The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World

by Steve LeVine

  It was a brave, clever, and altogether unpredictable maneuver. Musk, a doyen of Silicon Valley with a bachelor’s degree in physics, was thumbing his nose at scientists: his senior team seemed old school, with a former Toyota executive in charge of manufacturing and a Mazda man as chief designer; only JB Straubel, his chief technical officer, was a standard product of Silicon Valley, with a master’s degree from Stanford and a string of technology jobs. And though they invented no new battery materials, their cars were unlike anyone else’s. They were propelled by “18650s,” cylindrical nickel-cobalt-aluminum batteries with the same general appearance as AAs made for cameras, only larger. The batteries were acquired from Panasonic, some eight thousand in each car. They added about 1,300 pounds of weight to the vehicles but, mounted in the floorboard, they contributed great stability. Using the 18650s meant exchanging development risk and cost for engineering risk: though Musk’s team didn’t have to struggle with physics and invent the better battery, they did have to design a battery pack that delivered increasing efficiencies until a model could be sold for roughly $30,000, Musk’s goal for a mass-market electric by the end of the decade. As of now, Teslas sold for double and triple that sum, depending on the model.

  For the very reason that his cars did not require a laboratory breakthrough, Musk captured the rapt attention of big incumbents. Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, and Daimler variously bought shares of Tesla and signed deals to acquire its power trains and batteries. It was powerful validation.

  Musk said he was not worried by NMC 2.0. Kumar had said he was speaking to Tesla, but Musk remarked, “There are a lot of claims made by battery people.” His team had selected nickel-cobalt-aluminum based on price—it was the cheapest calculated by kilowatt-hour, he said. If he were leading the development of the Chevy Volt, Musk said, he would immediately discard the NMC and switch to his own material.

  The Argonne guys disputed the wisdom of Musk’s choice—Gallagher said that nickel-cobalt-aluminum, while having impressive energy density, was also among the most volatile of the main lithium-ion chemistries. It easily caught fire. Musk was courting trouble by putting it in the Tesla.

  At ARPA-E, Kumar had unveiled a battery that produced 400 watt-hours per kilogram of energy density. But he would need to seriously improve its cycling performance to make it usable in an electric car—the battery would need to be capable of being charged and discharged 1,000 times. One major hurdle was voltage fade. Thus far, like Musk, he was relying on an engineering solution to stabilize the fade—he was keeping voltage under 4.5 so as not to trigger full-blown fade. You could use the resulting NMC in a working battery. But performance would be much better if it could be reliably activated at 4.6 or more volts—if Envia could deliver NMC 2.0. The start-up could spark a titanic jump if it truly got to the bottom of voltage fade.

  Kumar wanted to act fast. It was time to shift from engineering solutions to the deep science. He needed someone familiar with state-of-the-art nanoscale beam-line instruments, technology available only at the national labs. Only such an expert could conceivably deliver those results.

  Kumar invited Jason Croy to pay a return visit to Newark.

  38

  “So What Is Wrong with Me?”

  Although his nameplate remained on the corner office in the Battery Department, Chamberlain had his family photographs and other personal belongings removed to the War Room. He would now work full-time on the Hub, so a replacement would have to be found for him in the department. The shift coincided with a perceptible change of sentiment among the battery guys. In prior decades—as long as anyone remembered, anyway—every head of the Battery Department had come from outside. Since Elton Cairns in the 1960s, no one had ever been elevated to the top post from within. In fact, said Jack Vaughey, there had been no promotion of any kind—apart from postdoctoral assistants hired as full-time staff—in some three decades. Now Tony Burrell, a recruit from Los Alamos National Laboratory, had been hired as interim successor to Chamberlain, and several of the battery guys were unhappy. “So what is wrong with me?” was how one of them put it.

