From a lab bench to the fleet.

The name came first

TaiSan wasn't named in a boardroom. It was named in 2003, by a five-year-old sitting with his mother in Kazakhstan. We made a quiet promise that day: when I grew up, I would build a company — one that would move the world differently, across the automotive and mobility sectors. The name came first. Everything since has been the work of earning it.

Learning to think in moves

The preparation started early. My parents set a chessboard in front of me before most kids choose a sport, and chess taught me the thing that matters most in engineering: how to think several moves ahead. I competed, climbed the rankings, and won tournaments across the region as a professional player.

That same focus carried into the classroom. I earned a place at the leading physics and mathematics high school in Central Asia, where I lived for Olympiads and the satisfaction of a hard problem finally cracked.

SpaceX Hyperloop competitions

I came to the UK for my A-levels in Cambridge — was named Student of the Year, wrote my dissertation on Hyperloop technology, and, because some habits don't leave you, organised chess competitions on the side.

Building the future without waiting for permission

At the University of Warwick I studied engineering, but a lot of my real education happened in parallel. I founded and led two student technical teams to compete in the SpaceX and Boring Company Hyperloop competitions. We reached three finals — top 5 teams out of thousands of applications. We built tunnels — once in Las Vegas, twice in Austin — leading a team of around 80 engineers and raising close to half a million pounds while we were still students. We weren't waiting for permission to build the future. We just built it.

Falling for batteries

Somewhere along the way, the future got specific: batteries.

It began with academic research into lithium battery degradation — my first real work, going right back to where the engineering started. From there I went deeper. At Jaguar Land Rover, I worked in advanced battery engineering, modelling the degradation of solid-state cells. At The Faraday Institution and Warwick Manufacturing Group, I took battery cells apart and put them back together to understand exactly what makes them excel or fail — research that supported a leading UK high-performance electric car company. Then I joined Vertical Aerospace, developing lithium-ion battery packs for electric air taxis: designing power for machines that have to fly. Along the way, I received 4 battery awards in the UK and became a Forbes 30 Under 30.

TaiSan

By the end of all of it, a five-year-old's promise had become a plan. In 2022, I founded TaiSan — and the rest, as they say, is history. Though really, we're only at the beginning of it.

I came from Kazakhstan at the age of 18 to the UK with an idea, and one conviction I've never let go of: that mobility can be cleaner, smarter, and better — and that someone has to build the cells that make it possible.

That someone is us.

— Sanzhar Taizhan, Founder & CEO, TaiSan