Comprehensive electrification of transportation is a crucial element of decarbonizing the world economy.  But the ability to design, test, and manufacture new batteries is already becoming a bottleneckin the race to carbon-neutral transportation. Battery development and manufacturing is a complex process that requires considerations of power, energy density, cost, form-factor, and safety. We will discuss the ways in which Toyota Research Institute has used ML to drive improvements across the lifecycle of this process, including basic materials science research, battery design, and ML-driven manufacturing and quality control, in accordance with kaizen, the Toyota principle of “continuous improvement”.