Dive brief:
- Battery maker Lyten will build a $1 billion lithium-sulfur battery factory near Reno, Nevada, according to a company press release Tuesday morning.
- At full capacity, the facility will produce up to 10 gigawatt hours of lithium-sulfur batteries annually. The plant will manufacture lithium metal cathode and anode active materials, as well as assemble lithium sulfur cells, enabling a 100% domestically manufactured battery.
- The facility will initially create 200 jobs, growing to more than 1,000 jobs at full capacity. The first phase of the facility is expected to begin shipping batteries in 2027, Keith Norman, Lyten’s director of sustainability, said in an email. The company’s plan is to gradually increase production by two GWh per year.
Diving knowledge:
turned on received a $4 million grant in January of the Department of Energy to accelerate the production of electric vehicle batteries to cope with the growth demand for domestically manufactured batteries.
The battery company has been forging partnerships with major auto and transportation companies like Stellantis, FedEx and Honeywell, which invested in Lyten’s Series B round of capital last year. In 2020, Lyten also began working with the US Space Force and the Defense Innovation Unit, according to its website.
The Nevada facility will be 1.25 million square feet and located in Reno AirLogistics Park campus, just 21.5 miles from Reno-Tahoe International Airport. The plant is added from Lyten footprint in the West: The company also operates a 3D graphene pilot-scale lithium-sulfur battery manufacturing and manufacturing facility in San Jose, California, where it is headquartered.
Lyten is working with Dermody Properties and the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority to finalize contract terms to begin construction on the factory in 2025.
The company began shipping cells from its pilot plant in San Jose for commercial customer evaluation in the second quarter of 2024, Norman said in the email.
“Since then we’ve seen a rapidly growing global pipeline that already includes hundreds of potential customers interested in a wide range of markets, including micromobility, space, defense and transportation,” Norman said. “Our major pipeline customers demand gigawatt-scale annual supply, and we are currently working to convert that demand into conditional purchase agreements that will supply them from the Nevada facility.”
The Nevada factory will produce battery cells that are fully compliant with the Inflation Reduction Act and the National Defense Appropriations Act, and will not be subject to Section 301 tariffs, the statement said.
Lyten expects $1.5 billion in 45X IRA tax credits for the Nevada facility, according to Norman.
“The current customer demand that Lyten is seeing will require additional facilities in the US beyond the Nevada facility, which is already being planned, and we expect 45X’s full support to build sulfur battery manufacturing of lithium in the United States be multiples of the initial $1.5 B,” Norman said.
To train its workforce, Lyten has partnered with local universities, including the University of Nevada-Reno and Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as Native American and Nevada tribal members.
Nevada is currently the only state where the entire lithium-ion battery life cycle exists, Bill Pellino, manufacturing industry practice leader at BDO USA, told Manufacturing Dive last year. The state is home The Tesla factory i General Motors and Lithium Americas joint $650 million investment in the Thacker Pass mine.
