India, Aug 13: Lithium batteries keep catching fire. Why do they keep failing – and is there a safer alternative already on the production line? Can a country build a battery industry without depending on China for rare earths? And what would it actually take to build a battery company in India today?
In the latest episode of People by WTF, Nikhil Kamath, who has been investing in energy-transition companies through his private-equity fund, sits down with Henning Rath, CEO of EnerVenue,andKunTang,ExecutiveChairmanofHiNaBattery,tounderstandwhatthenext battery industry could look like and whether India should build it. The conversation moves from battery chemistry to industrial policy, manufacturing, AI infrastructure, and the economics of building a battery company from scratch in India.
Oneoftheepisode’ssharpestmomentscomeswhenKamathpressesonlithium-iron-phosphate batteries – the chemistry powering most electric vehicles globally, including many Teslas and BYDs. Rath explains “thermal runaway”: once a battery reaches a certain temperature, its internal reaction becomes self-accelerating and cannot be stopped. Tang then offers a number that visibly stops Kamath – the world recorded over 14,000 LFP batteryfires in 2025 alone.
“The higher the energy, the more safety issues,” Tang says. “The energy is like water in a pump, but the tube is thin. That’s easy to break.” Neither guest treats this as purely a chemistry problem: Tang notesthat safety incidents cluster heavily among smaller, tier-twoChinese manufacturers. At the same time, leaders like CATL and BYD charge a premium precisely because of tighter production quality.
The conversationturnsto what comes after lithium. Tang, whosecompany hasalreadysupplied what it describes as the world’s first 100-megawatt-hour sodium-ion storage project, argues sodium costsroughlyatenth of lithium, resiststhermalrunawayatcurrent energydensities, and isbuiltfrommaterials-sodium,iron,phosphate-thatalmostanycountrycansourcedomestically. Itstrade-offis energydensity, whichfornowlimits ittogridstorageandshort-rangevehicleslike scooters and three-wheelers rather than long-range cars. Rath’s EnerVenue bets on a different route entirely: a nickel-based, water-electrolyte battery adapted from technology NASA once used,designedto sharplyreducefire riskby removingthehigher-risk componentsthattrigger
thermalrunaway,andratedfor30,000chargecycles,thoughitcurrentlyworksonlyforstationary storage, not vehicles. Both are skeptical that solid-state batteries, often billed as lithium’s true successor,areclosetomarket,citinganindustryreadinessscaleofonetonine,Tangplacesthe technology at around level four, strong in research papers but far from commercial production.
Looking further out, Rath frames the next decade around three converging “super cycles” – electrification, manufacturing and AI – all running ahead of supply, and argues that any country serious about competing will need genuine energy independence rather than dependence on imported lithium and rare earths, a dependency he expects to grow more contested as globalisation gives way to regionalblocs.He pointsto 2023 asthe yearrenewable power paired with batteries quietly became cheaper than fossil fuels across much of the world, a shift he expectsAIdatacentrestoaccelerateastheymoveawayfromdieselbackuppowertowardsafer battery storage.
ThediscussionturnsdirectlytoIndia,whereKamathisweighinganentryintotheenergytransition himself. “After my trip in China, I want to go back to India and start a business,” Kamath says, asking his guests point blank whether he should build an electric car company or a battery company. Rath’s answer is unambiguous: skip the car company. Build a battery company decoupled from lithium and rare earths altogether, pointing to India’s scooter and three-wheeler marketasanaturalfirstcustomerforsodium-iontechnology.ThetwoalsounpackhowBYDwent from a phone-battery maker to a fully vertically integrated EV and battery giant within roughly a decade, backedbywhatRath calls China’s “governmentventurecapital”model: fundingdozens ofcompaniesinasectorandexpectingonlyahandful,BYDandCATLamongthem,toultimately survive and dominate.
The episode closes on China’s relationship with AI, which bothguestsdescribe as definedmore by curiositythananxiety- spanningthreegenerations in Tang’sownfamily,fromhis 90-year-old grandfather ordering drone food delivery to his six-year-old daughter. “The excitement is outpacing the anxiety,” Rath says, calling it a marked contrast to the mood he encounters in the United States.
“No single technology will solve our problem,” Tang offers as a closing thought.“We need more differentchemistrytomeetdifferentdemands.”It’safittingclosetoaconversationthattreatsthe search for the next great battery less as a single breakthrough than an unglamorous, ongoing race, measured in charge cycles, safety margins and cost curves rather than headlines.