Climate Changed
The Battery Boom Could End Up Burning Some Investors
Spending on battery start-ups has boomed to $1.5 billion in the first half of this year. Not all projects will survive.
Lithium-ion battery cells on the production line of the Eliiy Power Co. plant in Kawasaki City, Japan.
Photographer: Tomohiro OhsumiThis article is for subscribers only.
Some of the latest battery technologies may become obsolete before reaching the market because of the breakneck pace of advances in the industry.
Teams of scientists from San Francisco to Shenzhen are experimenting with new chemical processes to improve the traditional lithium-ion cell and find new ways to bottle up electricity for use at another time. Investors in those projects are starting to worry that they might have picked the wrong technology.