acres of land close to rail lines for convenient and efficient shipping to all types of companies wanting to buy their material solution. This gives them plenty of long-term growth as the initial 600,000-square-foot facility will support up to 50 GWh of cell production with the production line coming online in the second half of 2024 with full production by the start of 2025. This site has the ability to grow up to 750 GWh of production depending on use allowing this American based company to excel in both innovation and manufacturing of silicon lithium-anode battery material for global consumption.

    For those that are wondering if Sila is getting any federal government help as the current U.S. administration has made climate change and ramping up of U.S. battery manufacturing a focus point, Sila CEO Gene Berdichevsky has state Sila is NOT receiving any federal help for this new factory and the production of Silicon Lithium-anode material that will replace the graphite currently used in Lithium-Ion cells.


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    This new battery technology must be what all the auto makers are counting on

    to make their future EV cars and truck competitive for mileage and cost with ICE vehicles. Even the politicians are counting on it!

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    On 6/10/2022 at 2:04 PM, rkmdogs said:

    This new battery technology must be what all the auto makers are counting on

    to make their future EV cars and truck competitive for mileage and cost with ICE vehicles. Even the politicians are counting on it!

    Welcome rkmdogs

    Yes, very possible that newer battery tech is what the bulk of upcoming EVs will be built with.

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  • Posts

    • Those use cases will necessitate the purchase of something with a long range, like 300+. But even still, two hours at 11.5kW would put 50 - 70 miles of range back in the car. You might need to make one 10-minute DCFC stop if you had a really busy day, but otherwise, you could make it.
    • I can understand this, but then this is part of my daily life. With two kids with their own families and grandkids it is not uncommon for us to be out and about for the day, come home for a bit before heading out to help with the grandkids and their afterschool activities. Plus, with family that is living from both sides north and south of us, it would not be uncommon to drive 75 miles down south to deal with my wife's side of the family, see the nieces/nephews and then up north to my side to see folks and with both our parents in senior years with health issues, also moving back in forth. Course this is why Sun puts on about 15,000 miles a year on the SS. We all have different use cases.
    • That's all I'm worried about. I'm not going to spend a sht ton more money having a 19.2kW charger installed for the 1 day every 3 years I empty the battery, get home for 2 hours, and have to again drive enough that I couldn't make it back home...  
    • I could see settling on three charger rates, but definitely not one. A Bolt or Kia EV4 type vehicle simply does not need 19kW home charging.  It would be an excessive cost to retrofit a house and the number of buyers who actually use that rate would be pretty close to zero.  That would be like insisting that the Corolla has to have a 6.2 liter. It's excessive and doesn't fit the use case. Now, if we settled into 7.5kW, 11.5kW, and 19.4kW as a standard, that would probably achieve what you are proposing while still giving cost flexibility.  It would allow for entry-level EVs to get the lower cost / lower speed charger while allowing the larger vehicles or premium vehicles to have faster home charging.  For example, the EV6 could have a lower cost 7.5kW charger while the Genesis GV60 on the same platform could get the 11.5kW charger because it is a premium brand and higher cost vehicle.  Then any large EV with or near a 200kW battery could have the 19.4kW charger, but even then, unless it is a newly built house or a commercial fleet, it will still probably charge only at 11.5kW, as that's about the max that the vast majority of homes are wired to do.  Unless you're driving an EV with a 200kW battery to 10% every day, an 11.5kW charger can "fill" an EV to 80% overnight with room to spare, so most people (including me), won't want the extra expense of spending extra money just to say my EV charged faster while I slept.  Either way, it will be ready for me when I need to leave at 7 am.
    • @ccap41 @Drew Dowdell Thank you both, this is the kind of dialogue I feel the Auto buyers need to be made aware of and the various use cases in understanding as I feel most DO NOT really understand this and give into the FEAR Mongering of News Stories. While I still feel that everyone should have the same charging rate capabilities, I also understand both your points. I do feel that this will change electrical across the WORLD over time due to the need of charging.
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