Porsche Consulting will design lithium-metal and solid-state battery maker Sakuu’s first 3D-printing gigafactory for commercial production – and Sakuu has now printed its 3D batteries for the first time.
February 16 update: Sakuu today announced that it’s now successfully and consistently 3D-printed fully functional batteries in custom shapes and sizes at its Silicon Valley battery pilot line facility.
It says it’s the first company of record to 3D print fully functional batteries in custom shapes and sizes with patterned openings for thermal management in a completely dry process:
Sakuu, which says it’s the “developer of the world’s first 3D printed solid-state battery,” has paired up with Porsche Consulting because it wants to tap into the automaker subsidiary’s large-scale factory design expertise.
With respect for its deep expertise in automotive plant ideation and execution, we ultimately selected Porsche Consulting due to our belief that its team exhibits mastery in designing large-scale manufacturing plants – start to finish.
Sakuu, which opened a 79,000-square-foot energy-producing pilot line facility in San Jose, California, in August 2022, says it will build gigafactories to meet its 2030 annual energy output goal of 200 GWh across its product line. It plans to break ground on two gigafactories in 2024.
The 3D-printed battery maker says sustainable design is a priority, and it also wants to figure out a way to maximize manufacturing efficiency so it can be rolled out and replicated internationally.
Sakuu’s first plant design will accommodate roll-to-roll manufacturing for its line of high-energy-density lithium-metal batteries. Roll-to-roll manufacturing is when a flexible base material known as a “substrate” is unrolled on an assembly line, and then modifying materials are layered onto that substrate one at a time with re-rolls – and that’s why it’s called “roll-to-roll.”
The battery maker also plans to build “first-of-their-kind plants” that feature Sakuu’s “Kavian” 3D printing method in order to make its Swift Print solid-state battery line.
Sakuu’s Kavian platform “can enable high-volume, automated, and cost-effective production of Swift Print battery cells – in any size or shape.” Its website states that its Swift Print lithium-metal sample cells, which have higher capacity and longer life and “can charge to 80%,” will ship this year.
Because the batteries are customizable, Sakuu can make batteries for everything from EVs to electric bikes to grid energy storage.
Gregor Harman, CEO of Porsche Consulting, North America, said of Sakuu:
Their seminal and scalable additive manufacturing approach can bring incredible innovation to major industries transitioning to new energy solutions – automotive and beyond.
Electrek’s Take
Sakuu falls into the “one to watch” category. Since they hired Porsche Consulting, it’s apparent that it’s going to prioritize the 3D printing of EV batteries.
In an August news post, Sakuu said it was aiming for “60 GWh by 2028.” It’s upped its production goal considerably since today it said that it’s now aiming for 200 GWh by 2030.
We look forward to seeing what happens next and which EV and clean energy companies it works with. My money’s on Porsche.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
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To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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The OPEC logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen in front of a computer screen displaying OPEC icons in Ankara, Turkey, on June 25, 2024.
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images
Eight oil-producing nations of the OPEC+ alliance agreed on Saturday to increase their collective crude production by 548,000 barrels per day, as they continue to unwind a set of voluntary supply cuts.
This subset of the alliance — comprising heavyweight producers Russia and Saudi Arabia, alongside Algeria, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates — met digitally earlier in the day. They had been expected to increase their output by a smaller 411,000 barrels per day.
In a statement, the OPEC Secretariat attributed the countries’ decision to raise August daily output by 548,000 barrels to “a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market fundamentals, as reflected in the low oil inventories.”
The eight producers have been implementing two sets of voluntary production cuts outside of the broader OPEC+ coalition’s formal policy.
One, totaling 1.66 million barrels per day, stays in effect until the end of next year.
Under the second strategy, the countries reduced their production by an additional 2.2 million barrels per day until the end of the first quarter.
They initially set out to boost their production by 137,000 barrels per day every month until September 2026, but only sustained that pace in April. The group then tripled the hike to 411,000 barrels per day in each of May, June, and July — and is further accelerating the pace of their increases in August.
Oil prices were briefly boosted in recent weeks by the seasonal summer spike in demand and the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, which threatened both Tehran’s supplies and raised concerns over potential disruptions of supplies transported through the key Strait of Hormuz.
At the end of the Friday session, oil futures settled at $68.30 per barrel for the September-expiration Ice Brent contract and at $66.50 per barrel for front month-August Nymex U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude.
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
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