Dive Brief:
- Battery maker Lyten will build a $1 billion lithium-sulfur battery factory near Reno, Nevada, according to a company press release Tuesday morning.
- At full capacity, the facility will produce up to 10 gigawatt hours of lithium-sulfur batteries annually. The plant will make cathode active materials and lithium metal anodes, as well as assemble lithium-sulfur cells, enabling a 100% domestically manufactured battery.
- The facility will initially create 200 jobs, growing to more than 1,000 jobs at full capacity. The facility's first phase is expected to start shipping batteries in 2027, Lyten Chief Sustainability Officer Keith Norman said in an email. The company’s plan is to gradually ramp up production by two GWh per year.
Dive Insight:
Lyten received a $4 million grant in January from the Department of Energy to accelerate electric vehicle battery production to meet growing demand for domestically-made batteries.
The battery company has been forging partnerships with major auto and transportation companies such as Stellantis, FedEx and Honeywell, which invested in Lyten’s series B equity round last year. In 2020, Lyten also started working with the U.S. Space Force and the Defense Innovation Unit, according to its website.
The Nevada facility will span 1.25 million square feet and be located in the Reno AirLogistics Park campus, just 13.5 miles from Reno-Tahoe International Airport. The plant adds to Lyten’s footprint across the West — the company also operates a 3D graphene fabrication and pilot-scale lithium-sulfur battery manufacturing facility in San Jose, California, where its headquarters are located.
Lyten is working with Dermody Properties and the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority to finalize contractual terms to break ground on the factory in 2025.
The company began shipping cells from its pilot San Jose plant for commercial evaluation by customers in Q2 2024, Norman said in the email.
“Since that time we have seen a rapidly growing global pipeline that already includes hundreds of interested potential customers across a wide range of markets, including micromobility, space, defense, and transportation,” Norman said. “The leading customers in our pipeline are requesting gigawatt scale annual supply, and we are currently working to convert that demand into conditional offtake agreements to be supplied by the Nevada facility.”
The Nevada factory will produce battery cells that are fully compliant with the Inflation Reduction Act and the National Defense Appropriations Act, and will not be subject to Section 301 tariffs, the release stated.
Lyten expects $1.5 billion in IRA 45X tax credits for the Nevada facility, according to Norman.
"The current customer demand Lyten is seeing will require additional facilities in the US beyond the Nevada facility, which are already being planned, and we expect the full support from 45X for building U.S. battery manufacturing of lithium-sulfur to be multiples of the initial $1.5B," Norman said.
For training its workforce, Lyten is partnering with local universities, including the University of Nevada-Reno and Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as the Nevada Native American and Tribal members.
Nevada is currently the only state where the entire lithium-ion battery lifecycle exists, Bill Pellino, manufacturing industry practice leader at BDO USA, told Manufacturing Dive last year. The state is home to Tesla’s factory and General Motors and Lithium Americas joint $650 million investment in the Thacker Pass mine.
