Mana Battery Hires Former BMW Battery Leader Dr. Frederik Morgenstern
Architect of BMW's Gen6 battery cell joins a team of veterans from Tesla, Solid Power, and Addionics
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BROOMFIELD, Colo., Nov. 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Mana Battery today announced that Dr. Frederik Morgenstern has joined the company as VP of Cell Engineering. Morgenstern brings more than 15 years of experience taking battery technology from the lab to series production, most recently as Senior Technology & Innovation Lead for Batteries at BMW of North America.
At BMW AG in Munich, Morgenstern led the interdisciplinary team that developed BMW’s 6th-generation 46950 cylindrical cell and module from concept to series development. The design delivered 20% higher energy density, 30% faster charging and a drivetrain more than 40% cheaper. He holds more than 40 patents in cell, module, and pack design.
Since 2022 he has run BMW’s North American battery partnership portfolio from Mountain View, California: 30+ active projects with startups and national labs, and a US R&D budget of up to $10 million. He brought fast charging, lithium-metal and silicon anodes, and low-cost chemistries (LMR, LNMO, LMFP) into BMW’s roadmap. Morgenstern holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Cambridge and a master’s in physics from LMU Munich.
Morgenstern joins a seasoned team of battery technologists at Mana Battery, including:
- Tyler Evans, CEO, who co-founded SilLion, which was acquired by Tesla in 2018, and he went on to work at Tesla before co-founding Mana Battery
- Nick Singstock, CTO, who completed graduate and post-graduate work on computational simulation and chemical engineering of sodium-ion battery materials before co-founding Mana Battery
- Sam Jaffe, VP of Business Development and Product, former business development director at Addionics and founder of Cairn ERA (acquired by ESource in 2020) and who now leads business development for Mana Battery
- Heather A.S. Platt, Director of Materials Engineering, who was employee number one at Solid Power and helped to design its technology, and who now heads the materials scaling at Mana Battery
- Rushabh Desai, Director of Business Operations, who led finance and business operations at Yotta Energy and now leads business operations at Mana Battery
- Peter Hosbein, Staff Cell Engineer, who modeled and designed batteries at Tesla, and is now a cell engineer at Mana Battery
- Tyler Bassett, Staff Process Engineer, who helped Solid Power scale its manufacturing process and now leads process and materials scaling at Mana Battery
“Frederik has done what few people in this industry have: taken a new cell from a blank page to a global automaker’s production line,” said Tyler Evans, CEO of Mana Battery. “His experience with OEMs and cell suppliers will help us move our technology into customers’ hands faster.”
“Over the past decade, the U.S. has poured talent and capital into battery innovation. But a great idea alone won’t beat China. You have to deliver it at a cost that matches the biggest players. Mana is on the verge of doing that. Its sodium-ion cells outperform LFP on energy density, cold-weather performance and charging speed, at a projected price below today’s cost leader. That mix of innovation and cost leadership is why I joined,” said Dr. Morgenstern.
About Mana Battery
Mana Battery, Inc. is a battery technology company based in Broomfield, Colorado, developing high-energy sodium-ion batteries on a proprietary electrolyte platform and proprietary anode-free cell architecture. Founded in 2023 as a spin-out of the University of Colorado Boulder, the company targets defense, grid energy storage, data center and electric vehicle applications with batteries that pair safe liquid electrolyte with a supply chain free of critical-mineral constraints. Learn more at manabattery.us.
Media contact
Sam Jaffe · sam@manabattery.us · +1 303 502 4001
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