27: Building a Better Battery (in America) with Deeana Ijaz, Our Next Energy

Our Next Energy (ONE) is developing LFP battery cells in Michigan. If you're an EV nerd, you know how big of a deal that is. These kinds of chemistries are what are going to enable durable, long lasting, and most importantly, affordable EVs and China already specializes in them and currently basically chokes the world's supply, not just in terms of minerals, but also IP know-how and manufacturing for this super valuable battery chemistry.

But ONE came to the market at a time a few years ago with a promise to make a hybrid battery, called Gemini, utilizing some LFP and an anode-free manganese-rich chemistry to give you the best of all worlds—performance and long range. They demonstrated this in a BMW iX chassis showing that vehicle to double its factory range at the time.

The Gemini battery never came to market in production cars.  However, ONE has been toiling away quietly—working on continuing LFP chemistries for not only the automotive industry, but also battery energy storage systems, which are crucially important in the age of AI and data center where we can't make our grid resilient quickly enough.

Max speaks with the Chief Strategist at One, Deeana Ijaz. , She's the daughter of the founder and CEO Mijeeb Ijaz. Deanna  come from a neuroscience and public health policy background but is leading the charge at ONE in turbulent times for the automotive industry to survive and thrive.

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