Brief:

Lyten in the US is to acquire a local Cuberg battery plant being sold off by Northvolt.

The deal will enable Cuberg‘s lithium metal battery plant in San Leandro to produce up to 200 MWh of lithium-sulfur batteries to meet the growing demand for defense, drones, micromobility, and other energy storage applications.Cuberg’s lithium metal battery production equipment and facilities will be redirected to lithium-sulfur battery production, adding to Lyten’s current semi-automated production in San Jose. This follows the company’s announcement in October of its first lithium-sulfur battery super plant, which will come online in 2027.

Lyten will also acquire Cuberg’s battery cell development business and invest up to $20 million in 2025 as part of an ongoing program to expand the San Leandro and San Jose plants. Commercial production in San Leandro is expected to begin in the second half of 2025.

At the same time, Northvolt has significantly scaled back its investments and lithium-ion battery manufacturing operations in Europe, having acquired Cuberg in the U.S in 2021 and integrated its technology into its development center in Sweden.

Lyten’s acquisition supports the company’s growing customer demand for defense, drones, microtransit and other energy storage applications, the press release said. It also assists the Department of Defense in meeting domestic battery procurement 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.

Norman said in an email that Lyten will add more than 100 manufacturing employees in the Bay Area with the expansion from the Cuberg facility, a 119,000-square-foot facility that includes manufacturing, office and warehouse space and is 30 minutes from Lyten’s San Jose headquarters.Lyten’s San Jose pilot line currently has a production capacity of 2 to 3 megawatts per year.

Cuberg’s parent company, Swedish battery maker Northvolt, closed its research and development facility in San Leandro in October and relocated it to the company’s R&D campus in northern Sweden. Northvolt filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week due to production problems, the loss of BMW as a major customer, and a lack of capital.

The manufacturing expansion comes on the heels of Lyten’s October announcement that it plans to build a 10 GWh lithium-sulfur super plant in Nevada, with the first phase expected to come online in 2027.

The battery maker plans to expand lithium-sulfur battery production in the future, including acquiring additional lithium-ion assets. According to the press release, the company’s investors include Stellantis, FedEx and Honeywell.

Lyten’s lithium-sulfur batteries are cost-effective and NDAA-compliant because they are lighter in weight, have higher energy density, and rely less on scarce minerals than lithium-ion batteries, according to the press release.

“Since the beginning of 2024, our customer pipeline has grown nine-fold and the number of potential customers is now in the hundreds. We are currently working to allocate capacity in San Leandro and our previously announced Renault super plant,” Lyten CEO and co-founder Dan Cook said in a press release.

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