August 24, 2017 | News Brief | Romeo Power has announced $30 million in seed financing. The announcement comes as Romeo Power finalizes the installation of a fully automated 113,000 square foot manufacturing facility near downtown Los Angeles, and ramps production of its lithium-ion battery packs for electric vehicle (EV) and stationary storage applications.
Romeo Power’s modular battery, comprised of cylindrical lithium-ion cells, can be used in cars, power sport vehicles, motorcycles, trucks, buses and forklifts. Using the same advanced battery pack design, the company’s stationary energy storage the company’s stationary energy storage for businesses, PowerStack, harvests and stores electricity from the grid during off-peak hours for energy arbitrage, cost savings, and use during peak times or outages.
Since Romeo Power kicked off sales in 2017, the company has seen $65 million in initial orders scheduled for delivery in 2018. Current contracts and design agreements for the company span U.S. and European automakers, manufacturers of motorcycles and forklifts, industrial players such as Power Designers, robotics companies including Robotic Assistance Devices, and more.
“We’ve seen incredible momentum in a short period, and we’re scaling manufacturing as fast as we can to meet demand,” said Michael Patterson, Romeo Power founder, and CEO. “There’s a massive market opportunity for energy storage technologies.”
The EV market alone is expected to reach $32 billion by 2020. And recent government mandates around the world to eliminate gas cars are accelerating demand for advanced lithium-ion battery packs that can deliver more energy, range, faster charge times, smaller footprints and exceed current safety standards.
All Romeo Power products include an advanced battery management system based on control-oriented, physico-chemical models. Combined with the company’s innovations in thermal engineering, manufacturing processes, and materials, Romeo Power products have smaller space requirements than any other batteries on the market and offer enhanced state-of-charge (SOC) and state-of-health (SOH) monitoring.
The company’s fully automated 113,000 square-foot manufacturing facility is on track to be complete by the end of the year. Romeo Power designs, engineers, test, and produce all of its lithium-ion battery packs on-site, and the facility features the only research and development and testing lab on the West Coast. The battery packs are designed and optimized based on specific power and energy density needs, ranging in size from 1 kWh to 1 MWh. Romeo Power will be at 1 GWh of capacity on a single shift by the end of 2017 and will quadruple its capacity in 2018 to 4 GWh per shift
