Dive Brief:

• Battery maker Lyten plans to acquire Cuberg’s lithium-metal battery manufacturing facility in San Leandro, California, to expand its lithium-sulfur battery production, according to a Nov. 13 company press release.
• Lyten plans to invest up to $20 million in the facility next year to convert the facility to produce lithium-sulfur batteries, purchase additional equipment and expand production capacity to 200 megawatt hours per year.
• The deal, intended to close by early December, aligns with Lyten’s goal to accelerate U.S. lithium-sulfur battery manufacturing, according to the release. Terms of the deal were not made public, according to Lyten Chief Sustainability Officer Keith Norman. 

Dive Insight:

The acquisition by Lyten supports the company’s growing customer demand for defense, drone, micromobility and other energy storage applications, according to the release. It also assists the Department of Defense in meeting domestic battery sourcing requirements under the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024.

In 2022, Lyten received a multi-million dollar award from the DOD’s National Security Innovation Capital program to expand its battery prototype manufacturing.

Lyten’s expansion from the Cuberg facility will add more than 100 manufacturing employees in the Bay Area, Norman said in an email. Cuberg’s 119,000-square-foot facility includes manufacturing, office and warehouse space and is located 30 minutes from Lyten’s San Jose headquarters. The current capacity at Lyten’s San Jose pilot line is two to three megawatts per year.

Cuberg’s parent company, Sweden-based battery manufacturer Northvolt, closed its San Leandro research and development facility in October, moving it to the company’s R&D campus in northern Sweden. The decision came after Northvolt filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week amid production problems, the loss of BMW as a major customer and a lack of funding.

Lyten’s manufacturing expansion follows its October announcement of plans to build a 10 GWh lithium-sulfur gigafactory in Nevada, with the first phase expected to come online in 2027.

The battery maker aims to scale lithium-sulfur production in the future, including making more acquisitions of lithium-ion assets. The company’s investors include Stellantis, FedEx and Honeywell, according to the release.

Lyten's lithium-sulfur batteries are lighter, have high energy density and a reduced reliance on scarce minerals compared to lithium-ion, making them cost-effective and NDAA-compliant, the release stated.

“Our customer pipeline has grown nine-fold since the start of 2024 and now numbers in the hundreds of potential customers. We are now working to allocate capacity from both San Leandro and our previously announced Reno gigafactory,” Lyten CEO and co-founder Dan Cook said in the release.