The Italian electric vehicle battery maker announced their decision to license fast-charging battery technology from Israeli startup StoreDot on Monday. Through this deal, the company plans to manufacture lithium-ion batteries in Italy. Italvolt is said to procure a minimum and yet undisclosed amount of batteries produced at their plant for StoreDot’s business.
This agreement is a milestone in Italvolt’s strategy to produce lithium-ion batteries as a major player in the field and boost their ability to deliver products rapidly. Such a target has proved to be nearly impossible for the Britishvolt in the UK. However, StoreDot has a roadmap for its ‘100inX’ battery cells that enable 100 miles of range with 5 minutes charge by 2024, 100 miles in 3 minutes charge by 2028, and 100 miles with 2 minutes charge by 2032. Apart from such ambition, StoreDot’s shift from germanium to silicon for the latest generation automotive battery cell production is another benefit.
“Our collaboration with StoreDot is an inflection point in our journey to deliver high-quality, lithium-ion battery cells, at scale. Italvolt’s technology-agnostic, modular approach to production will ensure that we remain at the forefront of the industry as battery cell technology advances,” said Lars Carlstrom, Italvolt Founder and CEO of Italvolt. The company’s latest plans for manufacture are not limited to this. The battery plant at the former Olivetti site in northern Italy will be technology-agnostic and use a modular production process. This approach allows the necessary flexibility and capacity to develop battery cells.
StoreDot, a startup whose investors include the truck division of Mercedes-Benz, BP, VinFast, Volvo, Polestar, and Samsung, develops fast-charging battery cells for electric cars. The fast-charge capability is crucial because it enables manufacturers to install smaller battery packs and thus lower the cost of their cars. As of now, the startup licenses technology to its manufacturing partner EVE Energy to produce batteries in China and ship them to customers in China and Korea. Having seen good times with the Asian clientele, this agreement between Italvolt and StoreDot brings the startup closer to the European customer base.
“This agreement lets us obtain captive capacity so we can guarantee the supply of cells to our future OEM customers. It is extremely important that StoreDot creates these strong relationships as we rapidly move towards mass production of our extreme fast charge batteries in the coming months,” Doron Myersdorf, CEO of StoreDot, stated.
Italvolt is among the many battery startups trying to hold their own and build a homegrown European battery industry to compete with the market-dominating Asian giants. The company is also said to be in talks with an institutional investor for 500 million euros ($541 million) in funding in tranches over the course of 2023, with which it could begin production.
The 45-gigawatt-hour plant that Italvolt envisions is estimated to cost up to 3 billion euros. The company might also be in the process of procuring funding from the Italian government, but nothing solid has come of it to date.
