Watt It Takes: Creating a Battery Unicorn

<p>This week on <em>Watt It Takes</em>: How a Ukrainian immigrant quietly toiled away on a new battery chemistry and created a billion-dollar unicorn.</p><p>Powerhouse CEO Emily Kirsch sits down with Gene Berdichevsky, the CEO of Sila Nanotechnologies.</p><p>Sila is developing a new lithium-ion battery chemistry that uses silicon in place of graphite — leading to an improvement in battery density by 20 percent. This spring, Daimler led a $170 million round in Sila, valuing the startup at $1 billion.</p><p>Berdichevsky was the seventh employee at Tesla, where he developed the Roadster’s battery.</p><p>For the last eight years, Berdichevsky’s team at Sila has been working on a drop-in replacement for today’s lithium-ion batteries.</p><p>This conversation was recorded live at Powerhouse’s headquarters.&nbsp;<a href="http://powerhouse.fund/events/" target="_blank">Buy tickets</a>&nbsp;for upcoming events.</p><p><em>Support for this podcast comes from PG&amp;E.&nbsp;Did you know that 20 percent of EV drivers in the U.S. are in PG&amp;E’s service area in Northern California? PG&amp;E is helping to electrify corporate fleet vehicles. Get in touch with PG&amp;E’s EV specialists to&nbsp;</em><a href="http://pge.com/gtm" target="_blank"><em>find out how you can take your transportation fleet electric</em></a><em>.</em></p><p><em>We're also sponsored by Wunder Capital. Wunder Capital is the leading commercial solar financing company in the United States.&nbsp;</em><a href="http://wundercapital.com/financing" target="_blank"><em>Click here</em></a><em>&nbsp;to find out how Wunder Capital can help you finance your next commercial solar project.</em></p><p><em>Subscribe to&nbsp;</em><a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/podcast/the-energy-gang" target="_blank">The Energy Gang</a><em>&nbsp;podcast via&nbsp;</em><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-energy-gang/id663379413?mt=2" target="_blank"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>,&nbsp;</em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/0GT5BuD33AiPnqOzQE7YAE" target="