Interview conducted by Lexie CornerApr 9 2025In this interview, Grant Ray, Vice President of Global Market Strategy at Group14 Technologies, shares how the company’s breakthrough silicon battery technology addresses key performance challenges in energy storage and supports advancements across electric vehicles, consumer electronics, and AI applications.
Can you introduce yourself and your role at Group14 Technologies?
I’m Grant Ray, Vice President of Global Market Strategy at Group14 Technologies—the world’s leading commercial manufacturer of silicon battery technology for consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and more. I lead all of our marketing efforts across the automotive, autonomous, and deep tech sectors.
Before joining Group14, I was Chief Marketing Officer at Polysync Technologies, an autonomous vehicle tech company, and held senior marketing roles at EV pioneers like SF Motors and Alta Motors.
I’m a serial mobility marketing veteran with experience in brand definition and customer experience. This includes leading numerous public launches and guiding businesses from startups to global leaders.
For those who may not be familiar, can you tell us a bit about Group14 and your mission in the energy storage space?
Group14 is the world leader in manufacturing advanced silicon battery materials, helping to transform the future of energy storage. We’re quickly scaling our global production capacity to help meet the massive demand for energy.
Our patented silicon-carbon composite, SCC55®, helps batteries charge faster—from 0 to 80 % in less than 10 minutes—and last up to 50 % longer than traditional lithium-ion batteries.
Silicon batteries can power anything that runs on batteries, including AI-enabled smartphones, EVs, eVTOLs, and even data centers.
Group14 developed SCC55® as a next-generation silicon-carbon composite. What inspired its development, and what challenges in battery performance were you aiming to solve?
We developed SCC55® as a next-generation silicon-carbon composite to address key challenges in battery performance that are being outstripped by evolving customer demands. The two biggest pain points are the need for more energy density and faster charging, which traditional lithium-ion batteries just can’t deliver.
By combining hard carbon with silicon, which has a much higher energy capacity than graphite, SCC55® overcomes silicon’s tendency to degrade during charge and discharge cycles. The result is a material that offers radically faster charging, longer lifespan, and higher overall performance across formats including, cylindrical, prismatic, and pouch cells.
Image Credit: Group14
Group14 applies a model called Applied Innovation. How does this approach help you scale SCC55® while maintaining performance and quality across production?
Group14 was built on the idea that successful technology is only as good as the ability to produce it at scale. That’s why we created our Applied Innovation framework, which combines both product and process innovation to help us scale quickly without compromising quality.
Many companies use innovation to drive product development alone, but if your goal is to scale to meet huge global demand, process innovation becomes just as critical.
Applied Innovation is also what led us to develop our Modular Manufacturing blueprint for building flexible, plug-and-play battery active materials (BAM) factories around the world.
SCC55® is used across electric mobility, eVTOLs, AI-enabled devices, and more. What makes it so effective across such a wide range of applications?
SCC55® as a material is immensely flexible. Its capacity to increase energy density, weather significant spikes associated with charging and discharging, and act as a “drop-in” replacement for graphite makes it effective across the battery landscape. It’s compatible with several battery formats, including pouch, prismatic and cylindrical cells, and battery chemistries, like NMC, LFP, and even solid-state.
Image Credit: Naypong Studio/Shutterstock.com
Your material is described as drop-in ready. Why is that manufacturing compatibility important, and how does it help accelerate adoption?
The pressure of demand for batteries doesn’t allow the world's battery manufacturers the luxury of time or financial capital to build entirely new factories that integrate exotic materials or processes, or to shut down existing factories for retrofitting.
As such, we designed SCC55® to integrate directly into existing lithium-ion battery manufacturing processes—essentially, it can replace graphite anode powder without requiring any changes to production equipment.
The only change is the formulation of the slurry going onto the production line. This allows for a much faster and more cost-effective transition to higher-performance battery technology.
Group14 has been expanding its manufacturing footprint rapidly. Can you share an update on your BAM factories and your efforts to strengthen global battery supply chains?
Our BAM-1 factory in Washington state has been up and running since 2021, delivering SCC55® by the tonne to power millions of devices worldwide, from AI-enabled smartphones and drones to hyper-EVs and eVTOLs.
In 2024, we began shipping material from the joint venture factory with SK Inc. in South Korea, and in September, we completed shipments to over 100 EV and consumer electronics battery manufacturing customers worldwide.
The JV factory is located near the world’s leading battery manufacturers, allowing us to speed up the adoption of silicon batteries across the Asian market.
Our BAM-2 factory, also in Washington state, is on track to begin production shortly. Set to be the largest of its kind globally, BAM-2 will have an initial capacity of 2,000 tons of SCC55® annually—enough to power hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles and millions of AI devices.
Looking ahead, what’s next for Group14 as you continue to scale and support demand across the battery industry?
The growing accessibility of silicon batteries will drive innovation—from wearable technologies to decarbonized transportation in the sky—allowing engineers and innovators to create entirely new ways of life.
For example, AI's rampant energy demands are crippling data centers, with energy demand expected to triple over the next three years. Silicon batteries can help stabilize data center power supplies and address AI’s energy spikes by enabling exponentially faster charging and discharging compared to the lead-acid batteries still in use.
As edge computing continues to grow and AI moves to the edge, silicon batteries will be key to powering the sector’s rapid growth.
About Grant Ray 
Grant Ray is the Vice President of Global Market Strategy at Group14 Technologies and a longtime marketing leader in mobility, EVs, and deep tech.
His career includes senior roles at Polysync Technologies, SF Motors, and Alta Motors.
Where can readers find more information?
Check out our website at www.group14.technology, or find us on LinkedIn, where we share regular company updates, including a monthly newsletter.
Company resources:
- About Us: Learn more about the company's mission, vision, and leadership.
- Our Technology: Understand our transformative silicon battery technology, SCC55®.
Press Releases:
Blogs:
News Articles:
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