Meet the Battery Startup Taking on China’s Giants

The field of lithium batteries is currently dominated by Chinese companies like BYD and CATL. Not only do they sell the majority of batteries that go into electric vehicles and energy storage projects worldwide, they’re also opening up new factories in your backyard. When companies outside China try to compete, like Europe’s Northvolt, they quickly realize how hard it is.

But there’s still hope for China’s rivals. If another company can crack the next generation of battery technology, it may still be able to take the lead. And the battery industry already has a consensus on what that technology might be: solid-state batteries.

Today, almost all batteries have liquid electrolytes that carry ions between the positive and negative sides. But the liquid can spill, vaporize, and even catch fire. So for decades, scientists have tried to replace it with a solid electrolyte that could make batteries safer, more powerful, and more resilient to cold temperatures.

Solid-state batteries have been created in labs, but they are expensive and difficult to manufacture at scale. Many companies are trying to find the right chemical composition that will make this technology commercially viable. That’s also the goal of Vincent Yang, founder and CEO of ProLogium, a Taiwanese company that claims it will start mass-producing solid-state batteries as soon as 2027.

I recently met Yang in New York City. (Despite having the same last name, there’s no relation.) With a doctor’s degree in material science and over 20 years of experience researching and making batteries, he’s seen it all. “I’ve made almost every kind of battery. You can call me a living fossil for some of the older technologies,” he says.

Until recently, ProLogium was one of the smaller players in the battery space. Then, at the start of this year, the company introduced its fourth-generation solid-state battery product that it claims will be cheap and easy to mass-produce. Now, ProLogium is expanding rapidly: In February, it broke ground on a gigafactory in Dunkirk, France, after receiving a €1.5 billion local government grant to produce solid-state batteries in Europe. In May, ProLogium announced a merger with TDAC, an American blank check company, to go public on the Nasdaq at a $3.8 billion valuation.

ProLogium’s solid-state battery cells.

Courtesy of Prologium

For researchers of solid-state batteries, the current moment feels ripe with opportunity. Sure, Chinese companies like CATL are also investing in solid-state battery research, and they have the benefit of having more resources and more clients. But the fact that solid-state batteries use very different materials and production methods means there’s a new playing field where upstarts have a chance to beat the establishment players. “We are racing with the greatest people in the world. But even for the largest companies in the world, this remains a technical challenge that’s difficult to solve,” Yang says. The competition provides pressure, but also an adrenaline rush.