Can lithium-sulfur batteries offer cost-effective measures for EV manufacturing? US-based EV battery manufacturing startup Lyten says lithium-sulfur battery tech would dramatically bring down the cost of electric vehicles as 50% of EV price tags are attributable to hefty battery pack manufacturing costs, Bloomberg reports.

How would it work? The affordability of the tech lies in the price of sulfur, which currently hovers around USD 150 per ton in the US market, compared to over USD 33k for a ton of cobalt. The incorporation of graphene in the production of the batteries could enable the production of lighter batteries with higher energy densities compared to other contemporary chemistries, Bloomberg quotes CEO of US-based EV battery manufacturing startup Lyten as saying.

More energy, and no hassle in retrofitting factories: Lithium-sulfur has the potential to store more energy than lithium-ion batteries and can be manufactured in the same factories, paving the way to an immediate transition in manufacturing, according to a study EU Research and Innovation Magazine Horizon.

But there’s a catch: The lithium-sulfur technique has been widely linked to battery degradation that can cause cells to fail too quickly, according to research out of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. Lyten is working on using graphene in its manufacturing process to overcome battery decay. The company already has patents on the processing, design and manufacturing of 3D graphene material, Bloomberg notes.