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Toyota has been developing a solid-state battery for EVs with a range of 745mi

308 points by achow 3y ago

amai 3y ago
Sounds like FUD - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
Solid-state? Are there batteries with vacuum tubes?
panick21_ 3y ago
Ah Toyota and its 10 year quest claiming that amazing next generation batteries are just around the corner and that they make their EV best in class from 1 day to another.
mcswell 3y ago
From the article: "solid-state batteries... don’t do well in cold weather, tend to weaken quickly after repeatedly getting charged and drained, are particularly costly... Toyota...said it may have solved the range and battery weight problems." Problems are A, B, C, and D, and Toyota solved X and Y. What gives?
exabrial 3y ago
I know everyone on HN will tell me that my opinion on my personal want is wrong, all I want is a hydrogen + fuel cell/battery car, or recharge times in the 5-10m range for BEV.
Siecje 3y ago
Is it better to keep an EV at 80% or to leave it between 50% and 80% for weeks? Instead of 80% I'd say optimal voltage but I don't know what that is, and the car doesn't show me the battery voltage. Why isn't there a setting to charge to optimize battery longevity? Even if that means the battery is at 70% or 75% or whatever. Often I get home with 60%. Should I wait until I get home with < 50% before charging? Or just keep it at 80%?
avidphantasm 3y ago
I want manufacturers to be mandated to retrofit new technology to some portion existing vehicles. I have two 5-7yo Toyota hybrids and would love to have a better battery technology to replace the NIMH batteries when the time comes. There are aftermarket Li-ion batteries, but I’d love a third party solution that would convert these into PHEVs. I only have a 8 mi per day commute, and would basically never need to buy gas with a PHEV. With one of these solid-state battery packs, I could even take longer trips all electric. I’d probably pay $15k per vehicle for this.
chiph 3y ago
Toyota is building a new battery factory in Liberty North Carolina (about 20 miles southeast of Greensboro). Their press site for it only says "Lithium-ion Batteries" and that they will be used for BEV vehicles, so it doesn't preclude it being used to build these new solid-state batteries. https://pressroom.toyota.com/facility/toyota-battery-manufacturing-north-carolina-tbmnc/ https://pressroom.toyota.com/facility/toyota-battery-manufac...
xyst 3y ago
That’s amazing. This means people can avoid plugging in their EVs overnight and overall be less taxing on the grid. Instead of charging every night, charge once or twice a week. Bad news. Todays EVs are going straight to the landfill. Yet another hit for the environment. If only there was a more efficient transportation option…
hnburnsy 3y ago
Dear battery technology claimant, Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior to existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the corner from taking over the world. Unfortunately your technology will likely fail, because: [ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale. [ ] it will be too expensive for users. [ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles. [ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels. [ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures. [ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable. [ ] it has too short of a lifetime. [ ] its charge rate is too slow. [ ] its materials are too toxic. [ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode. [ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care. [ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then. [ ] by the time it ships li-ion advances will match it. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to original poster!
pie420 3y ago
So have I. This isn't news until there is a working prototype at the very least
DanielHB 3y ago
I work with batteries, it is almost always the cost of setting up a factory for a new process is just too high. Especially the first factory where you need new machines that don't exist yet. My company is actually developing new lithium-metal battery chemistry that uses existing process for manufacturing, this is much more cost-effective and lower risk. You can just slightly retool an existing lithium-ion factory to pump out these new batteries. Large-scale lithium-ion ever became a thing because Sony pumped a ton of R&D into walkmans.
expertentipp 3y ago
> For those who prefer metric, that’s a range of 1200 kilometers and a charge time of six hectoseconds Very funny...
wunderland 3y ago
[flagged]
- simbolit 3y ago
  [flagged]
glogla 3y ago
Lately I'm more and more convinced that the challenge is not doing a thing, the challenge is scaling it up. Doing a thing is a necessity for moving forward, but scaling it up is how you change the world. On one hand, Toyota is pretty good at scaling things up. On the other hand, they have not shown scaling it up, they have shown doing a thing. We'll have to see. The time is running out.
- simondotau 3y ago
  > they have shown doing a thing. What they showed is a bench experiment. What they need is a battery which is proven capable in an EV — in terms of resilience, power handling, environmental tolerances, etc. The challenge is scaling THAT up.
- SyzygistSix 3y ago
  They haven't been very good about scaling up production of their Prime vehicles. Lots of people would love to buy them and have for years.
- dev_tty01 3y ago
  They have sold hybrids at scale, lots of similar components, so no reason to think they can't scale when they have a design they are ready to produce. Toyota runs a huge global car manufacturing company that is known for quality and shipping a lot of cars. They know how to scale. Toyota reminds me of Microsoft when the internet went mainstream. Very slow to respond, but once they got their giant tanker turned in the right direction they were all in. I suspect Toyota will be the same.
float4 3y ago
Toyota already said it was around the corner in 2017[0]. Now it's 2023 and it's still around the corner. I'll believe it when I see it. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/07/25/ultrafast-charging-solid-state-ev-batteries-around-the-corner-toyota-confirms/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/07/25/ultraf...
- simbolit 3y ago
  HN really needs an audio player with a certain Run DMC song on loop.
  - jansan 3y ago
    I did not know there is a song from Run DMC called "Two more weeks".
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  > In another five years, and if a report in a Japanese newspaper is to be believed, Toyota will have the key technology for wide-spread adoption of battery-electric vehicles: Solid-state batteries with twice the range of today’s EVs, while charging only in minutes. Well, it's six years now, but that doesn't seem that much of a delay?
  - simondotau 3y ago
    Toyota are still saying it's five years away. So that's a minimum of eleven years.
    - labster 3y ago
      But why get a battery car when fusion cars are just 20 years away?
      - tiffanyg 3y ago
        Hmm, I thought 2015 for fusion? https://youtu.be/xvacBzZtYag?t=1m3s https://youtu.be/xvacBzZtYag?t=1m3s There's just too much Bannon-esque "flooding the zone" these days... And now, we wait for the entirely justified downvotes (though, this thread being so AG-ED* at this point, more likely I'm just talking to myself. Again...) * https://youtu.be/V4gJfATGr9k?t=42s https://youtu.be/V4gJfATGr9k?t=42s
simbolit 3y ago
What does the article really contribute? The announcement was 10 days ago. I can't find anything in the article that gives me new actionable information. Can people who upvoted this please explain why they did? Thanks!
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  Personally, this is the first time I'm seeing this info, and to me it's pretty exciting. 750mi on a single charge would significantly change the calculus on EVs for me personally. It pretty much eliminates any range worries I have, and makes it way more feasible for me to own one if I live in an apartment or condo where I cannot install a more powerful charger. It's the difference between hanging out at a charger station once a week vs once a month. So at the very least, the article is a nice heads-up to me and others alike that are somewhat on the fence about EVs, that some of our concerns may very well be assuaged.
  - comfypotato 3y ago
    Do you know the lifetime of current battery technology? Expected years until 80% capacity, etc.? Asking because I don’t know.
    - genocidicbunny 3y ago
      I do not, sorry. Until very recently, EV's weren't even a consideration for me, because of their limitations on range, but also because of difficulty of charging them if you lived in a condo or an apartment (heck, my current car is a Mazda, a company which _just_ started offering EVs in some markets). Because of that, I am not well versed in the specific details of the current generation of EVs. With that said, anecdotally, I have heard of old Prius hybrids getting 100k miles out of their batteries, but that was a decade ago. I don't know what modern battery chem is capable of.
    - Gareth321 3y ago
      Tesla claims their Model S and X batteries degrade 12% over 200,000 miles: https://www.notateslaapp.com/tesla-reference/1371/tesla-shows-data-around-battery-life-span-just-12-degradation-after-200-000-miles https://www.notateslaapp.com/tesla-reference/1371/tesla-show...
_fizz_buzz_ 3y ago
1200km is more than enough. Nobody should be driving longer distances in one day anyway. If this will hold up, Toyota will have leap-frogged their competition. As a German, it kind of pains me to see how asleep at the wheel the German car industry is: too timid, too conservative and too slow. Edit: Although a bit of a bummer further down: "Toyota claims it will be ready for sale in 2027 or 2028."
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Gareth321 3y ago
  I'll be getting an EV when I can purchase one for $50k with more than 700 mile range. Then I won't need to stop more often than our gas car on road trips, and I won't have to worry about the cold/speed/altitude significantly reducing range.
- tyingq 3y ago
  I would guess the longer ranges benefit apartment dwellers, house renters, etc. People that maybe can't get reliable daily/nightly access to a charger. Apartments and workplaces could dole out stickers for access on specific days of the week or similar to spread out use of chargers.
  - pornel 3y ago
    Existing BEVs are already good enough for city dwellers. Only hybrids need to be charged ~daily. BEVs have batteries 10x their size. BEVs last a week or more between charges. If you have a charger at work, supermarket, gym, or such, you just plug it in when you have a chance.
  - freetanga 3y ago
    Or anyone that needs to do a 500-600 km every 2-3 months and is not eager to add 90 mins and uncertainty to those trips. I think is a fairly common situation in Europe, you might live in a city but relatives are away. You visit but don’t see the point of making a complex planning factoring cold weather, vehicle load, potentially broken chargers no your planned stop,…. And train is not an option if you are carrying a family of 5 or plan on moving around once you arrive. Why adopt a solution that is worse than the status quo?
