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Even if true, I don't see this as significant. The current battle for electric batteries is cost, not energy density. LFP and sodium batteries are less dense
by kjksf 1y ago
Even if true, I don't see this as significant.
The current battle for electric batteries is cost, not energy density.
LFP and sodium batteries are less dense that non-solid state lithium ion batteries but they are good enough to be used in standard version of Model 3 or Model Y and those are best selling ev cars.
Energy density is good enough, durability is good enough, what matters is lowering the price.
A battery with higher energy density but without lower price is not competitive.
Toyota still doesn't have a high volume electric car. Lack of batteries is not the cause of that but Toyota's own decisions.
Even if they get a slightly better battery, they still need to design a good ev car and that's way more to that than replacing gas tank and engine with a battery and motors.
Furthermore, you don't just mass produce ev batteries. Panasonic was struggling and loosing money for several years making batteries for Tesla. When Tesla decided to make batteries themselves, it also took them years to go from 0 to a significant number of batteries.
Idemitsu doesn't seem to make ev car batteries so I don't see how the could possibly have meaningful production in 2 years.
Furthermore, going solid state is only an incremental improvement of a component of the battery. It has the most economic value when applied at scale. So it would make most sense to license this technology to existing high volume manufacturer like LG Chem or CATL.
The realities of volume production vs. cost make it very unlikely you can just compete with CATL and LG Chem making 1/100 of their volume even if your battery is slightly better.
- jayd16 1y agoThis assumes a static market but higher energy density means more range and more use cases, right?
- rcxdude 1y agoATM the main limit on range is price as opposed to weight. You can make an EV with as much range as a gas car, it'll be heavy AF but the main thing that will limit sales is that it's expensive.
- jayd16 1y agoThe weight means diminishing returns, which makes it even more expensive. If you cut the weight, you do get a cost reduction.
- IgorPartola 1y agoDepends on how high. Hauling less weight means you need less energy storage. Plus lithium is horrible to mine not only for the environment but also because every site is a completely different mining process. Alternatives would be very nice to have.
- Reason077 1y ago> "Plus lithium is horrible to mine not only for the environment" Lithium extraction has a tiny fraction of the environmental footprint compared to the global oil industry. It's a bit of a straw man argument to complain about the environmental credentials of batteries when the alternative is much worse.
- nomel 1y agoThe alternative to the alternative is much better, environmentally and (we'll have to wait and see final specs) technically by every single metric, other than momentum (both kinds).
- Reason077 1y agoWhat alternative are you referring to? You know that these solid state batteries still use lithium, right?
- nomel 1y agoMy understanding is that the there’s less, and potentially no, cobalt. Double checking, it looks like they haven’t made the composition public (and also haven’t finalized it). I guess we’ll have to wait and see for the environmental point (benefits of increased usage aside).
- Reason077 1y agoLess cobalt would certainly certainly be a win. But note that the majority of the world's EVs shipping today already have cobalt-free batteries in the form of LFP. But even if they're not cobalt-free and not cheaper, if Toyota have managed to combine NMC's energy density with LFP's safety profile and cycle life, that's a win already.
- thegrim33 1y agoFunny, the three main benefits from solid state batteries that I'd be interested in (faster charging rates, better handling of extreme temperatures, and increased longevity/lifespan), you never even mentioned.
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- rcxdude 1y agoThey may be better but empirically the current tech is already plenty good enough on those fronts for cars (for fast charging the limit is already most often the charger if you are trying to prioritise that), so unless the cost difference is small it's gonna be a tough sell.
- filloooo 1y agoLFP is heavy, while it's a good enough solution for low altitude areas, NMC still dominates high altitude countries like EU ones, even CATL produces quite a lot NMC batteries for high end models in bith China and EU.