Solid Power Receives Investment from Ford Motor Company
Partners to Develop Solid-State Batteries for Future Electric
Vehicles
LOUISVILLE, Colo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Solid Power is teaming up with Ford Motor Company to develop all
solid-state batteries (ASSB) for next-generation electric vehicles.
Solid-state batteries offer improved energy and safety as compared to
current industry-standard lithium-ion batteries. The announced
partnership will focus on further developing ASSBs toward automotive
requirements. This partnership will heavily leverage Solid Power’s first
fully automated, roll-to-roll production facility, which is anticipated
to be fully operational in Q2 2019.
This follows Solid Power’s announcement in September of 2018 that it
closed $20 million in a Series A investment round. Ford Motor Company
participated in a subsequent closing of that round, which included
investors Volta Energy Technologies, Hyundai CRADLE, Samsung Venture
Investment Corp., Sanoh Industrial Co., Solvay Ventures, and A123
Systems. In December of 2017, Solid Power announced its partnership with
the BMW Group to jointly develop Solid Power’s solid-state batteries for
electric vehicle applications and to tailor Solid Power’s technology
toward automotive requirements for high-performance electric vehicles.
“Solid-state battery technology has the potential to help us deliver
electric vehicles that are even safer and more capable,” said Ken
Washington, vice president, Research and Advanced Engineering, and chief
technology officer, Ford Motor Company. “Our involvement with Solid
Power enables us to further collaborate in an important emerging
technology that could truly transform the design and integration of
smart electric vehicles into tomorrow’s smart world.”
Solid Power’s co-founder and CEO Doug Campbell said, “Companies like
Ford are part of the movement that is changing the automotive industry
and we are honored to be working together.”
“ASSBs have the potential to provide greater energy, which translates to
greater run-time per charge or in the case of an electric vehicle,
greater range from a fully charged battery. By combining
state-of-the-art cathodes with metallic lithium anodes, ASSBs can
achieve up to a 50% increase in cell level energy vs. current
lithium-ion cells while even greater energy improvements are possible
with more advanced cathodes, which is an additional area of development
for Solid Power.”
As a result of this improved energy potential, Campbell stated that
ASSBs are receiving strong interest from a wide array of markets beyond
transportation including aerospace, medical devices, and defense among
several others.
An additional benefit of Solid Power’s ASSBs is improved safety as
compared to lithium-ion batteries due to the elimination of flammable
liquid electrolyte. Thus there is potential for reducing system-level
cost by reducing reliance on engineering solutions typically deployed in
lithium-ion systems to assure safe operation of the battery pack.
The potential benefits of Solid Power’s ASSBs include:
-
Fifty percent higher energy vs. current lithium-ion, which can
increase at the module- and pack-level due to design simplicity -
Substantially improved safety due to the elimination of the flammable
liquid electrolyte as used in lithium-ion -
Low-cost battery-pack designs through:
- Minimization of safety features
- Simplified thermal management
-
High manufacturability due to significant compatibility with
automated, industry-standard, roll-to-roll production
About Ford Motor Company: Ford Motor Company is a global company
based in Dearborn, Michigan. The company designs, manufactures, markets
and services a full line of Ford cars, trucks, SUVs, electrified
vehicles and Lincoln luxury vehicles, provides financial services
through Ford Motor Credit Company and is pursuing leadership positions
in electrification, autonomous vehicles and mobility solutions. Ford
employs approximately 201,000 people worldwide. For more information
regarding Ford, its products and Ford Motor Credit Company, please visit https://corporate.ford.com/homepage.html.
About Solid Power: Solid Power was founded in 2012 as a spin-out
business from the University of Colorado Boulder and is located in the
Colorado Technology Center in Louisville, Colorado. The company is an
industry-leading developer of all solid-state rechargeable batteries
with the potential for substantially greater energy and safety in
comparison to current industry-standard Lithium-ion batteries. An
extensive partnership with BMW was announced in 2017 with the addition
of the Ford partnership in 2019. The company’s first equity-based
investment round ($20M) was announced in late 2018. The company is
currently working to achieve MWh-scale production for its all
solid-state battery technology anticipated by mid-2019.
Contacts
Lisa Metzger
lisametzger@avocetcommunications.com
720-771-4238