Etheryte 3y ago
To put this into context, with 1200km of range, this car would be a fair bit ahead of its competitors. According to [0], the current top of the line is the Lucid Air with 830km, followed by the Tesla Model S with 650km and the Hyundai Ioniq 6 with 580 km of range. [0] https://www.cars.com/articles/electric-vehicles-with-the-longest-range-422227/ https://www.cars.com/articles/electric-vehicles-with-the-lon...
- clouddrover 3y ago
  You're better off looking at real world highway range rather than the EPA numbers: https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ Some cars like the Porsche Taycan out perform their EPA range, other cars like the Tesla Model S under perform their EPA range.
  - ComputerGuru 3y ago
    You’re not kidding - there’s a plus/minus 30% delta in some cases!
gardenhedge 3y ago
To me Toyota has been one of the top car brands. Are they really just to be reckoned with now?
- glogla 3y ago
  In EV space, they're not even that. They have no competitive offerings and they wasted a lot of time going after hydrogen, which was shown to be not feasible like a decade ago. Their current hybrids are nice, though.
  - SyzygistSix 3y ago
    Their current hybrids are great and very much in demand, especially the Prime models. Now if only Toyota could make anywhere near enough to satisfy that demand they would be doing really well. And an equivalent truck as capable and reliable as the Tacoma would probably ignite a sales frenzy. But whether they can't make the margins or don't have access to enough batteries, they can't seem to really perform in that space.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  Toyota has been a top car brand for a long time, their production capacity is huge, their build quality is high, their vehicle reliability is rightly praised. Every car band is moving into the EV space. These companies are lumbering beasts, but after moving with "deliberate speed" for a few years, it's becoming noticeable. I see electric VWs and BMWs on the roads locally, along with Hyundai, Kia, Polestar and of course Teslas. There are plenty of hybrid Toyota Priuses around, but for pure EVs, Toyota is the outlier, the laggard, the company that appears to have made the wrong bet and is now struggling to catch up. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-looks-overhaul-ev-strategy-new-ceo-takes-charge-2023-04-06 https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota...
  - worrycue 3y ago
    > now struggling to catch up How far are they behind really though? They have been working on hydrogen fuel cell (i.e. they generate electricity) cars ... isn't that practically the same thing except the power source is different? Serious question.
discobean 3y ago
- it "may" have solved the range and battery weight problems. Just like every other battery announcement. Progress is progress though, so good news.
cbmuser 3y ago
»Toyota has been secretly developing a solid-state battery for EVs with a range of 745 miles and a charge time of 10 minutes, which could revolutionize the industry.« If you charge a battery with anything near the capacity necessary for 1200 km range within ten minutes, you will need at least a charger with 1000 kW (1 MW) output power. For perspective: The two new units at Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant have 1100 MW each. Where do people expect the necessary charging power to come from?
- serpix 3y ago
  From a battery bank that is charged at constant rate which discharges at 1MW.
- DangerousPie 3y ago
  Who says you need to charge it in 10 minutes? Plug it in overnight or while you're in the office and suddenly this becomes a lot less of an issue. Sure, if you're going on a 1500 mile road trip and need to charge on the way you'll have a problem, but I doubt that's a very common use case.
  - troupo 3y ago
    > Plug it in overnight or while you're in the office and suddenly this becomes a lot less of an issue. I live in an apartment building that has no charging infrastructure. Many people work from home. If everyone charges at the same time, you still have issues with "where will all this power come from"?
    - glogla 3y ago
      If you live in an apartment and often work from home, you probably don't drive hundred miles every day, and as such don't need to charge the car very often. I did the math for myself, and with how far and how often I go places, I would need to charge a 400 km range Hyundai Kona about once every two to three weeks. I do have pretty favorable conditions, though (and mostly continue to use the bus).
exhilaration 3y ago
I've been seeing a lot of articles like this. I feel like Toyota is planting these stories to encourage its customers to wait for its EVs. After all, why would anyone want a 300 mile EV when these hypothetical vaporware "745 mile" EVs are around the corner?
- pramsey 3y ago
  This is the most true-to-myself comment I've seen so far. I've only ever bought Toyota cars, but my next car will be an EV and Toyota's offerings are... subpar, and barely there. I trust Toyota build quality and manufacturing, but my current vehicle is probably going to need replacing before they have a proven, large volume native EV on the market. They waited too long.
- simondotau 3y ago
  I'm starting to wonder if the "745 mile" claim is actually admission of technical failure. Think about it. If their battery really does have that capacity and can "charge in 10 minutes" then why not a battery half or even a quarter the capacity? Perhaps this battery's maximum rate of discharge is so low that such a massively oversized pack is needed to get sufficient momentary power to the electric motors?
  - UncleOxidant 3y ago
    I've been wondering the same. I'd be fine with a 350 mile range vehicle - it would cover more than 99.9% of all of my trips. It would be cheaper since presumably it would only need less than 1/2 of the batteries required to go 745 miles and also it would make the vehicle lighter. Not a lot of people actually need a vehicle capable of going 745 miles on a charge - most gas cars only go 400 to 500 miles on a tank of gas currently.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    Yep, this is an excellent point: if you could get that sort of range, then most of the market would happily buy about a 1/4 of that provided the price was similarly much lower.
  - 3y ago
villgax 3y ago
Absolutely love this progress
samwillis 3y ago
I think we will see solid state battery's in portables (Phones, Laptops) long before we see them in cars. The yield required, cooling, structural integrity, is all very hard to solve. Starting on a smaller scale for the significantly larger per unit market seems to me to make more sense.
xwdv 3y ago
I can only imagine the horrific explosion that would occur if this battery fails catastrophically.
- samwillis 3y ago
  I imagine fairly similar to what happens with a gas/petrol vehicle, similar amount of energy to release. Maybe with a bunch more toxic fumes...
- clouddrover 3y ago
  Solid state batteries tend to be safer than other batteries. Here is ProLogium's solid state battery failing to fail after it's been shot with a bullet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOubFHO1I3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOubFHO1I3o Here is Ionic Materials' solid state battery failing to fail after it's been cut with scissors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-cNNYb1Ik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-cNNYb1Ik
taminka 3y ago
> For those who prefer metric, that’s a range of 1200 kilometers and a charge time of six hectoseconds my brother in christ, literally the entire world not only prefers metric, but it’s the only one we know like, i don’t mind seeing miles, esp given that it’s a US publication, and i already pretty much automatically convert from miles to km in my head, but please be humble with your silly system :)
simondotau 3y ago
It seems there's news of a battery breakthrough every week. I've learned to temper expectations, because so many "breakthroughs" turn out to be dead ends. Because it's not enough for a battery to be incredibly light, or made of abundant materials, or last for ten thousand cycles. It needs to be good at many things and at least okay at most things. E.g.— • How much capacity per dollar? • How much capacity per kilogram? • How much capacity per litre? • How quickly can it be charged? • How quickly can it be discharged? • How much energy is lost between charging and discharging? • How predisposed is it to catching fire? • How available are the materials needed to manufacture it? • How available are the tools/skills required to manufacture it? • How resilient is it to mechanical stress, e.g. vibration? • How much does performance degrade per cycle? • How much does performance degrade when stored at a high state of charge? • How much does performance degrade when stored at a low state of charge? • How much does performance drop at high temperatures? • How much does performance drop at low temperatures? • How well can it be recycled at end-of-life? A sufficiently bad answer for any one of these could utterly exclude it from contention as an EV battery. A battery which scores well on everything except mechanical resilience is a non-starter, for example. Though it might be great for stationary storage. I'm only a layperson and this list is what I came up with just a few minutes of layperson thought. I'm sure someone with more familiarity with battery technology could double the length of this list. But the point is, when you daydream about some hypothetical future battery tech, you need to appreciate just how well today's lithium chemistries score in so many areas.
- chemmail 3y ago
  I think you are missing the most important one. The one that killed Nissan essentially. Degradation from time. Testing for that is the hardest. You simply cannot just accelerate time. We can do all the calculations and maybe do brutal environments and tests, but at the end, we can only wait.
- Tade0 3y ago
  > I'm sure someone with more familiarity with battery technology could double the length of this list. Actually, not really. For one, no serious manufacturer currently even proposes a battery technology if it doesn't meet the most basic of the mentioned criteria. Secondly, some of these, like storing at a low/high state of charge or high/low temperature performance are nowadays managed by the BMS - models that don't have that are already not competitive. The reason is that energy density already crossed the threshold at which some of the capacity can be spared for this purpose. To me the more important question to ask than any of these is: is there a process in place to manufacture the batteries at scale? That is what ultimately makes or breaks an emerging battery technology.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
