Daqus Energy has a plan to make EV sports cars quickly, light and cheap

Cheaper, easier and more dense: Trifecta defines the perfect battery. Nobody has yet invented a perfect cell, but a final startup thinks he has found a new material that solves at least two of these challenges.

Daqus Energy It has been quietly working for the last few years, improving a compound known as TAQ, which promises to be more cheaper and easier than competitive battery materials.

“We have not seen an indicator where TAQ badly compares with the participants,” said Harish Band, co -founder and CEO of Daqus, in front of TechCrunch. The company spun from MIT where the material studies are funded in part through a Partnership with LamborghiniS

There are several warnings that the band offers freely: the company still scales the production of TAQ and has just started working on the type of cells that can fall into EV. Plus this, very much Promising Battery Materials have died on the way to commercialization.

But up is strong enough that Dakus comes out of Stealth with a circle of $ 6 million, led to Morningside with the participation of unnamed individual investors.

The DAQUS material replaces the cathode in a lithium-ion battery. In a typical cell, the cathode is made of nickel-Maganski-cobalt (NMC) or iron-phosphate (better known as LFP). NMC cells are more expensive, but they offer greater energy density and longer range in electric vehicles. LFP cells are more expensive, but larger.

US and European car manufacturers have preferred NMC for their EVs, but they have started moving to LFP to reduce costs. The problem is that the majority of LFP cathode materials are manufactured in China, making them non-standard for US EVs that want to qualify for tax loans.

The DAQUS material has found bis-tetrahobenzoquinone or TAQ briefly, not made with the help of expensive critical minerals such as nickel or cobalt. Instead, it is entirely of widespread carbon -based compounds.

For the first step in the production process, the two molecules used by the company are already used to make dyes and fertilizers. “They are absolutely dirty cheap,” a band said, noting that the company buys small batches at $ 1 per kilogram. “So you can imagine what this means when you buy a tone from it.”

Moreover, the process used to synthesize TAQ cathode uses significantly less energy. Making things only requires heating up to 120 degrees C, about 700 to 800 degrees C lower than LFP or NMC cathode, the band said.

To production lineTAQ can be deposited using existing equipment. But there is another opportunity to reduce costs: existing anode production equipment can also work with TAQ. This would allow battery manufacturers to use water as a solvent instead of NMP, a toxic solvent that must be captured and recycled.

Overall, the qualities of TAQ left a band to feel confident that the material could undermine the cheapest lithium-ion batteries on the market. “If anyone says LFP batteries are $ 50 an hour, we’ll be more expensive than for sure,” Banda said. “Exactly how much to understand.”

Daqus produces coin cells in its laboratory space in Massachusetts, and its internal tests indicate that TAQ is durable. TAQ -based batteries can be charged and disposed of 2000 times and maintain at least 80% of their original capacity and they are stable at high temperatures. These small batteries are also charged at a speed, which, when extrapolated to EVS, will allow for six minutes quickly charging.

If there is a warning, it is that TAQ cathode occupies more space than NMC, although they are competitive with LFP. However, he points out that since the material is easier, EV designed around it can also be made easier and will need smaller batteries in general. This could give the TAQ EVS powered enough scope to compete with NMC while being cheaper and lighter.

Sports cars can realize the benefits earlier. The weight was one of the biggest penalties of electrification: it is incredibly easy to make an EV that is lightning fast in a straight line, but doing one that does a good job on a race track? This has been proven to be more difficult. A light, fast -charge batteries can go a long way to make electric sports cars feel special.

“Many car companies in the world are trying to make electric cars,” Banda said. “What is the difference between Rolls Royce vs. Tesla? Of course, you have better places, but with regard to the core of the car, it was the engine. Now it seems that this is the battery. “