Silicon EV Batteries Earn $1.4 Billion Seal Of Approval From Defense Department Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles. Something is up with the Trump administration and silicon. Last week the big buzz was around a new Department of Commerce incentive program to ratchet up the domestic supply of polysilicon, the key ingredient in solar panels. Of equal if not more significance, last week the Department of Defense also weighed in with a $1.4 billion conditional loan to the US startup Sila, aimed at expanding the company’s initial focus on silicon EV batteries to accommodate the growing demand for drones, autonomous vehicles and other defense applications. Silicon And The EV Batteries Of The Future With China currently dominating the supply of processed graphite on the global market, the hunt is on for alternative battery materials that can be produced domestically. Synthetic graphite is one workaround. Silicon is another, and it promises a bigger payoff. When applied to the anode of EV batteries, silicon can deliver faster charging times, longer range, and lighter weight than the traditional lithium-ion formula, which deploys a graphite anode (see more silicon battery background here). The Defense Department has been notoriously cautious about investing in electric vehicles, but EV batteries are another matter. The agency’s interest in next-generation energy storage technology predates US President Donald Trump’s second term in office, and the rise of drone warfare, ground robots and autonomous vehicles has sparked a fresh round of activity. The latest development in that space involves the US startup Sila, which was co-founded in 2011 by former Tesla battery specialist Gene Berdichevsky, who holds the post