They replaced hydrogen with solid state battery as a thing that's perpetually coming soon but not quite there yet. There are two metrics that matter for Toyota: - How much gwh per year of battery production can they get online and how soon? They need to shift production of millions of ICE/hybrid vehicles to fully electric. So, we're talking many hundreds of gwh here. - How expensive are those batteries going to be in $/kwh? Toyota is mostly known for its affordable cars. They have a few luxury models of course but mostly, they sell cars to people that can't afford those. The battery is by far the most expensive thing in an EV. I'd expect them to look at cheap sodium ion batteries rather than some fancy solid state batteries. Toyota is late to market and they don't have much more than a few concept cars and a few models that they pay BYD to produce for them. They are certainly starting to invest in production capacity. But it seems they are still a few years away from having much to show for their investments. Also, are they going to keep up with BYD, Nio, VinFast, and all those other asian manufacturers that are not holding back and are already producing EVs by the millions? Tesla is a category of its own at this point with a clear lead in terms of profitability and production cost. And you have the likes of Stellantis, Ford, and GM also trying to get e piece of the action. Toyota is a no show so far and the last 3 are showing the transition to electric is hard and involves a lot of learning and reinventing. Toyota needs more than a magic battery to catch up.
- worrycue 3y ago
  > Toyota is mostly known for its affordable cars. The thing is current battery tech is still too expensive. Can you imagine what will happen to the price if the production levels of EVs went up? It’s simply impossible to mass produce EVs cheaply at the moment.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    > Can you imagine what will happen to the price if the production levels of EVs went up? Batteries would be pushed further down the experience curve and they'd get cheaper? I mean, this is a Silicon Valley related site, so I assume you all understand experience curves.
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
Herzogralf 3y ago
[dead]
anovikov 3y ago
Even if it was true, by 2027-28 the market will be completely lost for Toyota and probably, every Western brand except Tesla.
- lofaszvanitt 3y ago
  EU will ban the sale of gasoline fueled cars in 2035, there is plenty of time.
- worrycue 3y ago
  Why? At the end of the day if they can produce a good car at a good price by the time EV hit mass adoption / ICEs get banned, they will be fine. I don’t understand why people think just because you are late to market means you can’t get market share - or even dominate. Cars aren’t operating systems or social media platforms, there is no network effect. Heck, Toyota entered the US car market when US manufacturers like GM and Ford were long established.
  - anovikov 3y ago
    Because they will need some kind of advantage. Tesla has been on it for like, 10 years longer than anyone else so they have an advantage of learning curve. China has advantage of established production chain and low costs. Toyota has none. If they try to seriously compete they will just spend all money in 2-3 years and go bust.
    - lofaszvanitt 3y ago
      Do people really believe, that everyone will drive a Tesla? People need stimulation, variety and there are multitude of other factors that weigh in on their buying preferences.
    - worrycue 3y ago
      GM and Ford were also at it for decades before Toyota even existed ... The idea that Tesla and China's head start is insurmountable needs justification.
kbos87 3y ago
How many people are regularly driving more than 300 miles without stopping for 30-45 minutes anyway? I guess this does step around the need for more charging infrastructure, but it seems like most range anxiety is pretty misinformed at this point.
- dsr_ 3y ago
  What I think people feel about range anxiety is a combination of several internalizations: - battery-powered toys run out of power at inconvenient times; that's our benchmark - gasoline fuel stations are everywhere, and we know it takes 5-10 minutes for everything to be completed - we can't afford to have a second vehicle just for long-range trips, so our annual longest trip is what we think about. Adding 30 minutes to every 10 minute stop might or might not be a problem - we've all had the experience of waking up a little late, needing to get somewhere immediately, and then realizing that we need to fuel the car -- and that makes us 5 minutes late. If the equivalent makes us 35 minutes late, that's not acceptable - in five years, is this car going to be undrivable because the batteries only hold half as much charge? Is it going to be worth much less because it needs a new $10K battery pack? But the number one reason why people aren't buying electric cars is the same reason they aren't buying new cars: too damn expensive. US passenger car sales peaked in 1986. In 2018 they were lower than any year since 1951, and they have sunk even lower in every year since. 1951 car sales: 5.3 million 1986 car sales: 11.4 million 2018 car sales: 5.3 million 2022 car sales: 2.86 million
  - pornel 3y ago
    Your list of fears is very true, but not all of them are an actual problem in practice. BEVs report remaining battery very reliably, and keep going even at 1% (way better than all your gadgets). But you're very unlikely to even get a close call, because you plan charging stops before you leave (good EVs plan them automatically). DC rapid chargers can add 50 miles of range in 5 minutes (nearly empty batteries charge fastest). 5min emergency on a 1h drive doesn't seem too bad. Traffic adds more uncertainty.
    - kbos87 3y ago
SyzygistSix 3y ago
So the Model Y is beginning to outsell the Corolla but Toyota is just going to wait until 2027 to launch this for reasons? Because they are so awesome they don't mind other companies eating their lunch? That isn't believable.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  > for reasons Because they don't actually have the technology and the manufacturing figured out and this is just marketing.
- Simulacra 3y ago
  EVs are coming and we must adjust.
  - SyzygistSix 3y ago
    Someone should tell the Japanese auto industry. They didn't get the memo.
- throwaway5959 3y ago
  Toyota has one BEV and it’s a joke. Look it up. We’ll wait.
  - SyzygistSix 3y ago
    And that is unlikely to change any time soon not because they just want to wait for 2027 for unknown reasons despite massive demand for EVs and PHEVs that they still can't make in large numbers.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
Simulacra 3y ago
Like many of the comments around these types of posts, I will be very excited when a definitive product has been produced, perhaps demonstrated if it's not too much to ask. Solid state batteries are possible, but I think it's going to take a company like A Toyota to, basically, burn a boatload of cash to get there and absorb that loss so as not to increase the price of the EV too much. Perhaps solid state batteries will first appear on luxury lines. If you're already spending $90k for an EV, what's another $50k for the new battery?
sam_goody 3y ago
No one mentions this, but IIRC solid state batteries are less likely to catch fire without a obvious reason. While such fires are extremely rare, they have happened, and scare at least some of the potential market. Considering that there are definitely those that do not buy a EV for fear of fire, that could be a selling point.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  There are lots and lots of issues around fire. Its not correct that solid state automatically means fire is less. There are lots of technologies that play into that.
- timbit42 3y ago
  Regardless, they catch fire much less than ICEVs.
AlpineG 3y ago
745 mile range, charges in 10 mins. Already see there must be some BS. How many kw is this magical charger.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  When you aren't charging your car you can use it to smelt aluminum.
- felipemnoa 3y ago
  These are best case scenarios. It just tells you the upper limit of the technology. The higher the limit the better. In practice though it means that the infrastructure has a lot of catching up. I think this just speaks to how much of an advancement this is, if true. Like, this new battery technology is so advanced that there is no infrastructure for it yet.
PaulKeeble 3y ago
CATL's and BYD's sodium ion batteries are appearing already. Cars are on sale in China and you can buy the cells on AliExpress. Those are about €50 a KWH for similar density which compares favourably to Li-on at over $100 and LiPho at $130. Next generation batteries from their competitors are already hitting the market and the new Li-on is expected next year with double capacity which will match Toyota's stated battery and CATL are unlikely to be lying. Toyota has been talking about this since 2017 and nothing has been shown so far, whereas CATL have shown the tech off. This coming year looks like it's finally the year when all the promises of new battery technology actually happens in volume.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  What's the cycle life on these batteries? Because €50/kWh would be wonderful for stationary storage.
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    Based on articles I read in trade mags via my work email is that battery manufacturers suspect that with careful design and thermal management a lightly used automotive battery could have a 20-40 year service life. I think people have a disbelief that there have been large improvements in battery lifespan in the last 20 years when there absolutely has been. Modern ion batteries aren't just 20 year old ones but cheaper. Degradation and charge discharge rates are substantially better.
  - PaulKeeble 3y ago
    6000 cycles or 20-40 years is the current claimed life. They are going to be fantastic for home or grid storage.
- thrtythreeforty 3y ago
  Would you link a cell on AliExpress? I'd like to see these!
  - PaulKeeble 3y ago
1970-01-01 3y ago
Something isn't right. Title: With The 745-mile Solid-state Battery, Toyota Just Became A Force To Reckon With 1st link in article: Toyota's Solid-State Batteries Will Offer Over 900 Miles On A Single Charge 2nd link: Toyota's Solid-state Batteries Will Offer A Range Of 745 Miles And Charge In Under 10 Minutes!
- sp332 3y ago
  Further down in that first article: - First-gen solid-state batteries will allow up to 745 miles of range. - Second-gen solid-state batteries will push this to 932 miles.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    932 miles. Not 931, not 933. Seems legit.
    - mchouza 3y ago
      Probably just converted from 1500 km.
TheRealSteel 3y ago
Toyota somehow develop this magical battery for an EV but forgot to develop an EV. I truly think Toyota's ignorance of EVs will end up turning them into the next Kodak or Blackberry. They don't NEED a breakthru battery like this, the current ones work well -- I drove 1200km today in a Tesla. What they need to do is develop and sell electiric cars. It's such a shame. Toyota had the first hybrid. And it was good -- I drove a Prius for ten years. They even made a plugin hybrid. They were the leaders. Now they seem to be last in the electric car race. Tragic.
