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Mitra Chem's Mountain View, Calif. headquarters. Photo: Courtesy Mitra Chem
The Electric

The Electric: In a $350 Million Strategic Shift, Trump Backs an Iron-Based Battery Startup

By Steve LeVine · Oct 30, 2025 4:30am PDT
In a surprise challenge to China’s chokehold on the most popular type of lithium-ion batteries, the Trump administration and Japan said they will invest about $350 million in a small U.S. startup that’s developing the main component in such batteries. In a surprise challenge to China’s chokehold on the most popular type of lithium-ion batteries,...
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The Briefing

Qualcomm’s AI Hope

By Martin Peers · Oct 27, 2025 5:00pm PDT
Another day, another chip company-A deal. This time, it’s Qualcomm, best known for its mobile phone chips (such as the modem in most iPhones). What Qualcomm is not known for is selling chips for data center servers, despite its valiant attempts to do so in the past. Will this time be different? We’ll see. At least Qualcomm has a customer for its... Another day, another chip company-A deal. This time, it’s Qualcomm, best known for its mobile...
The Pelican Spray, an electric autonomous cropduster. Photo: Courtesy Pyka
The Electric

The Electric: This Startup Has Commercialized An Autonomous Electric Cropduster

By Steve LeVine · Oct 27, 2025 4:30am PDT
Michael Norcia’s passion for building aircraft started when he was a kid making model planes. After college, he worked for electric aircraft startups but never got to build anything commercial. Michael Norcia’s passion for building aircraft started when he was a kid making model planes....
Peak Energy's sodium ion battery system in Watkins, Colo. Photo: Courtesy Peak
The Electric

The Electric: The Defiant Startup That's Ignoring Lithium and Making Grid Batteries

By Steve LeVine · Oct 16, 2025 4:30am PDT
Two of Cameron Dales’ rivals went out of business this year, and skeptics say his novel battery technology is too expensive to beat conventional Chinese products. But Dales, co-founder of Colorado-based Peak Energy, is pushing ahead with grid-scale batteries that use a form of ordinary table salt as a base chemistry instead of the... Two of Cameron Dales’ rivals went out of business this year, and skeptics say his novel battery...
Wildfires triggered blackouts in successive years in California. Above, the town of Sausalito in October 2019. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty
The Electric

The Electric: Sunrun and Tesla Residential Batteries Could Help Power Data Centers

By Steve LeVine · Oct 2, 2025 4:30am PDT
At 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, California-based solar and battery provider Sunrun received an urgent email from Puerto Rico. Starting in just an hour, the U.S. territory needed a big infusion of electricity or it would have to initiate rolling blackouts across the island. At 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, California-based solar and battery provider Sunrun received an urgent...
A Mercedes-Benz team drove an EV powered with a solid state battery 750 miles on a single charge. Photo: Courtesy Mercedes-Benz.
The Electric

The Electric: The Gimmickry Around Coming Solid State Batteries

By Steve LeVine · Sep 29, 2025 4:30am PDT
For a half century, scientists have agreed that pure lithium metal—the lightest metal on the periodic table and jam-packed with energy—would be the best material for a battery. Since lithium is explosive when exposed to moisture, they have tried to make the battery using a solid-state structure, using no liquid. But no one has managed to make... For a half century, scientists have agreed that pure lithium metal—the lightest metal on the...