  Neither Thackeray nor Amine coveted the wholly administrative post, but they, too, bristled at Burrell’s elevation. Unlike Chamberlain, who confined himself to activities like licensing their inventions, Burrell pushed into the science. Both battery geniuses griped when Burrell—not himself a battery guy—took charge of the department’s lithium-air research effort. Amine expected to run lithium-air, especially since he had attracted considerable funding from Dow Chemical for part of the work. Thackeray said that you simply did not appoint a non–battery guy to a supervisory role over something as serious as lithium-air. Amine was still more piqued when Burrell took command of the voltage fade team as well. Sitting straight across the table from Burrell in a big departmental meeting, Amine said the job should go to Chris Johnson. He said Johnson’s knowledge of NMC surpassed almost anyone else’s. Burrell was like a potted plant—Amine did not so much as glance at him. The rebuke not only of Burrell but also of upper management’s prerogative to select group leaders fit Amine’s personal style. Its bluntness stood out.

  • • •

  Burrell’s multiple appointments irritated Amine, but the main rub was stature and respect. In a series of private meetings, Amine asked Chamberlain to consider his achievements: at the age of forty-nine, he was a 709, the second most senior rank in the national labs. He should be a 710, what was known as a “distinguished fellow,” he said. Each large unit at Argonne was apportioned one 710 slot or occasionally two—there were two in Building 205—but no more. There were a total of just ten 710s or so for the lab as a whole. This pinnacle was the crowning achievement of a long career, the recipients typically closing in on retirement, in their late fifties or early sixties, such as Thackeray, who himself was a 710. But Amine said he should not have to wait—he had won numerous awards, published “tons of papers,” been granted some 120 patents, and was recognized internationally. He was as good as Thackeray. “You know, listen. I’ve been very patient,” he said. “You can talk to the upper guys. I’d like it to come from you so they know that you are supporting me and playing your role.” The unspoken threat hung in the air—if Chamberlain would not argue his case, he would go over his head and “make things happen.” Amine had a record of doing so.

  A few years earlier, Amine had approached Chamberlain’s predecessor, Gary Henriksen. “Gary, it’s been four years since I’ve been a 708,” he had said; it is time for promotion. But Henriksen had refused to recommend him; it was not out of disrespect for his work. It was that for two years Henriksen had been pushing the promotion of another senior lab researcher, a man older than Amine who Henriksen felt deserved the bump-up first. Stacked up against Amine’s application, which is how the lab management might handle two such simultaneous recommendations, the other man would stand “no chance” of promotion; Amine would overshadow him. The fair thing was to allow the other researcher to go first, then look at Amine’s case. Amine insisted.

  “What an ingrate,” Henriksen had replied, and rejected Amine again.

  Amine went to the director of the chemical division. “You promote me,” he said, “or I’ll resign. You make your decision. I need to know within a week.” The next day, the phone rang. “Get your papers in order. We will move them forward.” Both men were promoted.

  Not long after the blowup over Burrell, Amine was dining on sushi when his cell phone began to vibrate. “Oh, hi, Jeff,” he said, excusing himself.

  “You got your promotion,” Chamberlain said. Chamberlain was not going to let the situation boil over as before. He had presented Amine’s unusual request up the ranks and won approval.

  Amine returned to the table, a broad smile on his face. He said, “Jeff is a great guy. He’s a guy who recognizes—I think we are very fortunate to have him.”

  Later, Emilio Bunel, the division chief and Chamberlain’s direct boss, summoned a Battery Dep
artment meeting. He had an announcement: Jack Vaughey was herewith promoted to group leader. If the stars were publicly grumbling, Bunel and Chamberlain wondered who was next. The department employed some sixty researchers but had the same management structure—a director and Amine and Thackeray as group leaders—as when it numbered only a half dozen. Contentment did not seem possible when people remained in exactly the same jobs for their entire career. Vaughey would now be in charge of his own group of battery researchers.

  Once the shock wore off, the move seemed to lift the pall. Amine’s promotion was not yet public knowledge, but the announcement about Vaughey was enough to create a titter in the department. Some toted up a private list of others deserving a bump, including themselves. None complained not to be first because Vaughey, a fifteen-year department veteran, was so diffident and affable.

  Vaughey seemed grateful but said his life was unchanged. He did not receive a raise because Argonne salaries had been frozen along with those of all federal employees for a couple of years. He would carry out precisely the same work, which was the continued attempt to make a pure lithium metal anode that did not catch fire. If he succeeded, it would be a colossal achievement, one larger than a solution to voltage fade. It would bring more recognition than any conceivable promotion. Still, Vaughey said such a move—someone’s elevation—was overdue.