- _hypx 3y ago
  Bullshit. All car companies will have to abandon batteries because it is not a sustainable idea. It is Tesla and not Toyota that is facing a disruptive risk because of that.
- _hypx 3y ago
  Tesla is shaping up to be the next Blackberry. They are stuck with just one idea: The battery powered car. An idea that predates internal combustion BTW.
  - TheRealSteel 3y ago
    If you think so, what's the major technology that they're ignoring that the industry is in the process of switching to?
    - _hypx 3y ago
      In the short-run, just more practical cars such as hybrids and plug-in cars. In the long-run, it is the inevitable plunge in cost of hydrogen, which will make fuel cell cars the cheaper type of car to own.
- fomine3 3y ago
  What's unique for Toyota is that their hybrids are sold like a pancake. Hybrids also uses batteries but it uses far less. Battery supply is the current constraint for xEV. Since they can sell many hybrids for less battery use, I understand that they don't want to "waste" batteries for BEV, but it makes bad reputation for slow BEV transition. It's the classic innovator's dilemma, but hybrids are also great vehicle for who can't afford BEV for some reason now. Still, I think they should released moderate BEV (like Nissan Aria?) in 2021, even if they ship very limited count.
SeanLuke 3y ago
> Toyota's Lackluster EV History Makes This A Surprise Indeed. In fact from the article it would appear to be vaporware with no hard evidence at all.
Eumenes 3y ago
I'll believe it when it's been in the field for years. EVs have been a major let down, lot's of hype.
m3kw9 3y ago
Would wait till a product comes out as there is a new revolution a day for ev batt
cottsak 3y ago
Toyota routinely seem to be developing all kinds of new things… all of which are not production vehicles that anyone wants to buy in any serious quantity. It’s a distraction tactic. I don’t know what they’re buying time for but it had better be good else this won’t end well for Toyota.
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  I don’t know about other press releases but to say that “no one would want to buy” a 1200km range car (or just the battery tech of one) is ridiculous to the extreme. It’s what everyone has literally been waiting for.
- hotstickyballs 3y ago
  They’re doing the Kodak maneuver. Meaning they’ll be spending cash on innovation because a minority of shareholders want to see them investing in the future but almost everyone isn’t willing to see actual losses. So then they’ll just keep spending on innovation but barely change their corporate strategy and then eventually fizzle out.
roody15 3y ago
This is a smart move. Current EV’s have not quite solved enough of the issues to make them viable for most non urban areas. Hybrids remain the most in demand and the best of both worlds with current tech. If we can get a battery with a massive range then charging issues subside a bit and these vehicles become much more viable for most if not all of the US.
tyronehed 3y ago
[dead]
a6 3y ago
For anyone interested in solid-state battery usage, Mercedes-Benz has already released vehicles with such batteries to customers, even as far back as 2021 [0]. [0] - https://www.electrive.com/2021/12/20/mercedes-buses-with-solid-state-batteries-arrive-in-bremen/ https://www.electrive.com/2021/12/20/mercedes-buses-with-sol...
- panick21_ 3y ago
  No they have not. This is just a total misunderstanding of the technologies involved. Sadly for dumb marketing reasons 'solid state' has become the terms that is used, but that is the wrong term. The actual reason why 'solid state' was important is because people believe lithium metal anodes would only be possible with solid state. When we are talking about next generation 'solid state' we actually mean 'next generation li-ion batteries with lithium metal anode'. The 'solid state' technology in buses that is talked about in that article is a totally different thing. That tech has been known to exist for a long time and is a totally different technology that has nothing to do with the hype around 'solid state'. Its 'lithium-polymer' that as a far narrower application and isn't all that interesting and certainly not some amazing next generation battery. This is a sad issue in battery marketing world where people mix up what these technologies actually mean.
phtrivier 3y ago
> Toyota claims it will be ready for sale in 2027 or 2028 Should be the first, last, and, honestly, single line of the discussion. We need those battery breakthrough yesterday, and we're still stuck with press releases and misleading car ranges. I'll give all the credit due as soon as I can aford a car that let me drive the 500km of highway separating my house from my mom's with less than 2 charges. For all those who're readying to chant the gospel of Elon and tout the range of they model W, noticed how I used the word "afford". And I'm a f-ing software engineer with the purchasing power of at least two people with a real job - and those two people would not mind getting an EV to get to their real jobs, too. The clock is ticking, people are working hard, in the end the laws will force the car manufacturers to do what the market could not - but damn, in the meantime, am I tired of press releases...
- bagacrap 3y ago
  I bought a Nissan leaf in 2020 with 225 miles range for approx 20,000 USD...
  - phtrivier 3y ago
    Which is about twice as much as I ever paid for a car. I absolutely know you can recoup a part of that in the long run, especially given the price of gas, etc... But at the moment I'm already indebted to do insulation work in my house - there's a limit to how much an individual can invest at any given point, even if the investment is sure to pay off. And again, remember that you have to be _rich_ to afford such a car. Real people are already having a hard time buying second hand cars at around 5000€/10000€.
    - bagacrap 3y ago
      20,000 USD is objectively cheap for any car. At this point you're just complaining that cars are expensive.
      - phtrivier 3y ago
        > 20,000 USD is objectively cheap for any car. I realize I don't have any real data point, so let's digg in. At current exchange rate, $20000 is 18000€. I checked the 3 most sold cars for last year in France [1], and the listed price range from 12k€ to 16k€. So, it's not obvious that a 18k€ car is "cheap" - but it's just a napkin computation. I'm surprised to learn that each model accounts for a pretty small percentage of the total sales, around 5% each. I would have expected more for at least the top salers. If we wanted to get a real sense of what "cheap" means, what would make more sense in your opinion ? - A simple "average" of the prices ? - A weighted average of the prices, taking the percentage of sales into account ? Also, in the distribution, do you define "cheap" as "the lower half" ? "the last decile" ? [1] https://www.caroom.fr/guide/voiture-neuve/meilleures-ventes#renault_clio_v https://www.caroom.fr/guide/voiture-neuve/meilleures-ventes#...
briandw 3y ago
Same from Toyota in 2017 https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/07/toyota-wants-to-commercialize-solid-state-ev-batteries-by-2022-reports-say/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/07/toyota-wants-to-commerc... Also from 2014 https://www.autonews.com/article/20140127/OEM06/301279980/toyota-preps-solid-state-batteries-for-20s https://www.autonews.com/article/20140127/OEM06/301279980/to...
SergeAx 3y ago
> For those who prefer metric, that’s a range of 1200 kilometers and a charge time of six hectoseconds That was actually funny. Otherwise, please call me back when vehicles with such batteries will be available.
gpapilion 3y ago
Everyone time I read a low charge time, the thing that comes to mind is the ability of the charging cable to carry that much power that quickly. Minimally that means you’re delivering 6x the electricity (2x the amount and 3x as fast). I’m assuming the charging is pretty efficient, so you have to scale up the charger, and a bunch of issues start coming up. For this reason I think 10m charge times are bs.
- hinkley 3y ago
  There’s a Starbucks I frequent where the drive through is on the same side of the building as the electrical service (!?) and every time I’m waiting for coffee I look at the multiple 2-3 inch conduits and think what kind of equipment are they running in there? They share a building with another business that I don’t think would put a dent in the power usage for the building, unless they have a server room I don’t know about. I could run a class 2 charger at my house and that’s only a 1” conduit, but those take half a dozen hours to deliver that current. You’re gonna need a lot more shielding.
  - gpapilion 3y ago
    Class 2 would be 9 to 10 kw. For reference 33 kw is around requires cables in the us roughly 1 - 3/4 inch conduit. Each piece of equipment requires its own circuit so you likely have multiple circuits in the conduit depending on code. All that said commercial cooking and refrigeration require a lot of power. Going back to charging, for a circuit the size this would likely need your be looking at something with at least 3 1 inch wires, and would be at least 2.5 inches in diameter when packaged. It likely needs cooling too which means even more diameter.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      That sounds difficult to use.
Animats 3y ago
This is important, and the sources are terrible. The Guardian had an article over two weeks ago with essentially the same information.[1] There's no press release from Toyota on batteries this month.[2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-claims-battery-breakthrough-electric-cars?ICID=ref_fark https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-clai... [2] https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/ https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/
Veedrac 3y ago
I'm shocked at how seriously people are taking the 745 mile statistic, as if EVs were like rockets, range set at the limit of physical feasibility, rather than market-led compromises between range, power, weight, and price. If you develop a fancy new high-density, high-power battery, the market optima sits at a smaller battery. This holds true at least until the market is saturated.
QuantumGood 3y ago
Announcements of things happening more than 3 years from now don't have much actionable validity.
luuurker 3y ago
Yes, they've been developing it for the past 10 years and it's always 3 years away. I'll believe it when I see it on a car.
- lumost 3y ago
  I used to wonder why such impossible research projects could exist in a private business. To some extent, the existence of such a project can give credence that management is not oblivious to larger trends - and has a plan to leapfrog the competition. To this end, It doesn’t matter whether there is any credible plan to deliver said research project.

