Tesla may have quietly acquired lithium-ion battery startup SilLion

According to foreign media reports, active members of the Tesla community have recently observed that the automaker may have acquired a lithium-ion battery startup headquartered in Louisville, Colorado. If the above speculation is confirmed, Tesla is likely to further expand its leading position in the electric vehicle market.

(Image source: Tesla)

It’s no secret that Tesla has been improving its batteries. The company has expressed its desire to start producing its own battery cells, even if that requires it to get involved in mining. Interestingly, Tesla is currently hiring for a “battery cell technician” in Louisville, Colorado, a job that requires knowledge of electrode coating and battery assembly, suggesting that Tesla may be researching battery innovation and battery cell production.

Tesla retail investor Galileo Russell of YouTube  channel Hyperchange observed that Louisville, Colorado happens to be a hotbed for a new generation of battery startups, several of which are working on lithium-ion technology. Battery startups such as Forge Nano have also received investments from automakers such as Volkswagen, and one of them, called SilLion Inc., may be the best fit for Tesla.

SilLion is a small company that specializes in developing high-load silicon anode and electrode technology for commercial cylindrical batteries. The company has made a technological breakthrough in high-energy batteries by using high-load silicon anodes, nickel-rich NMC cathodes and non-flammable ionic liquid electrolytes, which can make batteries more energy dense, safer and cheaper to produce. Tesla happens to be one of the few automakers using cylindrical batteries.

Unlike other battery startups in Louisville, SilLion has shut down its official website. Now, some of the company's employees, such as research scientist Simon Hafner , list Tesla as their employer on their LinkedIn pages. SilLion co-founders Daniela Molina Piper and Tyler Evans have also expressed interest in Tesla on the professional social platform. Taken together, one might speculate that Tesla has acquired (perhaps recruited) SilLion and that Tesla may be looking into applying the startup's technology to its next-generation batteries.

Tesla is no stranger to acquiring smaller companies to improve its innovation capabilities. Last year, Tesla adopted the same strategy when it acquired DeepScale. DeepScale is a particularly small company with only about 40 employees, but it is developing a technology that allows deep neural networks to work on smaller devices. For example, the company's product Carver21 is specifically designed to optimize the processing of data from the front cameras of fully autonomous vehicles. This type of innovation is very valuable to Tesla, especially as Tesla is working on achieving fully autonomous driving.

Whether or not Tesla actually acquires SilLion remains to be seen, but it’s hard to see why the technology developed by the battery startup wouldn’t be beneficial to Tesla. But the answer may finally be revealed soon, as Tesla is about to hold its much-anticipated Battery Day conference.