UC Irvine-Born Startup Enevate is Solving EVs’ Biggest Pain Points
The world runs on batteries — and yet, it’s strange how little we think about them.
June 9, 2025 - We obsess over cameras, apps, and screens. But then we’re at nine percent, hoping we can make it through one more video call, or reach the next off-ramp in an EV with just enough charge to get home. Batteries aren’t just a power source anymore — they’re the whole point.
To the team at Enevate, a startup with UC Irvine origins, that’s not a design flaw — it’s a failure of imagination. According to Benjamin Park, Enevate’s co-founder and chief technology officer, battery performance should be front and center in how we think about technology. With Enevate, he’s built a platform that makes batteries behave the way we’ve always wanted them to.
That platform is rooted in silicon. Most lithium-ion batteries use graphite in the anode — but silicon can hold more than ten times the lithium. In practice, that can lead to batteries with 25 to 30 percent greater energy density— which results in more range, smaller cells, and faster charge times. In short: more power, less waiting.
“Everybody says, ‘you can’t use large amounts of silicon,’” Park says. “We asked: what if you could?”
That question became the foundation of everything they built. And it turns out, they were right.
Founded in 2005, Enevate was originally called Carbon Micro Battery and focused on tiny, ultra-thin batteries for hearing aids and sensors. It wasn’t until a few years later that Park and his team realized they could have a much bigger impact by thinking bigger — literally.
“We completely changed from what we did before. Why not go after larger applications that actually move the needle on climate change?” he says.
That shift — from niche applications to large-format EV batteries — wasn’t just strategic, it was philosophical.
“Our vision is a cleaner and sustainable environment through a variety of battery-powered applications and products that are accessible and affordable to everyone,” Park says.
That meant solving not just one battery problem, but all of them: slow charging, short range, safety concerns, and cold-weather failures. Enevate’s approach addresses them all.
At the core of their technology is a silicon-dominant anode combined with a redesigned mix of electrolytes and cell materials. Silicon can store significantly more lithium than graphite, but it also expands and contracts during charging, which has historically caused structural damage and rapid performance loss. Enevate’s solution embeds the silicon in a conductive, porous material that absorbs this expansion and maintains structural integrity. The result is a battery that charges in five minutes, performs reliably in the kind of freezing conditions that sidelines other EVs, and maintains its capacity over more than 1,500 cycles.
That cold-weather resilience isn’t just theoretical — in early 2024, headlines chronicled Tesla drivers stranded in a Chicago deep freeze after their vehicles couldn’t accept a charge in subzero conditions. Even though freezing temperatures is not something drivers need to worry about in Southern California, Enevate’s technology is specifically designed to avoid that scenario.
“We address the last two hurdles to widespread EV adoption — fast charging and cold temperature charge acceptance — without compromising on other critical performance metrics,” says Robert A. Kruse Jr., Enevate’s president and CEO.
Kruse, a longtime EV veteran who led the development of the original Chevrolet Volt at General Motors, joined Enevate in 2022 after stints at Karma Automotive and Faraday Future Intelligent Electrics.
There’s no shortage of battery startups promising the future. But Enevate is betting on something less flashy and more scalable: a capital-light licensing model that skips manufacturing altogether.
“We can get to the market the quickest through licensing,” says Park. “Instead of building one factory, we can start off with 20 — because we have multiple licensees today.”
That model allows Enevate to stay focused on R&D and commercialization, not factory floors. It’s already working with major automotive and battery companies around the world, and its technology is currently being piloted in electric motorcycles.
That pragmatism is baked into Enevate’s culture.
“There’s liars, damn liars, and battery suppliers,” Kruse jokes — a phrase familiar in the industry, where specs are often cherry-picked. “What impressed me at Enevate was, you didn’t have to hide a weakness. You could be proud of all the dimensions that matter in a battery.”
That confidence is shared by others in the field.
“This technology has the potential to revolutionize the Li-ion battery market — it might become a game changer in the EV industry,” says Professor Vojislav Stamenkovic, the director of UC Irvine’s Horiba Institute for Mobility and Connectivity2 (HIMaC²).
That kind of game-changing innovation isn’t accidental. Enevate has built a culture of transparency and technical rigor — values that trace back to the company’s earliest days. Park earned his Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from UC Irvine’s Samueli School of Engineering, and three of Enevate’s four co-founders — Park, Rabih Zaouk, and Professor Marc Madou were from the university. (The fourth founder was business executive Steve Cardona.)
In the early days, they had little more than a good idea, a seed investor, and a long to-do list.
“We had the technology, but who’s cutting the paychecks? Who’s handling the insurance and accounting?” Park recalls. “We had to figure out everything ourselves.”
That’s one reason he’s especially enthusiastic about UC Irvine’s entrepreneurial ecosystem today.
“Kudos to everyone who created this new infrastructure for entrepreneurism,” Park says, referring to the work done by UC Irvine Beall Applied Innovation and others. “I wish it existed when we started. It’s incredible what’s now available to startups through UCI.”
Enevate still keeps close ties to campus — not just through talent (a large share of its team are UCI alumni), but by renting university facilities for testing and research. It has also partnered with clients to validate its battery technology at HIMaC², a campus institute specializing in transportation applications and driving simulations.
“With unique resources and leading experts from across the Samueli School of Engineering, HIMaC² is at the forefront of demonstrating new technologies under real-world conditions,” says Stamenkovic. “This helps shorten the timeline from discovery to commercialization.”
Park has witnessed that shift firsthand.
“When we started out, there really was no cleantech ecosystem here,” Park says. “Now there’s a thriving one — and that’s been amazing to see.”
Even with Enevate’s fast-moving, licensing model, bringing a new battery to market is a longer road.
“We’ve done the tech demonstrations,” Park says, “but getting it into a car takes time.”
Automakers tend to move cautiously, and new vehicle platforms can take five years or more to develop. In the meantime, Enevate is pushing into faster-moving segments like motorcycles, proving the tech while preparing for broader adoption.
“There’s a major breakthrough we can’t talk about yet,” Kruse hints. “But when it’s ready, it will rock the industry — and it’s being developed right here in Irvine.”
That’s not hype. That’s Kruse — direct, data-driven, and convinced Enevate is onto something big.
Enevate’s batteries may not be in your car yet. But they’re coming. The team is convinced that in the future, silicon-dominant anodes will be the standard — not the exception.
“We don’t have to play to where the ball is going to be — we’re already there,” Kruse says.
And when that happens, we’ll finally have batteries that match the ambition of the devices and vehicles they power. Range anxiety, cold-weather charge failures, and multi-hour pit stops may become problems of the past.
As Park puts it, “There will be no reason not to buy an electric car.”
You might still find yourself watching that battery icon dip into the red — but maybe not for long.
- Jill Kato/ UCI Beall Applied Innovation
