Cathode electrolyte interphases (CEI) is the key differentiator for safety and cyclelife in lithium ion batteries. I will explain the key challenges in stabilizing CEI in high voltage Co-free cathodes. On the other hand, Cryogenic-transmission electron microscopy (Cryo-TEM/Cryo-FIB) was used to reveal the evolving nanostructure of Li deposits at various transient states in the nucleation and growth process, in which a disorder-order phase transition was observed as a function of current density and deposition time. More importantly, the complementary techniques such as titration gas chromatography (TGC) reveals the important insights about the phase fraction of solid electrolyte interphases (SEI) and electrochemical deposited Li (EDLi). While cryo-EM has made significant contributions to enabling lithium metal anodes for batteries, its applications in the area of solid state electrolytes, thick sulfur cathodes are still in its infancy. More importantly I will discuss a few new perspectives about how future new imaging and spectroscopic techniques such as plasma FIB SEM (PFIB) can accelerate the innovation of novel energy storage materials and architectures.