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StoreDot Ltd.
Industryautomotive, electric batteries,clean technology
Founded2012; 12 years ago (2012)
FoundersDoron Myersdorf, Simon Litsyn, and Gil Rosenman
Headquarters
Herzliya
,
Israel
Key people
Doron Myersdorf (CEO), David Gilmour (executive chairman)
ProductsCurrently or previously in development:[1]
  • peptide-based displays and storage devices (2012-2019)
  • organic-compound-based 30-second charging mobile phone batteries (2014-2017)
  • germanium-based fast-charging phone and scooter batteries (2017-2020)
  • silicon-based fast-charging electric car batteries (2019-)
OwnersBP, Daimler, Samsung, TDK, VinGroup[citation needed]
Number of employees
120 (2021)
Websitestore-dot.com

StoreDot is a developer of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries for electric vehicles. It has claimed to have developed a battery for mobile phones based on organic compounds that fully charges in 30 seconds, a scooter battery based on germanium that fully charges in under five minutes, and a silicon-based electric vehicle battery that charges fast enough to add 300 miles of range in under five minutes. The claims have not been scientifically peer-reviewed.

Peer review

The company acknowledged in 2015 that its scientific claims have not been peer-reviewed.[2] A peer-reviewed publication concluded that its claimed capabilities have no basis in published, peer-reviewed literature, and predicted such batteries would not be commercialized in the coming years, saying that the company had "claimed the commercial development of a battery to be charged within 30 s in 2014, 1 min in 2015, and 5 min in 2017."[3] John Timmer could not identify any published research about the company's battery technology, and noted that its technologies "leave the realm of academic research". The sample batteries provided by the company were made with germanium; Timmer suggests germanium is being used for the prototypes and samples despite being "really expensive" because it is far easier to implement than silicon.[4]

Commercialization efforts

StoreDot was founded in 2012 by Doron Myersdorf, Simon Litsyn, and Gil Rosenman, initially developing displays and storage devices based on research by Ehud Gazit. Two years later, it claimed to have developed smartphone batteries capable of being fully charged within 30 seconds.[1][5] The company raised over 6 million dollars in an initial investment round, and by the end of 2014 had raised another 42 million dollars.[6]

The company claimed its 2014 organic-compound batteries had a lifetime of 5000 charging cycles, and its future electric vehicle batteries would be made of a fast-charging organic component and a traditional lithium-ion battery; the fast-charging component was to be fully charged in five minutes, which would have then partially charged the lithium-ion battery at a conventional rate; fully-charging the lithium-ion battery required multiple charging cycles of the fast-charging component.[7]

The company said its 30-second charging organic-compound-based battery would be commercially available by 2016. It switched to germanium-based batteries by 2017, citing graphite-free batteries and an electric vehicle battery that fully charges in five minutes. It raised another 62 million dollars by the end of 2017, expecting "millions of cars" to be equipped with its electric vehicle battery by 2020.[8][1]

It announced in 2018 that its mobile phone battery would be commercially available by 2019, and that it had plans to build a battery factory in the United States by 2022.[1] In 2019 it announced the commercialization of a 168-cell germanium-tin battery for electric scooters, and stated that its mobile phone products would be commercially available in late 2020 and the scooter battery would be commercially available in 2021. It said its electric car battery would have ten times as many cells as the scooter battery, charge fast enough to add 300 miles of range in under five minutes, and have a cooling system; it claimed that its batteries did not degrade.[9][10]

The company started developing silicon-based batteries in 2019 and ceased development of its germanium-based batteries in 2020. It claimed the germanium batteries were only developed as proof-of-concept, were only meant to be sold in small quantities, and that they were never released because they weren't sufficiently differentiated from the rest of the market. In March 2022 it said a battery capable of adding 100 miles of range in 5 minutes of charging would be available in 2024.[1]

Valuation

The company was in negotiations in March 2021 for a SPAC merger at a $3.5 billion valuation.[11] A further funding round of 70 million dollars in 2022 gave it a $1.5 billion valuation.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Sagi Cohen (March 4, 2022), "מה קרה לסטורדוט הישראלית, שהבטיחה לשנות את העולם", TheMarker
    Sagi Cohen (March 13, 2022), "This Israeli Firm Promised to Reinvent the Battery. The World Is Still Waiting", Haaretz.com
  2. ^ Leo Kelion (January 7, 2015), CES 2015: The charger that boosts battery in seconds, BBC News
  3. ^ Eftekhari A (November 2019). "Lithium Batteries for Electric Vehicles: From Economy to Research Strategy". ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. 7 (6): 5602–5613. doi:10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b01494. S2CID 104468150.
  4. ^ John Timmer (January 23, 2021), What's the technology behind a five-minute charge battery?, Ars Technica, retrieved December 21, 2021
  5. ^ Marc Zaffagni (April 10, 2014), "StoreDot: 30 secondes pour recharger la batterie d'un smartphone", Futura-sciences.com (in French), retrieved April 23, 2019
  6. ^ Inbal Orpaz (October 1, 2014), "סטורדוט הישראלית גייסה 42 מ' ד' לפיתוח סוללה לסמארטפון שנטענת ב-30 שניות", TheMarker
  7. ^ Introduction to StoreDot's flash battery – Fast Charging Technology, StoreDot, November 7, 2017, archived from the original on January 19, 2020 {{citation}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; November 23, 2020 suggested (help)
  8. ^ Eliran Rubin (September 14, 2017), "מרצדס מובילה השקעה של 60 מיליון דולר בסטורדוט הישראלית", TheMarker
  9. ^ Ackerman, Gwen (June 11, 2019), "Electric Scooter Revs Up in Five Minutes with StoreDot Battery", Bloomberg, archived from the original on January 1, 2022 {{citation}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; January 2, 2022 suggested (help)
  10. ^ Ryan Browne (June 12, 2019), "StoreDot and BP Charge an Electric Scooter in just Five Minutes", CNBC
  11. ^ Hazani, Golan (March 16, 2021), "Fast-charging battery startup StoreDot closing on $3.5 billion SPAC merger", Calcalist, retrieved March 18, 2021
  12. ^ Meir Orbach (April 19, 2022), "Volvo invests in fast-charging battery unicorn StoreDot", Calcalist
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