Comment by nomel
5 days ago
if you look at the history of the lithium ion battery [1], this is exactly what happened, except from a single man. none of the existing manufacturers could stomach the shift to something new, except for sony, which needed a better battery for their camcorder, eventually resulting in a nobel prize.
No company involved in lithium ion batteries just popped up out of nowhere.
Whittingham worked for ExxonMobil. Akira Yoshino worked at a joint venture of Toshiba and Asahi Kasei. And Yoshio Nishi worked at Sony.
They were all giant well-established companies.
Plus, every major battery and car company is chasing solid state battery technology as the holy grail. And lots of startups.
When I was buying lithium ion cells a few years ago for a custom off-grid battery build, CATL cells had the best reviews and testing results around.
They were founded in 2011 as a spin-off from ATL, itself founded in 1999 by a Chinese billionaire (Robin Zeng). They definitely didn't pop up out of nowhere.