Before the boom, through it and beyond. Two decades of building the industry. Magnus is next.
Raw magnesium in. Finished battery platform out. Every step happens on US soil, through processes Estes invented. Magnus qualifies from the ground up for Buy America requirements, DoW non-FEoC mandates, and supply chain resilience standards.
The Problem
Why Estes exists.
Conventional solutions worked for passenger cars, light commercial, and on-highway. The engineers who built those platforms understood early where the curve would flatten: rail, marine, aviation, and off-highway all had requirements that existing pack designs weren't built to meet.
The answer.
It wasn't a different cell. It was a different platform entirely, one that would have to be invented, not assembled. Magnus delivers 225 Wh/kg from a platform designed for the sectors conventional packs were never built to serve.
We Are Makers
Conventional solutions worked: passenger cars, light commercial, on-highway medium duty. The engineers who built those platforms also understood early, from inside the programs, where the curve would flatten.
Rail never had a platform dense enough to break its infrastructure dependency. Marine demanded duty cycles the viable fleet couldn't sustain. Aviation's mass math didn't close.
The founding team.
Dustin Grace
CEO & Co-Founder
Tolga Yildiz
Partnerships & Co-Founder
David Lai
Chief Engineer & Co-Founder
Çağkan Yildiz
CTO & Co-Founder
Josh Engel
General Counsel
Our Values
Mission
To build the step change North American electrification needs: a new material, a new platform, a new manufacturing model, invented and made here.
Vision
To become the leading American materials and systems company, bringing first principles engineering to automotive scale across the industries that power our world.
Founding Principles
Three principles. People first, solutions engineered from first principles, and everything made in the US. Raw material in, product out, here.
Our Investors
Backed by:
Investors with deep roots in industrial energy, advanced manufacturing, and the mobility transition.
Two decades in. Just getting started.
Built for the sectors still waiting for electrification to work. Is yours one of them?
Frequently asked questions.
Investors with deep roots in industrial energy, advanced manufacturing, and the mobility transition.
Who founded Estes?
Estes was founded in April 2024 by engineers who have built battery factories and electrified vehicles across multiple transportation modes – passenger car, on-highway (medium and heavy duty trucks, transit and coach buses) and off-highway (port equipment and construction equipment). The founding team is comprised of Dustin Grace (CEO, formerly Tesla), David Lai (Chief Engineer, formerly Tesla), Çağkan Yildiz (CTO, formerly Sila), and Tolga Yildiz (Head of Partnerships, formerly Cummins).
What is the Estes founding team's background?
Where is Estes based?
What makes Estes a manufacturer rather than an assembler?
Why does domestic manufacturing matter for Estes customers?
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Estes Energy Solutions, Inc.
