That’s the goal of on-going work in San Jose. It is using lithium sulfur and a 3D grapheme that it has developed.

By Gary S. Vasilash

One of the more interesting aspects of the on-going transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is that there are all manner of companies that are pursuing the technology, not only companies like Foxconn, more ordinarily associated with making things like iPhones rather than EVs, but a growing number of companies whose names are new, typically companies based in Silicon Valley who are busy developing things ranging from control software to batteries.

One such company is Lyten, which is based in San Jose, not exactly a place associated with motor vehicles (although the Tesla plant in Fremont is close, and there used to be a Ford assembly plant in San Jose, although it closed in 1983 and eventually became a shopping mall).

One of the cofounders of Lyten is Dan Cook, currently the company’s CEO. Cook began his career working at GM but has spent the better part of it in the tech space in northern California.

As he describes his professional point of view, “I’m half auto, half tech.”

Which is a good thing for someone who is working for a company that is undoubtedly hoping to become a supplier to a vehicle manufacturer.

Lyten is developing batteries.

The batteries it is working on are based on three-dimensional graphene and use a lithium-sulfur chemistry rather than the currently conventional lithium nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) chemistry.

Cook, on this edition of “Autoline After Hours,” explains why the three dimensional grapheme is important to the batteries and the benefits of using sulfur rather than NMC for batteries. Among the benefits are energy density, which means long range, and another is that the materials used can be domestically sourced, which is advantageous as regards the supply chains that we are so now very aware of.

As for the chemistry part of it, let’s just say that you should want the show because Cook provides a better description of it than any summary here could.

Cook talks with “Autoline’s” John McElroy, Christie Schweinsberg of Ward’s Intelligence, Dave Tuttle of the University of Texas Energy Institute, and me.

And you can watch it here.