  Jason was unmoved by Vaughey’s promotion. More than halfway through a three-year postdoctoral assistantship, he had a personally pressing matter. If the lab did not intend to promote him as well—with a staff position—he had to start looking outside. He was almost a decade older than many of the postdocs and had his two children to think about.

  Thackeray said that Croy merited promotion but that there was currently no opening; even if there were, he would have to compete for it. The reality was that Argonne, like most employers, could act fast if faced with losing someone valuable. But the risk had to be explicit—there had to be an actual competing offer. Croy said that while that might be true, he would not enter into a job search lightly. If he received a job offer and liked it, he would accept and leave Argonne. “I wouldn’t pull a gun and not be willing to use it,” he said. “I wouldn’t waste my time or theirs.” Thackeray said he understood.

  Croy e-mailed Kumar, which led to an appointment with Envia.

  The interview took place just a few months after Croy, Thackeray, and Kumar had exchanged views on voltage fade. His work was already familiar to the Envia team. But as they watched Croy flip through his slides, they saw that this was new stuff. Croy and Gallagher had recently obtained fresh clues from the beam line as to the nature of voltage fade. It was precisely the sort of progress that Kumar hoped to tackle at Envia. When they subsequently spoke one on one, however, Kumar did not question Croy on science. He rather spoke generally about the profession—about finding someone who would fit well in Envia. Croy could see that Kumar cared “about the company and its image. They like what they are doing and believe in it.”

  Closing out the day, Croy met with Kapadia. The CEO said that everyone Croy had met at Envia had liked him. “We are going to give you an offer,” Kapadia said. “If you want the job, you should ask for whatever will make you happy.”

  Croy was delighted. Here was an enterprise clearly on the move, managed by talented and motivated scientists with faith in themselves. Kumar’s substance had especially made an impression. He still favored a position at Argonne but was eager to hear Envia’s offer.

  Argonne reacted fast. Chamberlain—no longer leading the Battery Department but still in overall charge of energy storage at the lab—said that Croy was equivalent to Gallagher. Both were “stars.” “If we lost Jason, it would be hard on us, because his potential is great, not only in science, but to lead,” Chamberlain said. “There is always a small percentage who can lead and also have the intellect. He has both.”

  Notwithstanding his usual modesty, Croy thought the same. In the subsequent days, Thackeray asked where Croy saw himself in future years. “In Dr. Isaacs’s seat,” Croy said.

  Chamberlain said that one thing was clear for both Argonne and Envia: whoever had Croy would possess “the guy who is closest to the needed breakthrough” on voltage fade.

  A little over a month later, a two-page letter arrived from Kumar by e-mail. As a personal touch, the Envia founder left a message on Croy’s office phone. He hoped that Croy would join Envia as a “senior scientist.” Kumar threw in thirty thousand share options. In an IPO, they could be worth $500,000 or even $1 million, Kumar said, enough for a serious down payment on a decent house even in the expensive East Bay. Croy declined to disclose the financial details to Argonne but said the package was “very attractive.”

  Chamberlain fashioned a counteroffer. He knew he could not match Kumar on salary dollar for dollar, but he could come close when you considered the respective costs of living. Housing was far cheaper south of Chicago. Neither could he offer anything resembling stock options. But he knew that a big factor for Croy was the proximity to his and his wife’s families in Indiana. Lindsey Croy didn’t want to move to California. Chamberlain hoped that and the higher salary would tip Croy’s decision.

  The Argonne bureaucracy was slow to approve the proposal. A week after Kumar’s offer was in hand, Croy said, “Still waiting to hear from Argonne if you can believe that. No job, no Hub, no money. Only thing we have is voltage fade, as constant as the stars!”

  He had two days left to reply to Kumar.

