Texas A&M professor launches lithium-based battery startup to improve electric vehicles

[TruckElectric]

https://www.kbtx.com/2021/08/20/tex...ed-battery-startup-improve-electric-vehicles/


By Andy Krauss
Published: Aug. 20, 2021 at 8:50 AM CDT|Updated: 23 hours ago

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - Texas A&M University professor Choongho Yu and his business partner have successfully launched a new startup focused on improved lithium-based battery technology.

The primary focus of their startup, called Flexodes, is developing batteries for electric cars. They say their technology will make the vehicles cheaper and capable of much larger storage capacity.

“What we are working on is called a lithium-sulfur battery as opposed to the lithium-ion batteries that are commercially now available,” Yu said. “The beauty of this technology is that we can actually improve the energy density from two to up to five times.”

They hope their battery helps the environment by making electric cars more affordable, efficient, and practical, and therefore, a more attractive purchase to consumers.


“In cases where we can improve the energy density by a factor of two, then theoretically, we can actually improve the driving distance by a factor of two, which is really important,” Yu said.

Yu says his company is keeping the size of the battery the same while essentially doubling its output.

“With the same sized battery, the price will be much lower,” Yu said. “If you just think about a Tesla becoming much cheaper, then a lot more people can afford one. That would be exciting news. In that sense, we can probably play some role in lowering the cost.”

Yu hopes his startup’s battery can hit the market at some point next year, but he says that solely depends on investments. He says they need to focus on moving to the next level from laboratory research to the commercial market.


“I think battery technology is now really demanding in order to reduce greenhouse gases and things like that,” Yu said. “I hope there will be a lot of great startups and battery companies in the U.S. because there’s not many here right now. I hope this initiates battery research in the U.S. so that we can have really good companies here, and that we are one of them.”

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[ldjessee]

I hope they have better success than other companies have had.

The wikipedia page on Li-S was an interesting read.

 

[Crissa]

Yeah, I was going to say. There's alot of chemical potential there, but applicable rechargeables have not shown up yet.

-Crissa

 

[HaulingAss]

https://www.kbtx.com/2021/08/20/tex...ed-battery-startup-improve-electric-vehicles/


By Andy Krauss
Published: Aug. 20, 2021 at 8:50 AM CDT|Updated: 23 hours ago

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) - Texas A&M University professor Choongho Yu and his business partner have successfully launched a new startup focused on improved lithium-based battery technology.

The primary focus of their startup, called Flexodes, is developing batteries for electric cars. They say their technology will make the vehicles cheaper and capable of much larger storage capacity.

“What we are working on is called a lithium-sulfur battery as opposed to the lithium-ion batteries that are commercially now available,” Yu said. “The beauty of this technology is that we can actually improve the energy density from two to up to five times.”

They hope their battery helps the environment by making electric cars more affordable, efficient, and practical, and therefore, a more attractive purchase to consumers.


“In cases where we can improve the energy density by a factor of two, then theoretically, we can actually improve the driving distance by a factor of two, which is really important,” Yu said.

Yu says his company is keeping the size of the battery the same while essentially doubling its output.

“With the same sized battery, the price will be much lower,” Yu said. “If you just think about a Tesla becoming much cheaper, then a lot more people can afford one. That would be exciting news. In that sense, we can probably play some role in lowering the cost.”

Yu hopes his startup’s battery can hit the market at some point next year, but he says that solely depends on investments. He says they need to focus on moving to the next level from laboratory research to the commercial market.


“I think battery technology is now really demanding in order to reduce greenhouse gases and things like that,” Yu said. “I hope there will be a lot of great startups and battery companies in the U.S. because there’s not many here right now. I hope this initiates battery research in the U.S. so that we can have really good companies here, and that we are one of them.”

I hope they have great success and the required breakthroughs to be able to commecialize in volume. But it sounds like it might just be a ploy to get investors to part with their money. I found the following statement troubling:

Yu says his company is keeping the size of the battery the same while essentially doubling its output.

I'm surprised they are strategizing based on the size of the battery. They are still in the research phase, it' not really up to them to worry about how it's used (size of the battery pack), the market will figure that out. That they are putting that out there makes me think they are more interested in hyping it than developing it.

 

[Crissa]

Cell power density is a thing to focus on. You can't make a pack power dense if the cells themselves are not power dense.

-Crissa

 

[Ogre]

Yu hopes his startup’s battery can hit the market at some point next year, but he says that solely depends on investments. He says they need to focus on moving to the next level from laboratory research to the commercial market.

Stories like this all the time. Most technologies never make it from the lab to production. Most that do take much much longer than researchers think. Look at the 4680. It’s made it way past the lab and been stuck for months on “engineering” issues.

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