Toyota has announced that it has overcome another major hurdle and that its solid-state battery technology will allow it to produce a model with a range of 1,200 km and a charging time of just ten minutes. Why can’t it be easy? When can the car appear? Will such an electric model ever come out?

Amazing batteries of the future – smaller, safer, lighter, but by no means cheap

Toyota, a company that manufactures more than 10 million vehicles annually and is the world leader in manufacturing, has been talking a lot in recent months about electric cars and especially about research into the field of “solid-state” batteries. They are NOT on production cars, but several companies hope to release them after 2027.

Toyota says it has overcome an important hurdle and simplified manufacturing processes so that future electric cars can be produced with batteries much smaller than today’s but with significantly greater autonomy.

Toyota says that in 2027 it hopes to launch the first model with solid-state batteries and the “holy grail” of bringing to market a model with a range of 1,200 km and a charging time of 10 minutes at a Superstation. .

This would be a huge change compared to the current situation, where a €30,000 electric car has a range of 250-300 km and is fully charged in a few hours from a regular outlet.

When can Toyota’s promised car hit the market? Most likely, after 2030, and it is certain that a model with such high autonomy will have an expensive battery and a price of more than 100,000 euros. Will such a model really work? Chances are very high, but it will be in small volumes because of the price, and it will be many years from now.

More interesting for the general public is the race to produce electric city cars that cost 20-25 thousand euros without subsidies, have enough space for passengers and luggage, and have a real autonomy of more than 250-300 km. Such machines will appear in 2-3 years and there will be more and more of them.

Toyota says solid-state technology could be on the way to a production car in 2027, and this time around the goal looks much more certain than in the past. Toyota previously talked about launching such a car in 2021 and then in 2025, but the much-vaunted solid-state technology poses major production and, above all, cost issues.

The Japanese company, which tested a prototype with solid-state batteries a few years ago, said in 2021 that they had higher energy density but shorter battery life, so it still had work to do.

What are solid state batteries?

In solid-state batteries, the liquid electrolyte is replaced by a solid substance, which increases energy density and improves safety and charging time. The problem is that the technology is expensive and there is still much to improve.

So far, solid-state batteries have only been used in small devices such as smart watches or pacemakers. They are not widely used because they are expensive to manufacture, but also their durability is still a problem, although extensive testing is also done on this aspect.

Many car companies say the future belongs to solid-state batteries, and research has been going on for years, among the most prominent is QuantumScape, a company in which Volkswagen has also invested.

A company called Automotive Cells Co (a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis and TotalEnergies) will develop this type of battery together with Taiwanese ProLogium Technology.

However, the time when new electric vehicles will replace solid-state lithium-ion batteries, in which the liquid electrolyte will be abandoned in favor of a solid one, is still a long way off.

It is very likely that the first commercial models with solid-state batteries will be ultra-premium ones. At first, you won’t find such batteries on low-end models at an acceptable price.

Solid-state batteries, tested on a few cars, can be charged at most a few hundred times, not the thousands of times you’d expect from an EV you’ll use for a few years. found that the electrodes expand and contract repeatedly during charge cycles, which can lead to their disconnection.

Toyota says they have found a solution to the durability issues and stronger materials will be used.

Sources: Financial Times, Guardian, Reuters, Automotive News