University of Michigan Battery Lab expands Voltaiq use into prototype manufacturing

The University of Michigan Battery Lab is extending its decade-long collaboration with Voltaiq beyond battery test data into cell prototype manufacturing. The move is designed to improve repeatability, equipment reliability and customer transparency as the lab helps industry partners build and scale new battery technologies.

Why it matters: - The expanded workflow gives the University of Michigan Battery Lab a single digital record that ties prototype materials, build settings and final cell performance together. - The change is meant to help the lab reproduce customer builds more reliably, spot equipment issues earlier and give customers more transparency as they scale designs. - The lab plays a role in the domestic battery supply chain by helping academic and industrial customers prototype without their own dedicated facilities.

What happened: - The University of Michigan Battery Lab and Voltaiq announced an expansion of their decade-long collaboration on Sept. 24, 2026. - The partnership now extends Voltaiq from battery test data and analytics into the lab’s prototype cell manufacturing operations. - The collaboration began in 2014, when the Battery Lab adopted Voltaiq to automatically collect test data and securely share results with customers. - The latest expansion adds prototype build data, including materials, recipes, equipment settings and process parameters.

The details: - Voltaiq engineers mapped the lab’s prototype manufacturing equipment and processes into its battery data ontology in a single afternoon. - The data foundation lets the Battery Lab retrieve an earlier recipe and process conditions, reproduce a build for a returning customer and compare the new build against the same process window. - Statistical process control dashboards and AI agents can monitor whether a new build stays within that window. - The lab can now study relationships between materials, operating conditions and equipment performance. - In one example, a customer slurry formulation was linked to repeated pump failures during electrode coating. - Combining slurry characteristics, pump settings and other process data helps the lab identify conditions associated with equipment problems and plan preventive maintenance. - Customers already use Voltaiq to access and analyze their own battery test data. - They will now also get a digital record of how prototype cells were built, which they can carry forward as they scale the design in their own facilities. - Greg Less, director of the Battery Lab, said the lab wants to look back at any cell and know what was built, how it was built and share that information seamlessly with users. - Less also said the expanded platform is the easiest way the lab has found to share cell data from mixing to end-of-line. - Alan Taub, U-M EV Center director, said connecting the build record to performance gives engineers a clearer path from concept to commercialization. - Tal Sholklapper, Voltaiq CEO and co-founder, said the connection between materials, process and performance helps engineers learn faster from each prototype.

Between the lines: - The expansion moves the relationship from post-build analysis toward full-process traceability, which is a more mature use case for battery data software. - For the Battery Lab, that means customer confidence is no longer based only on test results. It now includes proof of how the cell was actually built. - For Voltaiq, the partnership is a live example of its broader push to connect product development, cell manufacturing and in-field battery operations.

What's next: - The Battery Lab will use the new data layer to repeat previous builds more easily for returning customers. - The lab will also use the combined process and performance data to monitor build quality and support preventive maintenance planning. - As customers scale designs in their own facilities, they can use the prototype build record as a reference for future manufacturing. - More information about the Battery Lab is available here. - More information about Voltaiq is available at www.voltaiq.com.

The bottom line: - The University of Michigan Battery Lab is turning prototype manufacturing into a data-rich, traceable workflow, giving battery developers a clearer line from lab build to commercial scale.