Solid State Batteries: The Next Big Thing In Electric Cars

Plug-in vehicle sales have been seeing sizable growth in recent years, with Tesla grabbing most of the attention. Now the race is on with Toyota and several other global automakers taking steps forward in being truly Tesla-competitive for the first time.

At 2.1 million sold worldwide last year, sales of battery-electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles only saw a peak moment of 3.8 percent of new vehicle sales in December — and only 2.2 percent of sales for the year. For that number to reach 10 percent or higher, they’ll need to go 400 or more miles per charge and able to be recharged in about 10 minutes. That’s still a long ways off, but Toyota, Jaguar, Audi, Volkswagen, and Porsche are making real strides toward that benchmark.

Toyota’s announcement this month of dedicating much of its new vehicle build to plug-in vehicles will be based on the introduction of solid-state batteries, which Toyota believes could happen as soon as 2020 — two years earlier than originally planned by the company. It will be part of reaching 5.5 million electrified vehicles sold — a target now moved up five years from 2030 to 2025. That will include battery-electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, and hybrids.

While Toyota is best known for its love of hybrids like the Prius, and its more recent Mirai fuel-cell vehicle, much of Toyota’s expanded vision will be made up of electric vehicles. Solid-state batteries offer greater energy density than the lithium-ion batteries being used by Tesla and other competitors. These EV batteries use a solid electrolyte instead of the liquid electrolyte used in the lithium-ion batteries.

“If possible, by the time we have the Olympic games next year, we would like to make sure that a solid-state battery can be unveiled to the public,” Toyota research and development boss Shigeki Terashi said during a recent presentation.Related: Shale Pioneer: Fracking Is An “Unmitigated Disaster”

Automakers using solid-state batteries will be able to increase the range of electric cars without having to make battery packs bigger. Solid-state electrolytes are also expected to be nonflammable, unlike current lithium-ion batteries. Tesla, Nissan, and General Motors, have had their share of battery pack fires to deal with.

The Japanese automaker is poised to share its battery technology with three partners, Subaru, Suzuki, and Mazda. Subaru and Suzuki established a technology-sharing relationship with Toyota years ago, and some industry experts say that Mazda will be next. Toyota has convinced them to join an alliance that shares common platforms, technologies, and batteries, with solid-state batteries likely to take the lead.

Toyota’s move is also happening during a time when Tesla's battery pack partner, Panasonic, is moving away from Tesla and toward the company's competitors. In April, Tesla and Panasonic were said to have frozen plans to expand the Gigafactory, with the Japanese electronics company taking a hit from the turmoil coming from Tesla’s factory production and missed targets in getting enough Model 3s to the market as originally promised to investors and car buyers who’d been putting down deposits.

In January, Toyota forged a relationship with Panasonic to manufacture EV batteries, with much of it aimed at China’s booming EV market. In the deal, Panasonic will transfer ownership of five battery manufacturing facilities in China and Japan to their newly formed entity.

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Toyota, Tesla, and other global makers want to compete with top-selling Chinese EV makers BAIC and BYD, but they have to establish a substantial presence in the China auto market. For Toyota, Panasonic will open that doorway.

Competition with Tesla’s EV dominance is also coming on the luxury vehicle side, and from a start-up and another giant automaker beyond Toyota and GM, Volkswagen.

Tesla competitors include the Jaguar I-Pace, Audi E-tron, and the Porsche Taycan that's set to debut in September with a 300-mile range. The I-Pace and E-tron are in the low-200s for total miles traveled per charge. But it is a leap forward for the European makers, who’ve finally gotten around to mass producing high-performance EVs.Related: Saudi Aramco Says It's Ready For Strait Of Hormuz Disruption

Startup battery maker 24M received funding for its SemiSolid lithium-ion battery in December, and now has a new partner for the energy storage market. 24M has struck a deal with Kyocera, a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, for initial production of cells for stationary storage applications.

Volkswagen is now promising a more stout battery warranty for its ID electric vehicle lineup. This month, the manufacturer announced it will guarantee the capacity of its batteries for eight years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first. VW’s warranty promises that the battery pack will retain at least 70 percent of its capacity during that period of coverage. The company will apply the warranty to future ID sub-brand EVs if they’re operating off the same platform — competing directly with Tesla’s warranty program.

