Tesla engineer, battery experts to lead New York “green” battery plant

Published by

Bridie Schmidt

8 March 2021 11:03 AM

Source: iM3NY

Ex-Tesla engineer Chaitanya Sharma will lead a team of highly experienced battery experts appointed for Magnis Energy Technologies’ planned Imperium3 New York (iM3NY) battery factory.

One of two gigafactories planned by the company, it will reportedly make some of the greenest lithium-ion batteries on the marketplace thanks to New York state’s green energy credentials and the use of fewer metals and less-toxic materials in theC4V batteries.

Magnis also has a 6GWh Townsville site on the drawing board, dubbed iM3TSV and mooted for an eco-industrial precinct for which Townsville City Council is seeking $50 million investment out of $195 million in federal funding for the city.

As the first engineer employed to support the creation of Tesla’s Nevada battery factory, Sharma has more than a decade of experience in the energy sector under his belt and will fill the role of CEO for iM3NY.

He is joined by former Duracell VP Bill Shannon who takes the role of chief operating officer, fellow ex-Duracell executive Paul Stratton as senior VP sales and marketing, as well as ex-Intel and semiconductor engineer Priyadarshi Panda in the role of VP engineering.

Mike Driscoll, who has been leading Magnis’ iM3 team in Townsville, Queensland, in the role of director, will now fill the role of chief financial officer for the New York operations.

Completing the picture is Brandon Jordan-Thaden, a systems engineer for nuclear technology company Phoenix, LLC, in the role of senior director of engineering.

The pace is gathering for Magnis’ Endicott, New York, battery factory, with more than 50 truckloads of equipment arriving as the company opened up the doors, it shared on Twitter on Saturday.

The announcement of the new positions for the New York factory come as Magnis partner Charge CCCV (C4V) released successful results for optimised battery cells in a commercial format that can reportedly recharge in six minutes (although the size of the optimised cell pack was not forthcoming, a previous unoptimised test involved a 25kWh battery – half that of a Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus).

Bridie Schmidt

Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.