April Round Up 2026

May 06, 2026

A short round up today of what caught our eye from the past 3 weeks of April!

CATL’s next wave

CATL hosted a Super Technology Day on 21st April in Beijing, unveiling several next generation batteries. The 3rd gen of the Shenxing battery claims to charge from 10% to 80% in 3 minutes 44 seconds, much faster than the BYD Blade 2, enabled by ultra low internal resistance.

The most exciting news from this week is that CATL has also agreed a major offtake agreement with ESS manufacturer Beijing HyperStrong Technology. It’s for 60 GWh of sodium batteries delivered over 3 years. This implies a sodium ion gigafactory running at output of 20GWh a year, which is a significant scale not yet really seen for sodium ion. LFP is currently selling at $40-60/kWh whereas sodium ion is more like $70-100/kWh, but this represents an investment in scale for the future as well as a bet on diversifying chemistries for mineral supply reasons.

All the happenings in America

Left cofounders Brenna Teigler and right Richard Wang. From his Linkedin post.

A small team in California have launched the Electrochemistry Foundry (ECF), a non-profit shared-use battery pilot manufacturing facility. Similar to the model of UKBIC in the UK, the aim is to address the ‘pilot-to-scale gap in hard tech’ without requiring significant capital up front. The facility will be ready late 2026, funded by a competitive $28 million award from the Californian Energy Commission. The team running this enterprise comes with experience from Cuberg, Northvolt, US DoE, Activate who have seen and lived the challenges the ECF aims to address.

A class action lawsuit

A class action lawsuit has been filed against SES AI alleging that it exaggerated the capabilites of its Molecular Universe platform. Investors are attempting to recoup some losses following a plunging stock price. Molecular Universe was marketed as an AI based tool capable of accelerating battery material discovery which allegedly was an AI wrapper rather than a real product. Several examples of misconduct are alleged, you can read the full details here.

🍬 Tidbits

🇨🇦 Novonix has divested all non-critical Battery Technology Solutions in a sale to its former CEO in order to focus on the development of synthetic graphite supply chain in North America.

🔋 London based asset management firm Gresham House is planning to raise a fund of roughly €1 billion to focus on BESS systems in Europe.

🍩 A criminal complaint has been filed against Donut Labs for misrepresenting the capabilities of their technology. The complaint was filed by a worker in a partner company, and it will not be a surprise to anyone who has been watching the claims that they have made a solid state battery that can meet incredible cycle life and energy density AND is ready for mass production.

♻️ UK recycling company Altilium is crowdfunding again, following a £18.5 million grant from the UK government. The two investments will be used to build their ACT3 plant in Plymouth and also a larger plant in Teesside.

🇬🇧 A gigafactory in Coventry, UK, has had planning permission granted and is readying to start construction from June 2026, with no planned occupant (yet). One to watch…

💻 New PyBaMM update for EIS released for users.

🇨🇳 A neat map showing the lines between the different Chinese auto makers.