Evan Erickson on Energy Tech Startups
Episode description
Dr. Evan M. Erickson is the CEO of TexPower, a company commercializing cobalt-free lithium-ion battery technology that is higher in energy than other technologies without sacrifices to safety, cycle life, or compatibility with existing technologies. Evan has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working first in fuel cells, then transitioning to lithium-ion battery technology in a postdoc at Bar-Ilan University in Israel & later at the University of Texas at Austin, working for Prof. Arumugam Manthiram. Prof. Manthiram is world-renowned in the battery space, even giving the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry lecture for the invention of lithium-ion batteries for his long-time colleague Prof. John Goodenough.
Evan Explores:
- Why having cobalt-free batteries (and cathodes) is hard and important - 0:45
- How SBIR grant funding programs enabled TexPower to spin out of UT - 2:21
- Why there are only a few places in the world that can develop significant innovation in Cathode Materials - 7:45
- How the founders of TexPower managed technical, market, and funding risk to launch the company - 9:19
- How technical mastery allows for tuning the cathode materials to optimize for safety and performance - 11:48
- Why starting a business while raising a 3-year is hard, but doable with the right partners - 18:03
- How the University of Houston’s Techbridge helped TexPower accelerate its chemistry development - 21:06
- How the IRA will affect battery technology deployment in the US - 24:18
- The challenges facing public transit electrification - 30:30
- How winter freeze Uri in 2021 threw a wrench into Evan’s best grant writing plans - 35:48
- Why innovators just go for it - 41:48
Website: https://texpowerev.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-erickson/
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