[Digital Today intern reporter Seung-a Yoo] The U.S. Department of Energy has launched BattMan, a programme to support the development and commercialisation of next-generation battery manufacturing technologies. The focus is to cut battery production costs and connect new technologies developed in laboratories to actual factory production.

On Oct. 29, EV outlet CleanTechnica reported that the department announced the BattMan battery manufacturing accelerator on Oct. 28. The department set out a goal of completing a U.S. battery supply chain by 2030 and securing leadership in battery technology and manufacturing by 2035.

BattMan focuses on reducing battery manufacturing costs and speeding up the commercialisation of next-generation batteries. The department forecast that U.S. demand for batteries for transportation and energy storage will rise to 707 GWh in 2035 from 179 GWh in 2025. That would be close to a fourfold increase in about 10 years.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will lead the project, with Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Washington, Binghamton University, the University of Alabama, Arizona State University and the University of Michigan-Dearborn taking part. Rocky Mountain National Laboratory will also support battery materials analysis and electrode design technologies.

Rocky Mountain National Laboratory plans to use artificial intelligence to analyse how small defects inside batteries or differences in materials affect long-term performance. It will help more accurately predict quality and performance from the early stages of battery development and support manufacturers so they can use the information without equipping separate expensive devices.

It will also test manufacturing processes that can be applied to actual production with U.S. battery and materials companies. It also plans to develop a system in which manufacturing equipment identifies problems on its own and improves production methods, using real-time data collected during production and a virtual factory model.

In the United States, investment is continuing not only in batteries but also in EV production facilities. A conditional loan guarantee initially pursued for a Rivian plant in Georgia was for $6.57 billion, and was later adjusted to $4.5 billion and proceeded to a groundbreaking ceremony. Georgia estimated that it has attracted more than $31 billion in investment and created more than 38,000 jobs in EV and battery manufacturing since 2015.

Audi also announced a plan to invest about $4 billion to build its first U.S. production plant in Georgia. Final approval from parent Volkswagen's supervisory board is still pending.

The United States is putting weight behind strengthening battery research and development and its production base even as growth in the EV market has slowed. BattMan is drawing attention as a key project to raise the competitiveness of the U.S. battery industry by having research institutions and companies verify manufacturing processes and link them to actual production.