Other global automakers have bought into the importance and functionality of solid-state batteries. VW and BMW have invested in solid-state battery startups QuantumScape and Solid Power, respectively. Fisker Karma creator Henrik Fisker says that using solid-state batteries will allow his new Emotion EV to travel more than 500 miles on a single charge.

It’s still a bit early in the development process to know whether solid-state batteries will become the new leading technology powering EVs.

By Jon LeSage for Oilprice.com

Now ....Let's look at a past article, which talks about VW's initiatives, timelines, and move toward a solid state battery design...Note both the increase in nickel content....AND the introduction of silicon to their battery makeup.....Interesting...Wouldn't you say Babjak1; please see the picture of the battery chart progression presentation shown once you go to the link provided to read the article.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1119182_vw-confirms-its-planning-for-solid-state-batteries-by-2025

Solid-state batteries sometimes sound a bit like the missing link that would punt electric vehicles soundly into mainstream acceptance.

The list of potential virtues for solid-state tech, which would replace the polymer/gel electrolyte commonly used in lithium-ion cells with a solid one, is impressive: a longer driving range; smaller packaging; reduced chances of fire; easier cooling and conditioning; faster charging; and a longer service life.

Any automaker that can capitalize on solid-state tech before the others will probably enjoy an advantage on the market. But it might not be the day/night game-changer that some giddy futurists had anticipated earlier this decade. Automakers are splashing some cold water on what are perhaps some overheated expectations for what the technology can deliver and how soon it will arrive.

Volkswagen credited its anticipated rapid evolution of lithium-ion cells for its impressive energy-to-weight numbers in the next-generation battery packs it recently detailed for its MEB vehicles set to debut in a U.S. vehicle beginning in 2020. VW estimates that cell energy density—both by volume and weight—will increase nearly a quarter from 2018 to 2025, thanks to higher nickel content and, eventually, a higher-voltage electrolyte.

CHECK OUT: Battery tech may be getting a big solid-state boost soon

By then it sees lithium-ion (non-solid) cells offering 0.8 kwh per liter. Jumping to solid-state around then or later, it anticipates at an early stage it could pack another 25 percent more energy in the same space but offer no additional weight advantage.

VW’s own internal expectations might show a reality check versus what had been suggested at the time of VW’s $100 million investment in QuantumScape—a potential energy-density improvement of as great as 2.5 times that of current batteries.

Energy density (by volume and weight) had been increasing at a rate of about 30 percent every two to three years. That rate is due to slow; Bloomberg New Energy Finance anticipates energy density to improve 5-7 percent per year from 2018 into the 2020s.

DON'T MISS: Battery legend Goodenough not done yet: new solid-state chemistry introduced

“The use of solid-state batteries may result in another breakthrough in the second half of the next decade,” said Thomas Ulbrich, the member of the Volkswagen Group board of management for e-mobility, last month. Ulbrich noted that a limited test fleet of vehicles with solid-state batteries—possibly from its joint-venture development efforts with QuantumScape, could hit the road as soon as 2023.

VW Battery Packs

 

That corresponds with what the technical development chief of fellow VW Group brand Audi, Ulrich Widmann, said last month—that it’s expecting solid-state batteries to arrive in 2025 to some extent. “Inside the VW Group we have really good connections to all this development,” he said. “We are partners in that development.

Widmann pointed out that there are definitely obstacles remaining. “We don’t know whether they can solve all of these things, but we have to prepare future architectures,” he said, so that they can take advantage of it if and when it arrives.

READ THIS: Fisker still aims at solid-state electric-car batteries, as patents attest

BMW is also anticipating that solid-state may first appear in one of its production vehicles around 2025. But there are a few outliers. Toyota, based on reports, could be aiming to make the jump in high-sales-volume vehicles before then.

Don't look for solid-state batteries to go into tens of thousands of vehicles anytime soon. VW may be planning for the possibility of solid-state batteries in some vehicles, but it doesn’t anticipate them becoming common in its EV lineup until 2030 or so—at which time it's hoping it will have made 10 million EVs globally. The attitude about the tech is similar in remarks made by BMW and Audi executives—and even Tesla’s Elon Musk and JB Straubel.

Perhaps the big players are being too conservative, and the longer timeline is unnecessary. Only time will tell, as some fledgling automakers such as Dyson and Fisker Inc. embark on the development of EVs that skip right to solid-state tech.