US Startup Lyten (Still) Aims For A Lithium-Sulfur EV Battery

---

---

Last Updated on: 7th August 2025, 11:00 am

The high profile European energy storage firm Northvolt crashed and burned last year, and the US startup Lyten has been busily picking up the pieces. Lyten’s primary goal is to dominate the US and European markets for low-cost battery energy storage systems, but earlier today the firm also reminded everyone that it has been working on a lithium-sulfur EV battery with Stellantis.

Lithium-Sulfur Tehnology, Coming Eventually To An EV Battery Near You

Lithium-sulfur technology has been taking the long way around to the electric mobility market. However, EV battery innovators have been drawn to sulfur as a cheap, abundant material that avoids the supply chain issues nipping at the heels of conventional lithium-ion technology.

Ideally, a lithium-sulfur EV battery also weighs less and costs less than a heavier, more expensive lithium-ion counterpart. In addition, the lithium-sulfur formula can deploy existing Li-ion battery manufacturing lines on a drop-in basis, enabling battery makers to shave costs by transferring existing facilities over to the new technology.

There being no such thing as a free lunch, battery innovators like Lyten have had to address performance challenges related to both mechanical and chemical degradation, and now the clock is ticking on commercial deployment.

For Lyten, the clock started in May of 2024, when it began shipping samples of its new pouch-type EV battery to US and EU automakers. The samples were produced at Lyten’s pilot-scale facility in California.

A Lithium-Sulfur EV Battery With A Graphene Twist

The Stellantis connection surfaced on the CleanTechnica radar late last year, when the beleaguered automaker announced a new joint EV battery development deal with the Texas lithium-sulfur startup Zeta Energy. That was a bit of surprise, considering that Stellantis had already staked out a strategic investment in Lyten back in 2023. Still, the Zeta hookup indicates that the automaker aims to wrap its hands around a lithium-sulfur EV battery as soon as possible. In the case of Zeta, that means on or before 2030, which is just around the corner.

“For customers, this means potentially a significantly lighter battery pack with the same usable energy as contemporary lithium-ion batteries, enabling greater range, improved handling and enhanced performance,” Stellantis emphasized in a press statement last December.

On its part, Lyten is focused like a thousand points of light on its core technology, Lyten 3D Graphene™. “Our 3D Graphene offers unique resistive, capacitive, inductive, structural, and energy absorbing properties that can be infinitely tuned to deliver profound results,” Lyten enthuses (see lots more graphene background here).

To draw more attention to its EV battery efforts and other automotive applications for 3D Graphene, Lyten has expanded its ongoing relationship with INDYCAR Experience to launch its new Lyten Motorsports division.

“Lyten is already utilizing its 3D Graphene platform to build lithium-sulfur batteries approaching 2X the energy density of lithium-ion while eliminating 85% of the mined minerals, including elimination of nickel, cobalt, and graphite,” Lyten noted in a press release announcing the new venture in May of this year.

For now, the INDYCAR partnership is skipping over the lithium-sulfur EV battery angle to focus on 3D-printed  car parts. “Motorsports sit at the apex of materials innovation, where small improvements make the difference in speed and safety,” explained Lyten co-founder and CEO Dan Cook.

Next Steps For Lithium-Sulfur BESS: 100 Gigawatt-Hours & Counting

In today’s announcement, Lyten kept the focus on its BESS (stationary Battery Energy Storage Systems) business, only mentioning its EV battery business in the last paragraph:

Lyten currently manufactures lithium-sulfur batteries in Silicon Valley and is selling commercially into the rapidly growing drone and defense markets. Lyten is also preparing to launch its lithium-sulfur batteries onto the International Space Station in the coming months and is working closely with its investor, Stellantis, on automotive applications.

Meanwhile, Lyten has been making BESS hay out of the Northvolt bankruptcy. Since last November, Lyten has acquired Northvolt’s Cuberg battery factory in California, as well as its BESS product and IP portfolio. The company also expects to close on the acquisition of the Northvolt Dwa BESS factory in Poland later this month.

Having already snapped up several pieces of the pie, Lyten is now moving in on the rest.

In an embargoed press release emailed to CleanTechnica yesterday, Lyten stated that is moving forward with the acquisition of Northvolt’s remaining assets in Sweden and Germany, including Northvolt Ett and Ett Expansion (Skelleftea, Sweden), Northvolt Labs (Vasteras, Sweden), and Northvolt Drei (Heide, Germany).

“Additionally, Lyten is acquiring all remaining Northvolt intellectual property (IP), and multiple members of the current Northvolt executive team plan to join Lyten,” the company added.

In the press release, Lyten also described its goal of scaling up to more than 100 gigawatt-hours of BESS capacity. “In total, Lyten’s acquisition includes assets built with over $5 billion in invested capital, resulting in 16 GWh of existing battery manufacturing capacity, 15+ GWh of capacity under construction, the infrastructure and plans to scale to more than 100 GWh, and the largest and most advanced battery R&D center in Europe,” Lyten recounted.

The North American Market Is Calling

Despite the chaotic tariff environment of today — or perhaps because of it — Lyten also plans to acquire the 15 gigawatt-hour Northvolt Six factory in Quebec. The company cites strong demand in both Europe and North America from data center stakeholders among other sectors.

As for the lithium-ion EV battery of the future, keep an eye on Stellantis’s Chrysler branch, where the new Chrysler Halcyon Concept features an 800-volt lithium-sulfur EV battery from Lyten.

Under a fast-charging scenario the battery can crank up at 40 miles per minute, but Chrysler foresees the day when sitting still for a charge will be a thing of the past. The concept EV is equipped with dynamic wireless charging, enabling drivers to top off while cruising down the highway.

The day of in-motion charging is still somewhere off in the future, but not too far. Among other areas of activity, a road-embedded wireless EV charging demonstration project is already under way in Detroit.

Image (cropped): The Chrysler Halcyon concept electric vehicle features a graphene enhanced lithium-ion sulfur battery developed by the US supermaterials startup Lyten (courtesy of Chrysler).