Eyeing Nasdaq with Ford, BMW backing, Solid Power to boost production in Thornton

LOUISVILLE — With its sights set on delivering its first test cells for all-solid-state electric vehicle batteries to the BMW Group and Ford Motor Co.(NYSE: F) by next year, Louisville-headquartered Solid State Inc. is quadrupling its production footprint with a new facility in Thornton. 

The 75,000-square-foot facility “marks a key inflection point in the company’s mission to commercialize” its battery products and allows SP to produce up to 30 metric tons of sulfide-based solid electrolyte material annually, a 25-fold increase from current capacity, the company said Tuesday. 

“In order to continue Solid Power’s progress toward production of automotive scale battery cells, the company must significantly increase production of its sulfide-based solid electrolyte materials,” SP CEO Doug Campbell said in a prepared statement. “This facility marks an important next step in Solid Power’s progression toward that goal.”

Electrolyte material produced in Thornton at the new facility east of Interstate 25 and north of East 144th Avenue will be supplied to partners such as BMW and Ford, which joined with Volta Energy Technologies LLC, a venture-capital group based in Warrenville, Illinois, to lead a $130 million Series B funding round in May, and will also be sold to unaffiliated solid-state cell producers.

Solid Power’s goal is to produce 40,000 metric tons of electrolyte material per year by 2028, enough to build 800,000 electric vehicles per year. 

The Thornton facility, expected to be fully operational next year, will also house research and development activities.

Solid Power, like fellow local EV component maker Lightning eMotors Inc., is seeking a merger with a special purpose acquisition company that will allow SP stock to be traded on the Nasdaq exchange. 

SPACs are shell companies that are listed on public exchanges and are later merged with companies looking to go public outside of the normal procedures of an initial public offering. That method of taking a private company onto an exchange soared in popularity last year, and Boulder’s SomaLogic Inc. used the method this year to go public in a deal that values it as a billion-dollar company.

Solid Power’s proposed merger with Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corp. III (Nasdaq: DCRC) values the company at $1.2 billion.

The merger, after which SP will likely trade under the ticker symbol SLDP, is expected to result in a cash injection for the company of $600 million.

The company anticipates completion of the merger by the end of 2021. 

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