308 points by achow 3y ago

amai 3y ago

Sounds like FUD - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

Solid-state? Are there batteries with vacuum tubes?

panick21_ 3y ago

Ah Toyota and its 10 year quest claiming that amazing next generation batteries are just around the corner and that they make their EV best in class from 1 day to another.

mcswell 3y ago

From the article: "solid-state batteries... don’t do well in cold weather, tend to weaken quickly after repeatedly getting charged and drained, are particularly costly... Toyota...said it may have solved the range and battery weight problems." Problems are A, B, C, and D, and Toyota solved X and Y. What gives?

exabrial 3y ago

I know everyone on HN will tell me that my opinion on my personal want is wrong, all I want is a hydrogen + fuel cell/battery car, or recharge times in the 5-10m range for BEV.

Siecje 3y ago

Is it better to keep an EV at 80% or to leave it between 50% and 80% for weeks? Instead of 80% I'd say optimal voltage but I don't know what that is, and the car doesn't show me the battery voltage. Why isn't there a setting to charge to optimize battery longevity? Even if that means the battery is at 70% or 75% or whatever. Often I get home with 60%. Should I wait until I get home with < 50% before charging? Or just keep it at 80%?

avidphantasm 3y ago

I want manufacturers to be mandated to retrofit new technology to some portion existing vehicles. I have two 5-7yo Toyota hybrids and would love to have a better battery technology to replace the NIMH batteries when the time comes. There are aftermarket Li-ion batteries, but I’d love a third party solution that would convert these into PHEVs. I only have a 8 mi per day commute, and would basically never need to buy gas with a PHEV. With one of these solid-state battery packs, I could even take longer trips all electric. I’d probably pay $15k per vehicle for this.

chiph 3y ago

Toyota is building a new battery factory in Liberty North Carolina (about 20 miles southeast of Greensboro). Their press site for it only says "Lithium-ion Batteries" and that they will be used for BEV vehicles, so it doesn't preclude it being used to build these new solid-state batteries. https://pressroom.toyota.com/facility/toyota-battery-manufacturing-north-carolina-tbmnc/ https://pressroom.toyota.com/facility/toyota-battery-manufac...

xyst 3y ago

That’s amazing. This means people can avoid plugging in their EVs overnight and overall be less taxing on the grid. Instead of charging every night, charge once or twice a week. Bad news. Todays EVs are going straight to the landfill. Yet another hit for the environment. If only there was a more efficient transportation option…

hnburnsy 3y ago

Dear battery technology claimant, Thank you for your submission of proposed new revolutionary battery technology. Your new technology claims to be superior to existing lithium-ion technology and is just around the corner from taking over the world. Unfortunately your technology will likely fail, because: [ ] it is impractical to manufacture at scale. [ ] it will be too expensive for users. [ ] it suffers from too few recharge cycles. [ ] it is incapable of delivering current at sufficient levels. [ ] it lacks thermal stability at low or high temperatures. [ ] it lacks the energy density to make it sufficiently portable. [ ] it has too short of a lifetime. [ ] its charge rate is too slow. [ ] its materials are too toxic. [ ] it is too likely to catch fire or explode. [ ] it is too minimal of a step forward for anybody to care. [ ] this was already done 20 years ago and didn't work then. [ ] by the time it ships li-ion advances will match it. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to original poster!

pie420 3y ago

So have I. This isn't news until there is a working prototype at the very least

DanielHB 3y ago

I work with batteries, it is almost always the cost of setting up a factory for a new process is just too high. Especially the first factory where you need new machines that don't exist yet. My company is actually developing new lithium-metal battery chemistry that uses existing process for manufacturing, this is much more cost-effective and lower risk. You can just slightly retool an existing lithium-ion factory to pump out these new batteries. Large-scale lithium-ion ever became a thing because Sony pumped a ton of R&D into walkmans.

expertentipp 3y ago

> For those who prefer metric, that’s a range of 1200 kilometers and a charge time of six hectoseconds Very funny...

wunderland 3y ago

[flagged]

simbolit 3y ago
[flagged]

glogla 3y ago

Lately I'm more and more convinced that the challenge is not doing a thing, the challenge is scaling it up. Doing a thing is a necessity for moving forward, but scaling it up is how you change the world. On one hand, Toyota is pretty good at scaling things up. On the other hand, they have not shown scaling it up, they have shown doing a thing. We'll have to see. The time is running out.

simondotau 3y ago
> they have shown doing a thing. What they showed is a bench experiment. What they need is a battery which is proven capable in an EV — in terms of resilience, power handling, environmental tolerances, etc. The challenge is scaling THAT up.
SyzygistSix 3y ago
They haven't been very good about scaling up production of their Prime vehicles. Lots of people would love to buy them and have for years.
dev_tty01 3y ago
They have sold hybrids at scale, lots of similar components, so no reason to think they can't scale when they have a design they are ready to produce. Toyota runs a huge global car manufacturing company that is known for quality and shipping a lot of cars. They know how to scale. Toyota reminds me of Microsoft when the internet went mainstream. Very slow to respond, but once they got their giant tanker turned in the right direction they were all in. I suspect Toyota will be the same.

float4 3y ago

Toyota already said it was around the corner in 2017[0]. Now it's 2023 and it's still around the corner. I'll believe it when I see it. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/07/25/ultrafast-charging-solid-state-ev-batteries-around-the-corner-toyota-confirms/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bertelschmitt/2017/07/25/ultraf...

simbolit 3y ago
HN really needs an audio player with a certain Run DMC song on loop.
- jansan 3y ago
  I did not know there is a song from Run DMC called "Two more weeks".
amadeuspagel 3y ago
> In another five years, and if a report in a Japanese newspaper is to be believed, Toyota will have the key technology for wide-spread adoption of battery-electric vehicles: Solid-state batteries with twice the range of today’s EVs, while charging only in minutes. Well, it's six years now, but that doesn't seem that much of a delay?
- simondotau 3y ago
  Toyota are still saying it's five years away. So that's a minimum of eleven years.
  - labster 3y ago
    But why get a battery car when fusion cars are just 20 years away?
    - tiffanyg 3y ago
      Hmm, I thought 2015 for fusion? https://youtu.be/xvacBzZtYag?t=1m3s https://youtu.be/xvacBzZtYag?t=1m3s There's just too much Bannon-esque "flooding the zone" these days... And now, we wait for the entirely justified downvotes (though, this thread being so AG-ED* at this point, more likely I'm just talking to myself. Again...) * https://youtu.be/V4gJfATGr9k?t=42s https://youtu.be/V4gJfATGr9k?t=42s

simbolit 3y ago

What does the article really contribute? The announcement was 10 days ago. I can't find anything in the article that gives me new actionable information. Can people who upvoted this please explain why they did? Thanks!

genocidicbunny 3y ago
Personally, this is the first time I'm seeing this info, and to me it's pretty exciting. 750mi on a single charge would significantly change the calculus on EVs for me personally. It pretty much eliminates any range worries I have, and makes it way more feasible for me to own one if I live in an apartment or condo where I cannot install a more powerful charger. It's the difference between hanging out at a charger station once a week vs once a month. So at the very least, the article is a nice heads-up to me and others alike that are somewhat on the fence about EVs, that some of our concerns may very well be assuaged.
- comfypotato 3y ago
  Do you know the lifetime of current battery technology? Expected years until 80% capacity, etc.? Asking because I don’t know.
  - genocidicbunny 3y ago
    I do not, sorry. Until very recently, EV's weren't even a consideration for me, because of their limitations on range, but also because of difficulty of charging them if you lived in a condo or an apartment (heck, my current car is a Mazda, a company which _just_ started offering EVs in some markets). Because of that, I am not well versed in the specific details of the current generation of EVs. With that said, anecdotally, I have heard of old Prius hybrids getting 100k miles out of their batteries, but that was a decade ago. I don't know what modern battery chem is capable of.
  - Gareth321 3y ago
    Tesla claims their Model S and X batteries degrade 12% over 200,000 miles: https://www.notateslaapp.com/tesla-reference/1371/tesla-shows-data-around-battery-life-span-just-12-degradation-after-200-000-miles https://www.notateslaapp.com/tesla-reference/1371/tesla-show...

_fizz_buzz_ 3y ago

1200km is more than enough. Nobody should be driving longer distances in one day anyway. If this will hold up, Toyota will have leap-frogged their competition. As a German, it kind of pains me to see how asleep at the wheel the German car industry is: too timid, too conservative and too slow. Edit: Although a bit of a bummer further down: "Toyota claims it will be ready for sale in 2027 or 2028."

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Gareth321 3y ago
I'll be getting an EV when I can purchase one for $50k with more than 700 mile range. Then I won't need to stop more often than our gas car on road trips, and I won't have to worry about the cold/speed/altitude significantly reducing range.
tyingq 3y ago
I would guess the longer ranges benefit apartment dwellers, house renters, etc. People that maybe can't get reliable daily/nightly access to a charger. Apartments and workplaces could dole out stickers for access on specific days of the week or similar to spread out use of chargers.
- pornel 3y ago
  Existing BEVs are already good enough for city dwellers. Only hybrids need to be charged ~daily. BEVs have batteries 10x their size. BEVs last a week or more between charges. If you have a charger at work, supermarket, gym, or such, you just plug it in when you have a chance.
- freetanga 3y ago
  Or anyone that needs to do a 500-600 km every 2-3 months and is not eager to add 90 mins and uncertainty to those trips. I think is a fairly common situation in Europe, you might live in a city but relatives are away. You visit but don’t see the point of making a complex planning factoring cold weather, vehicle load, potentially broken chargers no your planned stop,…. And train is not an option if you are carrying a family of 5 or plan on moving around once you arrive. Why adopt a solution that is worse than the status quo?

