Dyson is investing $18 million CAD ($15 million USD) into Michigan-based solid-state battery leader, Sakti3. Following Dyson’s announcement last year of a $2.6 billion CAD ($2.3 billion USD) investment into future technologies, the partnership with Sakti3 will help to propel Dyson’s ambitious plans – 100 new machines in four new portfolios of technology over the next four years. Dyson’s move is part of an investment round of $24 million CAD ($20 million USD) that includes a joint development agreement to commercialize Sakti3’s solid state technology, integrating it into future Dyson machines.
“Sakti3 has achieved leaps in performance which current battery technology simply can’t. It’s these fundamental technologies – batteries, motors – that allow machines to work properly. The Sakti3 team has amazing ambitions, and their platform offers the potential for exponential performance gains that will supercharge the Dyson machines we know today.”
Improving the battery
Current Lithium-ion (Li-ion) technology was first released commercially by Sony in 1991 and iterations of it feature in nearly every consumer electronic good: from smartphones to Dyson’s range of cordless vacuums. But it is thwarted by limitations in size, weight, charge time, capacity and degradation.
Sakti3 is positioned to change that. In 2006, CEO Ann Marie Sastry and her colleagues started running mathematical optimization schemes to explore how to make car batteries more efficient. Their research led them away from the liquid electrolyte found in conventional lithium-ion batteries, and towards solid state batteries. Since that time, the company has built and commissioned a pilot line to produce its technology, raising over $60 million CAD ($50 million USD) in equity investments from Khosla Ventures, Beringea, Itochu and General Motors, in addition to Dyson.
Dyson relies on battery technology for its line of handheld vacuums as well as its new 360 Eye robot vacuum.