Another Western battery startup left lying in the Valley of Death.

As the news broke last week, Natron Energy’s bankruptcy sparked a flood of commentary in my feed. Everyone seemed to have their culprit:

• “Greedy, impatient investors” – after 12 years of bankrolling, they wouldn’t bridge one more.

• “Foot-dragging UL certification” – the safety stamp that took too long to arrive.

• “The Chinese, of course” – lithium price collapse and competition from across the ocean.

• “Overambitious management” – jumping from a 0.6 GWh line straight to a 24 GWh gigafactory.

Of these, the last one feels closest to the mark. The rest are not causes but symptoms – or simply the risks that come with this industry.

I guess that even Natron’s own team might struggle to name one or two decisive reasons. Scaling up manufacturing is never about a single failure point. It’s about the accumulation of dozens of small ones: shaky supply chains, technical glitches, hesitant customers, cautious investors.

What matters is the reminder: scaling hardware is far more complicated than most think. And there is still no universal playbook for it.

At least not yet.

For a glimpse of what such a playbook might look like – check this link and subscribe to my blog.