Etheryte 3y ago

To put this into context, with 1200km of range, this car would be a fair bit ahead of its competitors. According to [0], the current top of the line is the Lucid Air with 830km, followed by the Tesla Model S with 650km and the Hyundai Ioniq 6 with 580 km of range. [0] https://www.cars.com/articles/electric-vehicles-with-the-longest-range-422227/ https://www.cars.com/articles/electric-vehicles-with-the-lon...

clouddrover 3y ago
You're better off looking at real world highway range rather than the EPA numbers: https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/ Some cars like the Porsche Taycan out perform their EPA range, other cars like the Tesla Model S under perform their EPA range.
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  You’re not kidding - there’s a plus/minus 30% delta in some cases!

gardenhedge 3y ago

To me Toyota has been one of the top car brands. Are they really just to be reckoned with now?

glogla 3y ago
In EV space, they're not even that. They have no competitive offerings and they wasted a lot of time going after hydrogen, which was shown to be not feasible like a decade ago. Their current hybrids are nice, though.
- SyzygistSix 3y ago
  Their current hybrids are great and very much in demand, especially the Prime models. Now if only Toyota could make anywhere near enough to satisfy that demand they would be doing really well. And an equivalent truck as capable and reliable as the Tacoma would probably ignite a sales frenzy. But whether they can't make the margins or don't have access to enough batteries, they can't seem to really perform in that space.
SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
Toyota has been a top car brand for a long time, their production capacity is huge, their build quality is high, their vehicle reliability is rightly praised. Every car band is moving into the EV space. These companies are lumbering beasts, but after moving with "deliberate speed" for a few years, it's becoming noticeable. I see electric VWs and BMWs on the roads locally, along with Hyundai, Kia, Polestar and of course Teslas. There are plenty of hybrid Toyota Priuses around, but for pure EVs, Toyota is the outlier, the laggard, the company that appears to have made the wrong bet and is now struggling to catch up. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-looks-overhaul-ev-strategy-new-ceo-takes-charge-2023-04-06 https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota...
- worrycue 3y ago
  > now struggling to catch up How far are they behind really though? They have been working on hydrogen fuel cell (i.e. they generate electricity) cars ... isn't that practically the same thing except the power source is different? Serious question.

discobean 3y ago

- it "may" have solved the range and battery weight problems. Just like every other battery announcement. Progress is progress though, so good news.

cbmuser 3y ago

»Toyota has been secretly developing a solid-state battery for EVs with a range of 745 miles and a charge time of 10 minutes, which could revolutionize the industry.« If you charge a battery with anything near the capacity necessary for 1200 km range within ten minutes, you will need at least a charger with 1000 kW (1 MW) output power. For perspective: The two new units at Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant have 1100 MW each. Where do people expect the necessary charging power to come from?

serpix 3y ago
From a battery bank that is charged at constant rate which discharges at 1MW.
DangerousPie 3y ago
Who says you need to charge it in 10 minutes? Plug it in overnight or while you're in the office and suddenly this becomes a lot less of an issue. Sure, if you're going on a 1500 mile road trip and need to charge on the way you'll have a problem, but I doubt that's a very common use case.
- troupo 3y ago
  > Plug it in overnight or while you're in the office and suddenly this becomes a lot less of an issue. I live in an apartment building that has no charging infrastructure. Many people work from home. If everyone charges at the same time, you still have issues with "where will all this power come from"?
  - glogla 3y ago
    If you live in an apartment and often work from home, you probably don't drive hundred miles every day, and as such don't need to charge the car very often. I did the math for myself, and with how far and how often I go places, I would need to charge a 400 km range Hyundai Kona about once every two to three weeks. I do have pretty favorable conditions, though (and mostly continue to use the bus).

exhilaration 3y ago

I've been seeing a lot of articles like this. I feel like Toyota is planting these stories to encourage its customers to wait for its EVs. After all, why would anyone want a 300 mile EV when these hypothetical vaporware "745 mile" EVs are around the corner?

pramsey 3y ago
This is the most true-to-myself comment I've seen so far. I've only ever bought Toyota cars, but my next car will be an EV and Toyota's offerings are... subpar, and barely there. I trust Toyota build quality and manufacturing, but my current vehicle is probably going to need replacing before they have a proven, large volume native EV on the market. They waited too long.
simondotau 3y ago
I'm starting to wonder if the "745 mile" claim is actually admission of technical failure. Think about it. If their battery really does have that capacity and can "charge in 10 minutes" then why not a battery half or even a quarter the capacity? Perhaps this battery's maximum rate of discharge is so low that such a massively oversized pack is needed to get sufficient momentary power to the electric motors?
- UncleOxidant 3y ago
  I've been wondering the same. I'd be fine with a 350 mile range vehicle - it would cover more than 99.9% of all of my trips. It would be cheaper since presumably it would only need less than 1/2 of the batteries required to go 745 miles and also it would make the vehicle lighter. Not a lot of people actually need a vehicle capable of going 745 miles on a charge - most gas cars only go 400 to 500 miles on a tank of gas currently.
- XorNot 3y ago
  Yep, this is an excellent point: if you could get that sort of range, then most of the market would happily buy about a 1/4 of that provided the price was similarly much lower.
- 3y ago

villgax 3y ago

Absolutely love this progress

samwillis 3y ago

I think we will see solid state battery's in portables (Phones, Laptops) long before we see them in cars. The yield required, cooling, structural integrity, is all very hard to solve. Starting on a smaller scale for the significantly larger per unit market seems to me to make more sense.

xwdv 3y ago

I can only imagine the horrific explosion that would occur if this battery fails catastrophically.

samwillis 3y ago
I imagine fairly similar to what happens with a gas/petrol vehicle, similar amount of energy to release. Maybe with a bunch more toxic fumes...
clouddrover 3y ago
Solid state batteries tend to be safer than other batteries. Here is ProLogium's solid state battery failing to fail after it's been shot with a bullet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOubFHO1I3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOubFHO1I3o Here is Ionic Materials' solid state battery failing to fail after it's been cut with scissors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-cNNYb1Ik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-cNNYb1Ik

taminka 3y ago

> For those who prefer metric, that’s a range of 1200 kilometers and a charge time of six hectoseconds my brother in christ, literally the entire world not only prefers metric, but it’s the only one we know like, i don’t mind seeing miles, esp given that it’s a US publication, and i already pretty much automatically convert from miles to km in my head, but please be humble with your silly system :)

simondotau 3y ago

It seems there's news of a battery breakthrough every week. I've learned to temper expectations, because so many "breakthroughs" turn out to be dead ends. Because it's not enough for a battery to be incredibly light, or made of abundant materials, or last for ten thousand cycles. It needs to be good at many things and at least okay at most things. E.g.— • How much capacity per dollar? • How much capacity per kilogram? • How much capacity per litre? • How quickly can it be charged? • How quickly can it be discharged? • How much energy is lost between charging and discharging? • How predisposed is it to catching fire? • How available are the materials needed to manufacture it? • How available are the tools/skills required to manufacture it? • How resilient is it to mechanical stress, e.g. vibration? • How much does performance degrade per cycle? • How much does performance degrade when stored at a high state of charge? • How much does performance degrade when stored at a low state of charge? • How much does performance drop at high temperatures? • How much does performance drop at low temperatures? • How well can it be recycled at end-of-life? A sufficiently bad answer for any one of these could utterly exclude it from contention as an EV battery. A battery which scores well on everything except mechanical resilience is a non-starter, for example. Though it might be great for stationary storage. I'm only a layperson and this list is what I came up with just a few minutes of layperson thought. I'm sure someone with more familiarity with battery technology could double the length of this list. But the point is, when you daydream about some hypothetical future battery tech, you need to appreciate just how well today's lithium chemistries score in so many areas.

chemmail 3y ago
I think you are missing the most important one. The one that killed Nissan essentially. Degradation from time. Testing for that is the hardest. You simply cannot just accelerate time. We can do all the calculations and maybe do brutal environments and tests, but at the end, we can only wait.
Tade0 3y ago
> I'm sure someone with more familiarity with battery technology could double the length of this list. Actually, not really. For one, no serious manufacturer currently even proposes a battery technology if it doesn't meet the most basic of the mentioned criteria. Secondly, some of these, like storing at a low/high state of charge or high/low temperature performance are nowadays managed by the BMS - models that don't have that are already not competitive. The reason is that energy density already crossed the threshold at which some of the capacity can be spared for this purpose. To me the more important question to ask than any of these is: is there a process in place to manufacture the batteries at scale? That is what ultimately makes or breaks an emerging battery technology.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

