The Battery Revolution Is Finally Here

“Electric vehicles are advancing at an incredible pace, but we’re very much still in the early days. The Tesla Model S and X still use battery cell formats never imagined for use in cars. A lot is about to happen in the world of automotive batteries, though. We’re entering a new chapter of electrification, with new, ground-breaking technology already hitting the market. Most people just haven’t seen it yet. The push toward the next generation of batteries has two schools of thought: advance current technology to new heights, or change gears completely into a new type of battery cell. Factorial, QuantumScape and Group14 are all companies with a horse in this race, and each has ideas about achieving the state of the art. All of them have partnerships with major automakers, which means what they’re doing today may have a big impact on the cars you’ll buy soon.” (Inside Evs)

deep tech newsletter

A weekly dispatch featuring exclusive interviews with deep tech founders & a roundup of the most important deep tech news.

CCOR-1, the world’s first operational, space-based coronagraph, began observing the sun’s corona, the faint outermost layer of the solar atmosphere, on Sept. 19. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released the first images of solar flares from the Compact Coronagraph (CCOR-1), a new telescope designed for continuous monitoring of the sun’s corona. This instrument provides data every 15 minutes, significantly improving space weather forecasts and enhancing preparedness for solar storms that can disrupt technology on Earth. As the sun nears a peak in its 11-year activity cycle, accurate monitoring becomes increasingly crucial for protecting infrastructure and communication systems.(via New York Times/NOAA/NASA/GOES-19/CCOR-1)

Boeing reportedly considers selling off its space business / Iceland’s Plan to Drill Into a Volcano to Test ‘Limitless’ Supercharged Geothermal Energy / 18-year prison sentence for man who used AI to create child abuse images / Pizza place accidentally spiked dough with THC, sickening dozens / A Million People Play This Video Wargame. So Does the Pentagon / Airships may finally prove useful for transporting cargo / Inside a fusion energy facility / AI search could break the web / Burning Man Is Desperate For Cash / The International Space Station Has Been Leaking for Five Years / Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales / MrBeast’s Faux Philanthropy / Tesla headquarters spills gallons of lime-green liquid into Bay Area street / Akon’s Cryptocurrency City in Senegal Has Evaporated / A Chopin waltz unearthed after nearly 200 years / Why Are Americans So Rich? / PhD student finds lost city in Mexico jungle by accident / Waymo does over 150k paid trips and over 1M autonomous miles every week / Cheap solar panels are changing the world / Ford to Halt F-150 Lightning Production as EV Demand Wanes / Norway’s Wealth Tax Is Backfiring. Are Americans Paying Attention? / Typing monkey would be unable to produce ‘Hamlet’ within the lifetime of the universe, study finds / Satellite imagery now identifies plastic on remote beaches / US drone maker Skydio faces battery squeeze after Chinese sanctions / The search for exomoons is on Nearly half of Americans think members of the opposing political party are ‘evil,’ poll finds / U.K. man who used AI to create child sexual abuse imagery sentenced to 18 years in prison / ForestGuard is building the ‘Internet of Trees’ to detect fires even earlier / Solideon wants to decentralize rocket manufacturing through 3D printing / Riding the wave: the future of space investing with Stoke Space COO Kelly Hennig / This veteran couldn’t share 3D scans of a burnt naval ship, so he created a startup that can