In a blow to the battery-powered aspirations of electric aviation start-ups, California Bay Area high-performance battery maker Cuberg has ceased operations as parent company Northvolt has decided to centralise research and development in Sweden.
Cuberg’s demise follows the shutdown of other cleaner-propulsion aerospace start-ups in recent months, highlighting the difficulty of weaning the sector off fossil fuel.
Northvolt confirmed the decision on 20 August, saying it now plans to shift development of lithium-metal battery technology to Vasteras, Sweden.
”The transfer reflects a strategic move to consolidate the R&D and industrialisation of Northvolt’s cell product portfolio — featuring lithium-ion, sodium-ion and lithium-metal — into one location, where future development of the technologies benefits from a platform of expertise and capabilities that is unmatched in the western world,” Northvolt says.
Cuberg founder and former chief executive Richard Wang, who led the start-up for nine years before departing in February, called the consolidation “a very sad day for me… and the battery industry at large”, in a 20 August social media post.
“There are now roughly 200 of the most respected and capable engineers and managers in the battery industry looking for new opportunities,” he says.
Acquired by Northvolt in 2021, Cuberg had been developing lithium-metal batteries for high-performance aviation and automotive applications.
The company was considered a leading potential battery supplier for the budding electric air taxi and regional air mobility sectors, which are betting on rapid advancement of battery technology to achieve their highest potential.
Shauna McIntyre, Cuberg’s most-recent CEO, told FlightGlobal at management consultancy McKinsey & Company’s early-April Regional Air Mobility Summit in San Francisco that the higher energy density and greater range provided by lithium metal batteries could be critical for short-haul electric flights.
“With the aircraft that are proof-of-concepts today – eVTOL, eCTOL, hybrid-electric – you can get away with using lithium ion,” she said. ”Aircraft makers don’t really have a choice because that is what’s available right now.
“You can get off the ground with that technology,” she continued. “But to enable the business case, you’re going to need lithium metal to reduce a substantial amount of the mass.”
Northvolt says that former Cuberg employees have been encouraged to apply for open positions at Northvolt Labs in Vasteras and Northvolt North America in Montreal.
A leading battery manufacturer, Northvolt is currently building ”gigafactories” in Europe and plans to do the same in North America.
Numerous clean-energy aviation start-ups got off the ground in recent years amid a rush of easy money, promising to help revolutionise the industry. Many are still raising cash and continuing development, but several of the firms have failed.
For instance, Universal Hydrogen, a high-profile firm working to develop a hydrogen-fuel ecosystem for aviation, folded in June. Another, United Airlines-backed Fulcom BioEnergy, has apparently shut down, according to reports. Fulcrum had been working to produce sustainable aviation fuel from municipal waste.
Cuberg had planned to support the second wave of electric aircraft commercialisation, presumably after fast-moving companies such as Archer Aviation and Joby Aviation execute plans to bring their electric air taxis to market as soon as next year.
In September 2023, Cuberg disclosed a partnership with Safran Electrical & Power to ”jointly develop an aviation energy-storage system for future full-electric and hybrid aircraft”, the companies said at the time.
