This is the big break the EV industry has been waiting for.
In a surprise press conference, Toyota announced it is joining forces with the Japanese energy company Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd. to bring its goal of solid-state battery production to fruition. The companies will work on developing the solid electrolyte technology and creating the necessary supply chain and factories that will lead to commercialization and mass production by 2027-2028.
Headline is a little inaccurate, mass-production in five years if the tech comes together. Claimed range and recharge times are an eye-opener; 600 miles and ten minutes. The charger station that can recharge at that rate would pull more ‘juice’ than a commercial welder. None of this or other EV promises work without building a lot more Electric Generation Plants. Preferably nukes.
Phase one will see the two companies come together to create better sulfide solid electrolytes. Solid-state batteries offer many benefits over the ones we currently have today, thanks to the solid electrolytes that allow for faster ion movement. They charge faster, weigh less, and offer better range than anything currently on the market. They’re pivotal to Toyota’s plan of offering a 600-mile range and 10-minute charging EV by 2027, but there is one major drawback.
Repeated charging and discharging can lead to cracks between cathodes, anodes, and solid electrolytes, thereby ruining the battery. The two companies had been working on a solution well before they established this partnership and have apparently created a crack-resistant solid electrolyte with high performance. The product still needs fine-tuning and brought up to scale, which leads us to phase two.
Sulfide, not lithium. That’s a kick in the teeth to China. But I wonder what other ‘erotic’ ingredients the batteries will require.
Will be keeping an eye on this.
On the North River 
Heard plenty of pie in the sky promises before. I’ll believe it when it actually happens. Till then it’s just more vaporware. And it still won’t solve the problem of adequate charging locations and grid capacity. Both of which there are no actual plans to deal with. The entire goal behind EV tech is not to replace ICE technology but to destroy it. The goal is the END of privately owned and controlled transportation so we will be totally dependent on public transport…which the criminals control.
LikeLike
Agreed, it was the particular point that Toyota was heavily involved that was of interest.
Incidentally those thousands of EV Post Office Mail Trucks that they got strong-armed into buying? Sitting in storage, no money for the facilities to be upgraded to support them.
LikeLike