DOE Selects Coreshell for $50M to Build US Silicon-Anode Battery Gigafactory

What the Award Covers

The US Department of Energy selected Coreshell Technologies for a $50 million award under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The money will expand Coreshell's manufacturing footprint in San Leandro, California, and build what the company calls the first US gigafactory dedicated to lithium-ion batteries with anodes made entirely from metallurgical silicon.

Graphite currently supplies more than 90% of the world's battery anode material, and most of it flows through China. Coreshell's technology replaces graphite entirely with domestic metallurgical silicon, which the company says offers roughly 10 times the energy density. The result should be lighter batteries with longer range.

AM Batteries will join as a subrecipient. Its Powder-to-Electrode dry-coating process eliminates the solvent-based wet coating step used in conventional cathode manufacturing. Removing that step cuts capital costs, operating costs, and safety risk, according to AM Batteries.

Scale and Jobs

The project aims to establish about 2 gigawatt-hours of electrode manufacturing capacity and 1.5 gigawatt-hours of cell assembly capacity. Coreshell expects to hire more than 100 workers across production, technical, and administrative roles as construction and equipment ramp-up progress.

The cells produced at the facility will comply with the National Defense Authorization Act. That matters for both military and civilian electric vehicle supply chains, where domestic sourcing requirements are tightening.

Why Silicon Anodes Are Gaining Traction

Silicon anodes have been a research topic for years because the material expands and contracts during charging, which breaks conventional cell structures. Coreshell says its patented processing solves that problem at scale. If the gigafactory hits its targets, it will move silicon-anode cells from lab samples to mass-market EV batteries.

Combining a graphite-free anode with a dry-coated cathode is a two-front attack on battery cost and complexity. The DOE's $50 million signals that the government considers this combination worth betting on.