China figured out how to sell EVs. Now it has to bury their batteries. As early electric cars age out, hundreds of thousands of used batteries are flooding the market, fueling a gray recycling economy even as Beijing and big manufacturers scramble to build a more orderly system. In August 2025, Wang Lei decided it was finally time to say goodbye to his electric vehicle. Wang, who is 39, had bought the car in 2016, when EVs still felt experimental in Beijing. It was a compact Chinese brand.

TDK, one of the main suppliers of batteries for Apple's iPhones, will this year roll out an improved version of its most advanced product to help mobile devices keep up with the rising power demands of built-in artificial intelligence. The Tokyo-based company plans to start mass production of its third-generation silicon-anode cells from late summer, CEO Noboru Saito said in an interview. Silicon batteries, which are more complex to manufacture but carry more energy than conventional ones, have already been embraced by most major Chinese phone makers, and Saito expects further growth ahead. "Our continued investment in R&D (research and development) is one of our business's strengths, and we plan to accelerate that momentum," said the 58-year-old executive, who's been with the company for over three decades.

Science: Pure science happens in both academia and industry, working on everything from chemistry to mechanical design. These breakthroughs will eventually lead to batteries that have a higher energy density or lower weight, and your car company will want to test out this new technology to see if it can extend the range of your vehicles. Prototyping: Prototyping is the key step transforming new ideas into business value. For something like a battery, potentially years of development may occur before the technology is ready for production (luckily, software like ML tends to be faster). The prototyping phase starts with extensive analysis to ensure it is feasible for the new technology to make its way into your product.

Tesla's battery research partner has released a new paper on a battery cell that could last over 1 million miles, which they say is going to be particularly useful in'robot taxis' -- something that Tesla wants to bring to market. When talking about the economics of Tesla's future fleet of robotaxis at the Tesla Autonomy Event, Tesla CEO Elon Musk emphasized that the vehicles need to be durable in order for the economics to work: The cars currently built are all designed for a million miles of operation. The drive unit is design, tested, and validated for 1 million miles of operation. But the CEO admitted that the battery packs are not built to last 1 million miles. Earlier this year, Musk said that they built Model 3 to last as long as a commercial truck, a million miles, and the battery modules should last between 300,000 miles and 500,000 miles.

Toyota Motor Corp will use artificial intelligence in new research to speed up the discovery of advanced battery materials and fuel-cell catalysts to power electric and other emission-free vehicles, the company said on Thursday. Toyota will invest around $35 million in its North American research arm, the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) and will involve collaboration with a number of U.S. academic institutions including the University of Michigan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and British material sciences company Ilika. Artificial intelligence will be used to identify new possible materials for batteries and fuel and run computer tests to narrow down the field for simulation tests by researchers. Automakers have been investing heavily in developing new batteries and fuel cells to increase the range of electric vehicles. China in particular is banking on the heavy use of electric vehicles in the future.

Spacewalking astronauts hooked up fancy new batteries Friday on the International Space Station's sprawling power grid. NASA reported that all three lithium-ion batteries were up and running, a successful start to the space agency's long-term effort to upgrade the aging solar power system. Before venturing out, Commander Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson got a hand from a robot that took care of most of the grunt work -- Dextre, a hulking machine with 11-foot arms. Peggy Whitson takes a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Friday, Jan. 6, 2016. Whitson and Commander Shane Kimbrough went spacewalking to hook up fancy new batteries on the International Space Station's sprawling power grid.