What Happened
Honda said the joint venture will focus on making safe, durable, and higher capacity batteries with lithium-metal anode that are expected to deliver higher energy density than the lithium-ion batteries, which usually use carbon-based materials for the anode.Honda last year said it aims to increase the ratio of electric vehicles to 40 percent of overall sales by 2030, to 80 precent by 2035, and to 100 percent by 2040.
Honda plans to pick about 2 percent of the shares in the Boston-based electric vehicle battery startup, which is set to go public by merging with Ivanhoe Capital Acquisition in a deal that could value the combined company at about $3.6 billion.
Why It Matters
Battery development is key towards mass adoption and legacy automakers such as General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Tesla Inc. are rushing to for their own partnerships for either development or securing the raw materials.Auto OEMs and battery companies are exploring various options including the silicon anodes, solid state, stationary storage, lithium phosphates, and other techs to develop and launch batteries with higher energy densities and lower costs.
Partnerships worth billions of dollars have already been announced including GM’s partnership with Ultium, Ford with South Korea’s SK Innovation. Elon Musk-led Tesla has multi-company partnership just like others, including a long-term agreement with China’s CATL, also the world’s largest battery maker.
