Tesla is among the backers of a new lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax that will manufacture EV battery prototypes, filling a gap in the North American EV battery supply chain amid mounting trade tensions with China. 

The news: On Wednesday, Dalhousie announced $5 million in funding for the Canadian Battery Innovation Centre from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, one of 100 projects to receive funding from a $515 million pool. Others included technologies to treat disordered opioid use, monitor the shrinking coastline around Prince Edward Island and make wheelchairs more durable in snow. 

The battery innovation centre has also raised  $350,000 in support from Halifax energy company Emera and $200,000 from Tesla. 

The university is pushing to raise a total $20 million to complete the lab, which local and global researchers and businesses could use to develop battery designs in North America. Those designs today are sent overseas to battery-manufacturing hubs in Asia, including China.

“That already explains where the pain points lie,” said Michael Metzger, who with fellow Dalhousie battery researcher Chongyin Yang is leading the push to build the centre. “Time, which is of course, always of the essence and research, right? It’s expensive. And a lot of the IP potentially leaks outside of Canada.” 

The background: China currently dominates the battery-manufacturing industry but has recently limited foreign access to key electric-vehicle materials like graphite and rare-earth metals, raising concerns that it could cut off other parts of the EV supply chain before possible rivals can seek alternative suppliers. 

The potential: The lab would not only provide an alternative to Chinese prototypers, but also would reinforce Dalhousie’s position as a leader in battery R&D. It was the first university to have a partnership with Tesla, and its researchers have spun out their own startups, like Novonix. 

Metzger said the lab could potentially cut down long prototype timelines, by creating a “mini” gigafactory. Specialized conditions would better preserve the quality of battery ingredients, and it would include the types of machines found in real factories, which do processes like “jelly rolling” batteries into shape, he said. 

What’s next: The lab could launch as soon as fall 2025, if everything goes smoothly. Dalhousie is still in the design and renovation stage, and is ordering gigafactory equipment, which could take as long as a year to arrive.

In addition to speeding up the commercialization of better battery designs, the lab would also expose more students to a real manufacturing environment, preparing a wider set of candidates for jobs in gigafactories amid a talent crunch in the battery sector. 

“Some of our students, they get job offers six months before they graduate. And some companies even start to pay them while they’re still in university,” said Metzger in an interview, “Battery people are in extremely high demand.”