Article originally published in the Chicago Tribune by Ally Marotti.
Detroit's Big Three automakers want more advanced, cheaper electric car batteries, and they’re turning to Chicago-based SiNode Systems.
Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler, along with the U.S. Department of Energy, awarded a $4 million contract to SiNode Systems to help the startup develop its technology for the electric vehicle market.
SiNode Systems, based at Illinois Institute of Technology’s University Technology Park, develops materials that make batteries last longer and charge faster, said co-founder and CEO Samir Mayekar.
Its technology, which commercializes a patented process developed at Northwestern University, can be used in any lithium-ion battery, such as those in cell phones or laptops. Mayekar helped launch SiNode Systems as an MBA student at Northwestern in 2011.
“Our early focus is smaller markets,” Mayekar said. “The electric vehicle market is our long-term focus, and it’s the reason we started this company.”
The award comes from the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium, a subsidiary of the U.S. Council for Automotive Research. It’s comprised of the Big Three automakers and is meant to develop technologies that support the commercialization of hybrid and electric vehicles.
SiNode Systems hired five employees as a result of the contract, bringing its employee count to 15. The company will work with the automakers for 30 months, developing prototype batteries with their technology and materials that meet the automakers’ goals and prove the cars can go farther on a single charge.
The goal is to get a battery with higher energy density and less cost, so the automakers can produce electric vehicles that are cheaper and become more ubiquitous, said Steve Clark, senior manager for energy storage and high voltage systems at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles U.S.
"The battery is one of the most expensive components as far as cost in the vehicle, and it's also the one with the most opportunity for cost reduction," Clark said. "Everybody points to the battery as being the key enabler to make this technology happen."
The world is already seeing the start of that, Clark said. Tesla Motors says its Model 3 can go an average of 215 miles per charge, and starts at $35,000 before incentives, according to its website. Chevrolet says its 2017 all-electric Bolt can go 200 miles on one charge and could cost about $30,000.
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SiNode technology was first developed in 2010 by Northwestern University Professor Harold H. Kung, a Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering. The process of commercializing the prospective technology began in earnest in 2012, as part of Northwestern’s NUvention: Energy course, offered jointly by the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN).
