This was discussed a little earlier with no consensus with a...

This was discussed a little earlier with no consensus with a non-holder. Silica's problem is that it has massive expansion/contraction which makes anything beyond a thin coating over graphite sphere's prone to cracking conventional batteries. The technical challenges of high Silicon mean that while Silicon is a modestly price input material, its likely to be a high-priced premium product after factoring in the manufacturing process. This would mean that rather than being a replacement for mass-market graphite it would be a premium challenger product taking a slice of market share. I think the highest potential is in the coating space which involves a silicon coated graphite core.

There was some US grant funding to companies looking to build pilot manufacturing plants (so Silicon is leaving the lab). The cost logistics are going to be the problem. Depending on quality, a battery the shape of an AA battery has a production cost around if not under $1/unit. I just can't see a high silicon battery involving a manufacturing process working at the molecular level (nanowires, tiny scaffolds to hold silicon molecules etc) coming in at a price point this low. Related to this, the demand for individual batteries isn't in the thousands or millions, it's in the billions per year (A standard range Tesla Model 3 uses 2,976 individual batteries). Millions of EV's and thousands of batteries each.