Lithium-ion batteries play a central role in the world of technology, powering everything from smartphones to smart cars, and now one of the people who helped commercialize them says he has a way to cut mass production costs by 90 percent and significantly improve their safety.

Hideaki Horie, formerly of Nissan Motor Co., founded Tokyo-based APB Corp. in 2018 to make "all-polymer batteries” (hence the company name).

Earlier this year the company received backing from a group of firms including general contractor Obayashi Corp., industrial equipment manufacturer Yokogawa Electric Corp. and carbon fiber maker Teijin Ltd.