They replaced hydrogen with solid state battery as a thing that's perpetually coming soon but not quite there yet. There are two metrics that matter for Toyota: - How much gwh per year of battery production can they get online and how soon? They need to shift production of millions of ICE/hybrid vehicles to fully electric. So, we're talking many hundreds of gwh here. - How expensive are those batteries going to be in $/kwh? Toyota is mostly known for its affordable cars. They have a few luxury models of course but mostly, they sell cars to people that can't afford those. The battery is by far the most expensive thing in an EV. I'd expect them to look at cheap sodium ion batteries rather than some fancy solid state batteries. Toyota is late to market and they don't have much more than a few concept cars and a few models that they pay BYD to produce for them. They are certainly starting to invest in production capacity. But it seems they are still a few years away from having much to show for their investments. Also, are they going to keep up with BYD, Nio, VinFast, and all those other asian manufacturers that are not holding back and are already producing EVs by the millions? Tesla is a category of its own at this point with a clear lead in terms of profitability and production cost. And you have the likes of Stellantis, Ford, and GM also trying to get e piece of the action. Toyota is a no show so far and the last 3 are showing the transition to electric is hard and involves a lot of learning and reinventing. Toyota needs more than a magic battery to catch up.

worrycue 3y ago
> Toyota is mostly known for its affordable cars. The thing is current battery tech is still too expensive. Can you imagine what will happen to the price if the production levels of EVs went up? It’s simply impossible to mass produce EVs cheaply at the moment.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  > Can you imagine what will happen to the price if the production levels of EVs went up? Batteries would be pushed further down the experience curve and they'd get cheaper? I mean, this is a Silicon Valley related site, so I assume you all understand experience curves.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago

Herzogralf 3y ago

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anovikov 3y ago

Even if it was true, by 2027-28 the market will be completely lost for Toyota and probably, every Western brand except Tesla.

lofaszvanitt 3y ago
EU will ban the sale of gasoline fueled cars in 2035, there is plenty of time.
worrycue 3y ago
Why? At the end of the day if they can produce a good car at a good price by the time EV hit mass adoption / ICEs get banned, they will be fine. I don’t understand why people think just because you are late to market means you can’t get market share - or even dominate. Cars aren’t operating systems or social media platforms, there is no network effect. Heck, Toyota entered the US car market when US manufacturers like GM and Ford were long established.
- anovikov 3y ago
  Because they will need some kind of advantage. Tesla has been on it for like, 10 years longer than anyone else so they have an advantage of learning curve. China has advantage of established production chain and low costs. Toyota has none. If they try to seriously compete they will just spend all money in 2-3 years and go bust.
  - lofaszvanitt 3y ago
    Do people really believe, that everyone will drive a Tesla? People need stimulation, variety and there are multitude of other factors that weigh in on their buying preferences.
  - worrycue 3y ago
    GM and Ford were also at it for decades before Toyota even existed ... The idea that Tesla and China's head start is insurmountable needs justification.

kbos87 3y ago

How many people are regularly driving more than 300 miles without stopping for 30-45 minutes anyway? I guess this does step around the need for more charging infrastructure, but it seems like most range anxiety is pretty misinformed at this point.

dsr_ 3y ago
What I think people feel about range anxiety is a combination of several internalizations: - battery-powered toys run out of power at inconvenient times; that's our benchmark - gasoline fuel stations are everywhere, and we know it takes 5-10 minutes for everything to be completed - we can't afford to have a second vehicle just for long-range trips, so our annual longest trip is what we think about. Adding 30 minutes to every 10 minute stop might or might not be a problem - we've all had the experience of waking up a little late, needing to get somewhere immediately, and then realizing that we need to fuel the car -- and that makes us 5 minutes late. If the equivalent makes us 35 minutes late, that's not acceptable - in five years, is this car going to be undrivable because the batteries only hold half as much charge? Is it going to be worth much less because it needs a new $10K battery pack? But the number one reason why people aren't buying electric cars is the same reason they aren't buying new cars: too damn expensive. US passenger car sales peaked in 1986. In 2018 they were lower than any year since 1951, and they have sunk even lower in every year since. 1951 car sales: 5.3 million 1986 car sales: 11.4 million 2018 car sales: 5.3 million 2022 car sales: 2.86 million
- pornel 3y ago
  Your list of fears is very true, but not all of them are an actual problem in practice. BEVs report remaining battery very reliably, and keep going even at 1% (way better than all your gadgets). But you're very unlikely to even get a close call, because you plan charging stops before you leave (good EVs plan them automatically). DC rapid chargers can add 50 miles of range in 5 minutes (nearly empty batteries charge fastest). 5min emergency on a 1h drive doesn't seem too bad. Traffic adds more uncertainty.
  - kbos87 3y ago

SyzygistSix 3y ago

So the Model Y is beginning to outsell the Corolla but Toyota is just going to wait until 2027 to launch this for reasons? Because they are so awesome they don't mind other companies eating their lunch? That isn't believable.

panick21_ 3y ago
> for reasons Because they don't actually have the technology and the manufacturing figured out and this is just marketing.
Simulacra 3y ago
EVs are coming and we must adjust.
- SyzygistSix 3y ago
  Someone should tell the Japanese auto industry. They didn't get the memo.
throwaway5959 3y ago
Toyota has one BEV and it’s a joke. Look it up. We’ll wait.
- SyzygistSix 3y ago
  And that is unlikely to change any time soon not because they just want to wait for 2027 for unknown reasons despite massive demand for EVs and PHEVs that they still can't make in large numbers.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

Simulacra 3y ago

Like many of the comments around these types of posts, I will be very excited when a definitive product has been produced, perhaps demonstrated if it's not too much to ask. Solid state batteries are possible, but I think it's going to take a company like A Toyota to, basically, burn a boatload of cash to get there and absorb that loss so as not to increase the price of the EV too much. Perhaps solid state batteries will first appear on luxury lines. If you're already spending $90k for an EV, what's another $50k for the new battery?

sam_goody 3y ago

No one mentions this, but IIRC solid state batteries are less likely to catch fire without a obvious reason. While such fires are extremely rare, they have happened, and scare at least some of the potential market. Considering that there are definitely those that do not buy a EV for fear of fire, that could be a selling point.

panick21_ 3y ago
There are lots and lots of issues around fire. Its not correct that solid state automatically means fire is less. There are lots of technologies that play into that.
timbit42 3y ago
Regardless, they catch fire much less than ICEVs.

AlpineG 3y ago

745 mile range, charges in 10 mins. Already see there must be some BS. How many kw is this magical charger.

willcipriano 3y ago
When you aren't charging your car you can use it to smelt aluminum.
felipemnoa 3y ago
These are best case scenarios. It just tells you the upper limit of the technology. The higher the limit the better. In practice though it means that the infrastructure has a lot of catching up. I think this just speaks to how much of an advancement this is, if true. Like, this new battery technology is so advanced that there is no infrastructure for it yet.

PaulKeeble 3y ago

CATL's and BYD's sodium ion batteries are appearing already. Cars are on sale in China and you can buy the cells on AliExpress. Those are about €50 a KWH for similar density which compares favourably to Li-on at over $100 and LiPho at $130. Next generation batteries from their competitors are already hitting the market and the new Li-on is expected next year with double capacity which will match Toyota's stated battery and CATL are unlikely to be lying. Toyota has been talking about this since 2017 and nothing has been shown so far, whereas CATL have shown the tech off. This coming year looks like it's finally the year when all the promises of new battery technology actually happens in volume.

pfdietz 3y ago
What's the cycle life on these batteries? Because €50/kWh would be wonderful for stationary storage.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  Based on articles I read in trade mags via my work email is that battery manufacturers suspect that with careful design and thermal management a lightly used automotive battery could have a 20-40 year service life. I think people have a disbelief that there have been large improvements in battery lifespan in the last 20 years when there absolutely has been. Modern ion batteries aren't just 20 year old ones but cheaper. Degradation and charge discharge rates are substantially better.
- PaulKeeble 3y ago
  6000 cycles or 20-40 years is the current claimed life. They are going to be fantastic for home or grid storage.
thrtythreeforty 3y ago
Would you link a cell on AliExpress? I'd like to see these!
- PaulKeeble 3y ago

1970-01-01 3y ago

Something isn't right. Title: With The 745-mile Solid-state Battery, Toyota Just Became A Force To Reckon With 1st link in article: Toyota's Solid-State Batteries Will Offer Over 900 Miles On A Single Charge 2nd link: Toyota's Solid-state Batteries Will Offer A Range Of 745 Miles And Charge In Under 10 Minutes!

sp332 3y ago
Further down in that first article: - First-gen solid-state batteries will allow up to 745 miles of range. - Second-gen solid-state batteries will push this to 932 miles.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  932 miles. Not 931, not 933. Seems legit.
  - mchouza 3y ago
    Probably just converted from 1500 km.

TheRealSteel 3y ago

Toyota somehow develop this magical battery for an EV but forgot to develop an EV. I truly think Toyota's ignorance of EVs will end up turning them into the next Kodak or Blackberry. They don't NEED a breakthru battery like this, the current ones work well -- I drove 1200km today in a Tesla. What they need to do is develop and sell electiric cars. It's such a shame. Toyota had the first hybrid. And it was good -- I drove a Prius for ten years. They even made a plugin hybrid. They were the leaders. Now they seem to be last in the electric car race. Tragic.

