Daqus Energy has a plan to make EV sports cars fast, light, and cheap
Cheaper, lighter, and denser: the trifecta defines a perfect battery. Nobody has devised an ideal cell fairly but, however one stealthy startup thinks it has discovered a brand new materials that solves at the very least two of these challenges.
Daqus Energy has been quietly working for the previous couple years, refining a compound often called TAQ that guarantees to be cheaper and lighter than competing battery supplies.
“We’ve not seen a metric at which TAQ does poorly in contrast with the incumbents,” Harish Banda, co-founder and CEO of Daqus, informed TechCrunch. The corporate was spun out of MIT, the place analysis into the fabric was funded partially by means of a partnership with Lamborghini.
There are a couple of caveats, which Banda freely presents: The corporate remains to be scaling manufacturing of TAQ, and it has solely simply begun engaged on the kind of cells that would drop into an EV. Plus, many promising battery materials have died on the trail to commercialization.
However the upside is powerful sufficient that Daqus is rising from stealth with a $6 million seed spherical led by Morningside with participation from unnamed particular person buyers.
Daqus’s materials replaces the cathode in a lithium-ion battery. In a typical cell, the cathode is manufactured from nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) or iron-phosphate (higher often called LFP). NMC cells are dearer, however supply larger vitality density and longer vary in electrical automobiles. LFP cells are cheaper however heavier.
U.S. and European automakers have favored NMC for his or her EVs, however they’ve begun to change to LFP to chop prices. Downside is, the overwhelming majority of LFP cathode supplies are made in China, making them a nonstarter for U.S.-made EVs that wish to qualify for tax credit.
The fabric Daqus has found, bis-tetraaminobenzoquinone or TAQ for brief, isn’t made utilizing costly essential minerals like nickel or cobalt. As a substitute, it’s made completely of extensively accessible carbon-based compounds.
For step one within the manufacturing course of, the 2 molecules the corporate makes use of are already used to make dyes and fertilizers. “They’re completely grime low cost,” Banda stated, noting that the corporate buys small batches at $1 per kilogram. “So you may solely think about what meaning while you purchase a ton of it.”
What’s extra, the method used to synthesize a TAQ cathode makes use of vastly much less vitality. Making the stuff solely requires heating it to 120 levels C, some 700 to 800 levels C decrease than LFP or NMC cathodes, Banda stated.
On the manufacturing line, TAQ might be deposited utilizing current tools. However there’s one other alternative to chop prices: current anode manufacturing tools can even work with TAQ. That will permit battery makers to make use of water as a solvent as an alternative of NMP, a poisonous solvent that must be captured and recycled.
Altogether, TAQ’s qualities have left Banda feeling assured that the fabric can undercut the most cost effective lithium-ion batteries in the marketplace. “If any person is saying that LFP batteries are at $50 per kilowatt hour, we’d be cheaper than that for certain,” Banda stated. “Precisely how a lot must be discovered.”
Daqus has been producing coin cells in its lab house in Massachusetts, and its inside checks have proven TAQ to be sturdy. TAQ-based batteries might be charged and discharged 2,000 instances and preserve at the very least 80% of its authentic capability, they usually’re secure at excessive temperatures. These small batteries additionally cost at a fee that, when extrapolated to EVs, would allow six minute quick charging.
If there’s a caveat, it’s that TAQ cathodes take up extra space than NMC, although they’re aggressive with LFP. Nonetheless, he factors out that as a result of the fabric is lighter, EVs designed round it is also made lighter and would wish fewer batteries total. That might give TAQ-powered EVs sufficient vary to compete with NMC whereas being cheaper and lighter.
Sports activities automobiles may notice the advantages sooner. Weight has been one of many largest penalties of electrification: It’s extremely straightforward to make an EV that’s lightning fast in a straight line, however making one which handles properly on a race monitor? That’s confirmed to be more durable. A light-weight, fast-charging battery pack might go a great distance towards making electrical sports activities automobiles really feel particular.
“A lot of automotive firms on this planet are attempting to make electrical automobiles,” Banda stated. “What’s the distinction between a Rolls Royce versus a Tesla? Positive you’ve got higher seats, however when it comes to the core of the automotive, it was the engine. Now, it appears to be the battery.”