  Chamberlain and Croy spoke by phone. Chamberlain said the younger man should make the best decision for his own circumstances. Envia’s offer was extremely attractive, perhaps superior financially to the one to come any day from Argonne. But, in the spirit of friendly advice, he wanted to make sure that Croy understood, in case he didn’t already, the reality of the Bay Area. “There are enormous risks going to Envia,” he said. “Look at Solyndra. It could be shuttered in two years. Silicon Valley eats people up.” He went on:

  At this point—pre-IPO—it is intoxicating. You can believe the hype because you want to. They dangle options in front of you. But there is no way to predict if Envia is a mirage. Even if you knew all the data. I am not talking Envia down—I think they have a great shot at it. But if you are outside of it entirely, you just don’t know what the truth is.

  Chamberlain was sincere. But, notwithstanding his doubts about Envia, Thackeray wondered if Chamberlain had gone too far. “Can you imagine if we convince Jason to stay and five years from now he could have been worth $5 million?” he said.

  At last, Argonne’s human resources unit e-mailed a counteroffer.

  Croy had another day to weigh the two.

  The next morning, an e-mail from Croy arrived in Chamberlain’s in-box. “I just wanted to write and officially accept,” he said. Envia’s offer was rich, but Chamberlain’s instincts were strong. The Croys had lived away long enough; Lindsey Croy refused to do so again.

  Kumar understood. Deciding between the two offers had “torn Jason apart,” Kumar said. Yet he regretted not having managed to persuade the Argonne man. Croy did as well. “I thought it would be a good thing” to go to Envia, he said.

  39

  “Throw Out the Old Paradigm”

  In July 2012, the Argonne team traveled to Washington for the Hub orals. This was the toughest part of the competition. The reviewers, consisting of battery specialists and scientists from unrelated fields, would be demanding and could be brutal.

  The Argonne guys were worried by a celebrity team from Oak Ridge Lab and the University of Texas at Austin. It was led by Ray Orbach, director of the university’s Energy Institute. Orbach had an inside track. He was a former undersecretary for science at the Department of Energy, an accomplished theoretical and experimental physicist with deep connections in the scientific community. Orbach had recruited a powerful roster, crowned by perhaps the most dangerous personality of all—John Goodeno
ugh, the eighty-nine-year-old lithium-ion battery pioneer. Chamberlain could say that Argonne’s proposal featured the most illustrious battery team on Earth, but it was a frivolous claim when competing with Goodenough, the father of modern batteries.

  Goodenough was competitive and gravely serious about the Hub. The breakthroughs to be targeted were “critical for the social fabric,” Goodenough said. “If you are going to go beyond seven billion people on the Earth, you need to feed them all.”

  On the favorable side from Argonne’s point of view was that Orbach, having signed the field’s living legend, had gone on to antagonize him. Goodenough was threatening to withdraw from the team. His gripe was that Orbach’s proposal managers were treating him like an artifact rather than the active battery man that he continued to be. “They would like me to be associated [but] in a way that they run everything,” he said. “You know, young Turks want to impose old-man honor and not power.” He laughed but was genuinely unhappy. Goodenough said, “The fact of the matter is I don’t want my name used improperly.”

  Oak Ridge’s internal dissent aside, the Argonne team couldn’t count on their rivals’ blunders. They had to focus on their performance in the orals.

  Eight-member teams were permitted in the orals room. The Argonne team would consist of five presenters from across the country—MIT’s Yet-Ming Chiang; Argonne’s Nenad Markovic, an experimental chemist from Serbia; Berkeley’s Kristin Persson, a materials specialist; and of course Crabtree and Chamberlain. That left three spaces open. Argonne’s managers put much thought into who else would lend the proposal the most gravitas; what chords had they not yet struck that might appeal to the reviewers? It was decided that Dow Chemical, an Argonne partner, would receive one of the open slots to demonstrate industry’s endorsement of the proposal. Khal Amine would take the second as a recognized battery superstar. That left one slot. Chamberlain nominated Gallagher, who would be evidence of the new generation coming up. But at the last minute, Isaacs stepped in to take the slot for himself. He wanted to show that the entire lab was behind the effort. Gallagher could travel with the team to Washington as a utility player on call outside the room. At least two decades younger than the other team members, Gallagher was thrilled merely to be present.