_hypx 3y ago
Bullshit. All car companies will have to abandon batteries because it is not a sustainable idea. It is Tesla and not Toyota that is facing a disruptive risk because of that.
_hypx 3y ago
Tesla is shaping up to be the next Blackberry. They are stuck with just one idea: The battery powered car. An idea that predates internal combustion BTW.
- TheRealSteel 3y ago
  If you think so, what's the major technology that they're ignoring that the industry is in the process of switching to?
  - _hypx 3y ago
    In the short-run, just more practical cars such as hybrids and plug-in cars. In the long-run, it is the inevitable plunge in cost of hydrogen, which will make fuel cell cars the cheaper type of car to own.
fomine3 3y ago
What's unique for Toyota is that their hybrids are sold like a pancake. Hybrids also uses batteries but it uses far less. Battery supply is the current constraint for xEV. Since they can sell many hybrids for less battery use, I understand that they don't want to "waste" batteries for BEV, but it makes bad reputation for slow BEV transition. It's the classic innovator's dilemma, but hybrids are also great vehicle for who can't afford BEV for some reason now. Still, I think they should released moderate BEV (like Nissan Aria?) in 2021, even if they ship very limited count.

SeanLuke 3y ago

> Toyota's Lackluster EV History Makes This A Surprise Indeed. In fact from the article it would appear to be vaporware with no hard evidence at all.

Eumenes 3y ago

I'll believe it when it's been in the field for years. EVs have been a major let down, lot's of hype.

m3kw9 3y ago

Would wait till a product comes out as there is a new revolution a day for ev batt

cottsak 3y ago

Toyota routinely seem to be developing all kinds of new things… all of which are not production vehicles that anyone wants to buy in any serious quantity. It’s a distraction tactic. I don’t know what they’re buying time for but it had better be good else this won’t end well for Toyota.

ComputerGuru 3y ago
I don’t know about other press releases but to say that “no one would want to buy” a 1200km range car (or just the battery tech of one) is ridiculous to the extreme. It’s what everyone has literally been waiting for.
hotstickyballs 3y ago
They’re doing the Kodak maneuver. Meaning they’ll be spending cash on innovation because a minority of shareholders want to see them investing in the future but almost everyone isn’t willing to see actual losses. So then they’ll just keep spending on innovation but barely change their corporate strategy and then eventually fizzle out.

roody15 3y ago

This is a smart move. Current EV’s have not quite solved enough of the issues to make them viable for most non urban areas. Hybrids remain the most in demand and the best of both worlds with current tech. If we can get a battery with a massive range then charging issues subside a bit and these vehicles become much more viable for most if not all of the US.

tyronehed 3y ago

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a6 3y ago

For anyone interested in solid-state battery usage, Mercedes-Benz has already released vehicles with such batteries to customers, even as far back as 2021 [0]. [0] - https://www.electrive.com/2021/12/20/mercedes-buses-with-solid-state-batteries-arrive-in-bremen/ https://www.electrive.com/2021/12/20/mercedes-buses-with-sol...

panick21_ 3y ago
No they have not. This is just a total misunderstanding of the technologies involved. Sadly for dumb marketing reasons 'solid state' has become the terms that is used, but that is the wrong term. The actual reason why 'solid state' was important is because people believe lithium metal anodes would only be possible with solid state. When we are talking about next generation 'solid state' we actually mean 'next generation li-ion batteries with lithium metal anode'. The 'solid state' technology in buses that is talked about in that article is a totally different thing. That tech has been known to exist for a long time and is a totally different technology that has nothing to do with the hype around 'solid state'. Its 'lithium-polymer' that as a far narrower application and isn't all that interesting and certainly not some amazing next generation battery. This is a sad issue in battery marketing world where people mix up what these technologies actually mean.

phtrivier 3y ago

> Toyota claims it will be ready for sale in 2027 or 2028 Should be the first, last, and, honestly, single line of the discussion. We need those battery breakthrough yesterday, and we're still stuck with press releases and misleading car ranges. I'll give all the credit due as soon as I can aford a car that let me drive the 500km of highway separating my house from my mom's with less than 2 charges. For all those who're readying to chant the gospel of Elon and tout the range of they model W, noticed how I used the word "afford". And I'm a f-ing software engineer with the purchasing power of at least two people with a real job - and those two people would not mind getting an EV to get to their real jobs, too. The clock is ticking, people are working hard, in the end the laws will force the car manufacturers to do what the market could not - but damn, in the meantime, am I tired of press releases...

bagacrap 3y ago
I bought a Nissan leaf in 2020 with 225 miles range for approx 20,000 USD...
- phtrivier 3y ago
  Which is about twice as much as I ever paid for a car. I absolutely know you can recoup a part of that in the long run, especially given the price of gas, etc... But at the moment I'm already indebted to do insulation work in my house - there's a limit to how much an individual can invest at any given point, even if the investment is sure to pay off. And again, remember that you have to be _rich_ to afford such a car. Real people are already having a hard time buying second hand cars at around 5000€/10000€.
  - bagacrap 3y ago
    20,000 USD is objectively cheap for any car. At this point you're just complaining that cars are expensive.
    - phtrivier 3y ago
      > 20,000 USD is objectively cheap for any car. I realize I don't have any real data point, so let's digg in. At current exchange rate, $20000 is 18000€. I checked the 3 most sold cars for last year in France [1], and the listed price range from 12k€ to 16k€. So, it's not obvious that a 18k€ car is "cheap" - but it's just a napkin computation. I'm surprised to learn that each model accounts for a pretty small percentage of the total sales, around 5% each. I would have expected more for at least the top salers. If we wanted to get a real sense of what "cheap" means, what would make more sense in your opinion ? - A simple "average" of the prices ? - A weighted average of the prices, taking the percentage of sales into account ? Also, in the distribution, do you define "cheap" as "the lower half" ? "the last decile" ? [1] https://www.caroom.fr/guide/voiture-neuve/meilleures-ventes#renault_clio_v https://www.caroom.fr/guide/voiture-neuve/meilleures-ventes#...

briandw 3y ago

Same from Toyota in 2017 https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/07/toyota-wants-to-commercialize-solid-state-ev-batteries-by-2022-reports-say/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/07/toyota-wants-to-commerc... Also from 2014 https://www.autonews.com/article/20140127/OEM06/301279980/toyota-preps-solid-state-batteries-for-20s https://www.autonews.com/article/20140127/OEM06/301279980/to...

SergeAx 3y ago

> For those who prefer metric, that’s a range of 1200 kilometers and a charge time of six hectoseconds That was actually funny. Otherwise, please call me back when vehicles with such batteries will be available.

gpapilion 3y ago

Everyone time I read a low charge time, the thing that comes to mind is the ability of the charging cable to carry that much power that quickly. Minimally that means you’re delivering 6x the electricity (2x the amount and 3x as fast). I’m assuming the charging is pretty efficient, so you have to scale up the charger, and a bunch of issues start coming up. For this reason I think 10m charge times are bs.

hinkley 3y ago
There’s a Starbucks I frequent where the drive through is on the same side of the building as the electrical service (!?) and every time I’m waiting for coffee I look at the multiple 2-3 inch conduits and think what kind of equipment are they running in there? They share a building with another business that I don’t think would put a dent in the power usage for the building, unless they have a server room I don’t know about. I could run a class 2 charger at my house and that’s only a 1” conduit, but those take half a dozen hours to deliver that current. You’re gonna need a lot more shielding.
- gpapilion 3y ago
  Class 2 would be 9 to 10 kw. For reference 33 kw is around requires cables in the us roughly 1 - 3/4 inch conduit. Each piece of equipment requires its own circuit so you likely have multiple circuits in the conduit depending on code. All that said commercial cooking and refrigeration require a lot of power. Going back to charging, for a circuit the size this would likely need your be looking at something with at least 3 1 inch wires, and would be at least 2.5 inches in diameter when packaged. It likely needs cooling too which means even more diameter.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    That sounds difficult to use.

Animats 3y ago

This is important, and the sources are terrible. The Guardian had an article over two weeks ago with essentially the same information.[1] There's no press release from Toyota on batteries this month.[2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-claims-battery-breakthrough-electric-cars?ICID=ref_fark https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-clai... [2] https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/ https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/

Veedrac 3y ago

I'm shocked at how seriously people are taking the 745 mile statistic, as if EVs were like rockets, range set at the limit of physical feasibility, rather than market-led compromises between range, power, weight, and price. If you develop a fancy new high-density, high-power battery, the market optima sits at a smaller battery. This holds true at least until the market is saturated.

QuantumGood 3y ago

Announcements of things happening more than 3 years from now don't have much actionable validity.

luuurker 3y ago

Yes, they've been developing it for the past 10 years and it's always 3 years away. I'll believe it when I see it on a car.

lumost 3y ago
I used to wonder why such impossible research projects could exist in a private business. To some extent, the existence of such a project can give credence that management is not oblivious to larger trends - and has a plan to leapfrog the competition. To this end, It doesn’t matter whether there is any credible plan to deliver said research project.