Here’s the Winner of Autoweek’s 2023 Vanguard Award, Technology

The battery startup Our Next Energy has earned an Autoweek Vanguard Award because this company, founded a mere three years ago in Novi, Michigan, is doing serious work on incrementally better batteries for electric vehicles.

Our Next Energy—or ONE—is the brainchild of battery systems engineer Mujeeb Ijaz, who developed his expertise at Ford, Apple, and A123 Systems.

ONE is pushing the boundaries by developing durable, long-range lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, built with abundant raw materials (iron and manganese), and requiring no cobalt and smaller amounts of nickel, lithium, and graphite.

ONE is already producing LFP and anode-free battery cells at a massive new facility in Van Buren Township, Michigan, primarily for commercial trucks and stationary applications to power the grid.

But the company’s next step, with its dual-chemistry Gemini battery, allows the LFP cells in mainstream passenger vehicles to deliver an initial 150 miles of range, and then the anode-free cells to tack on another 450 miles—effectively doubling the range of most EVs on the road today.

The company has targeted $100 per kWh for the combined system—quite competitive based on current EV battery costs. The first application in commercial vehicles roll out in 2026.

It’s only a matter of time before this smart, sustainable dual-chemistry technology finds its way to high-volume EVs. BMW already has a development agreement with ONE.

In assembling our list of nominees for this year’s Vanguard Awards, we talked to the smartest automotive analysts and journalists who have been tracking this industry for decades, and every one of them, unprompted, mentioned Our Next Energy and its visionary founder Mujeeb Ijaz as worthy of consideration.