Lyten launches San Jose pilot production for cutting-edge batteries

SAN JOSE — The startup Lyten said Wednesday it has launched a pilot production line for lithium-sulfur batteries in San Jose, an endeavor it hopes will revolutionize the battery sector and usher in new kinds of Silicon Valley innovations.

The San Jose-based company believes its batteries can provide a lightweight, low-cost, green and energy-efficient choice for an array of industries, including electric vehicles, electric aircraft and mobile devices.

Lyten said Wednesday that its work in lithium-sulfur batteries could result in less expensive electric and mobile products — that are also homegrown in Silicon Valley.

The company’s pilot production line is located at its North San Jose campus at 145 Baytech Parkway.

These kinds of batteries could be produced wholly in the United States and not have to be shipped from suppliers based in Asia, in the view of Dan Cook, Lyten’s chief executive officer and co-founder. Lyten is poised to sharply slash battery costs, Cook said in an interview Wednesday with this news organization.

“We think this is a battery for the masses,” Cook said. “We believe we can produce sulfur-lithium batteries at half the cost of offshore batteries.”

Lyten’s production and delivery effort isn’t a far-off dream. The plant has been producing the lithium-sulfur batteries for a few weeks and they are slated to land on customer’s doorsteps over the next several months.

“The lithium-sulfur pilot line will begin delivering commercial battery cells in 2023 to early adopting customers within the defense, automotive, logistics, and satellite sectors,” the company said Wednesday.

The company provided tours of the battery research, development and production center at its campus in North San Jose’s Alviso district as part of a ribbon-cutting event on Wednesday.

“Lyten represents the opportunity for a whole new era of innovation based on our roots in Silicon Valley, in hardware, in real basic science, in changing the physics and chemistry to create whole new applications and technologies,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said during the event. “I’ve been making the case about why San Jose is going to lead our region of the pandemic and into a new era.”

The company has landed both private and federal government investments to spur the creation of lithium-sulfur battery technologies.

“For many people, Silicon Valley has been reduced to only software, but that’s not the case,” said Gen. Steven “Bucky” Butow, director of the space portfolio with the Defense Innovation Unit of the federal Defense Department. “But Silicon Valley produces a lot of hardware that can be disruptive. Lyten is one of those companies that can disrupt an industry.”

Lyten is producing about 100 batteries a day on the San Jose pilot production line, and expects to ramp up dramatically.

“Lithium-sulfur is the battery chemistry that has the potential to electrify everything,” said Celina Mikolajczak, Lyten’s chief battery technology officer.

Batteries are typically the lithium-ion variety, but Lyten believes it has crafted an improved solution by using lithium-sulfur batteries.

“Lyten batteries will be safer in vehicles than conventional lithium-ion batteries because lithium-sulfur does not contain oxygen from metallic oxides, which is what drives thermal runaway events that have plagued many electric vehicles,” the company states in a post on its website.

However, sulfur-based batteries can corrode more quickly than lithium-ion batteries and might not last as long as conventional cells.

The company’s efforts in San Jose have helped it launch and remain in a brisk hiring mode in San Jose.

At present, Lyten has about 250 employees in the city, company executives estimated. That’s double the number of workers that Lyten employed in 2022. And the year-ago number of 125 is roughly double the 2021 total.

“The future is very bright because of the kind of innovation and entrepreneurship that Lyten represents,” Mahan said. “We are already talking to Dan (Cook, the Lyten CEO) and his team about how we facilitate the entire ecosystem here around what you are doing.”

In addition to batteries and advanced materials, Lyten believes that its graphene products can also be used to improve the performance of sensors. Graphene greatly improves the sensitivity of next-generation sensor arrays that could be used in the industrial, health and safety sectors.

“Having our ribbon-cutting today signifies that pivot point for us to deliver this technology to the marketplace,” Cook said. “We’d like to think, as I discussed with the mayor, that perhaps this is the birth of ‘Graphene Valley’ and San Jose is the place where that starts.”