Battery cell developer 24M opens pilot plant in Thailand

24M says it has acquired the 6,600 square metre facility in Rayong, Thailand, from its partner Nuovo+. Nuovo+ is reinvesting the 51.1 million dollars directly as an investor in the American battery cell developer. According to the partners, the plant is a “fully integrated, pilot manufacturing facility capable of producing up to 100 MWh of 24M SemiSolid battery cells.” 24M reports that it has already started pilot production at the new Thai site “for a leading India-based mobility OEM and will deliver initial validation samples this fall.”

Naoki Ota, President and CEO of 24M, describes the new facility in Rayong as an ideal platform to reveal his company’s “commercial capabilities and groundbreaking innovation” and adds: “The facility provides the scale to demonstrate the many safety, cost, range and recycling advantages of our portfolio and accelerate the commercialization of our products.”

The core innovations presented by 24M in recent months include the binder-less SemiSolid electrode, a new electrolyte for lithium metal batteries, a direct recycling process, a new type of battery separator and a battery system called ETOP, which stands for ‘Electrode-to-Pack.’ In other words, the electrodes in this system are to be integrated directly into the battery pack.

24 M requires a large capital requirement to commercialize these approaches. As the company announced, it recently concluded a further financing round (‘Series H’), totalling 87 million US dollars. The majority of this sum is attributable to the aforementioned transaction with Nuovo+.

The company acts not only as an investor and strategic partner of 24M, but also as a licence holder. 24M describes itself as a provider of cell manufacturing platforms and earns its money primarily by granting licences. It emerged from the battery manufacturer A123 in 2010 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Volkswagen acquired a 25 per cent stake in 24M at the beginning of 2022.

businesswire.com (Thailand), businesswire.com (financing round)