The difficulty of securing raw materials for electric vehicle batteries and the sometimes troubling stories about how those materials, such as cobalt, are mined show a few of the challenges that the coming EV revolution must overcome to be considered sustainable.

But one of the Detroit Three is putting some of its money behind a possible alternative.

Jeep- and Chrysler-parent Stellantis is announcing an undisclosed investment in a Silicon Valley company that aims to produce a different kind of EV battery at scale than the lithium-ion version currently powering so many electric devices, including cars.

Instead, Stellantis' venture capital fund is investing in Lyten, which specializes in a material that it expects will make lithium-sulfur EV batteries a reality.

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Lyten’s lithium-sulfur batteries, should they become a successful alternative, could take not just the cobalt, but also the nickel and manganese out of the EV supply chain. Sulphur is much more readily abundant as a waste product and could be sourced in local markets unlike some of those other materials, according to the companies.

A number of published research papers tout the promise of lithium-sulfur over lithium-ion batteries but they also note challenges that have kept the technology sidelined.

Lyten is promoting its use of a material called graphene, which won a couple of scientists from the United Kingdom the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010, as the solution for how to make lithium-sulphur batteries meet their potential.

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“This is a challenging chemistry, but with our materials we can make it real,” said Dan Cook, Lyten’s president and CEO, during an online news conference Wednesday.

Cook said lithium-sulfur batteries promise better energy density to deliver greater payloads and range.

The company is targeting the second half of this decade for potentially getting the batteries into vehicles. It’s preparing to pilot a lithium-sulphur production line in San Jose, California, with a goal of 200,000 cells a year, as a test.

Officials project that lithium-sulfur batteries would have a more than 60% lower carbon footprint than best-in-class lithium-ion batteries, and that lithium-sulfur batteries could be produced in the same facilities as lithium-ion.

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Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said in a news release that he, Chief Technology Officer Ned Curic and Stellantis Ventures head Adam Bazih had recently visited Lyten and were impressed.

“Lyten's lithium-sulfur battery has the potential to be a key ingredient in enabling mass-market EV adoption globally, and their material technology is equally well positioned to help reduce vehicle weight, which is all necessary for our industry to achieve carbon net zero goals,” Tavares said in the release.

The Lyten investment announcement this week sheds some light on Stellantis Ventures, the $329 million (300 million euros) venture capital fund that Stellantis, which also owns Ram, Dodge and Fiat, announced last year as part of its Dare Forward 2030 business plan.

Bazih said Stellantis Ventures has made about 10 investments to date.

Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Stellantis: New EV batteries could help it meet carbon-reduction goals