What's Toyota up to? (solid state batteries)

"BaconSandwich is tasty." (baconsandwich)
08/20/2020 at 11:33 • Filed to: None

In one of the more recent episodes of the Fully Charged Show, Robert talks about Toyota’s supposed development of a solid state battery:

(Should start at ~12:44 in)

Supposedly they are working on a solid state battery that has twice the energy density of what’s available now, and can fast-charge like nobody’s business - like 0 - 100% in 15 minutes . They are supposed to hit the market in 2025. Now my question is - is Toyota actually going to pull this off, or is this just more fluff from them to get people to avoid buying a non-Toyota EV in the next few years?

If they have truly pulled this off , I could see this being quite a huge game changer. But there’s still a lot of questions in my mind:

- What will it cost? Will the cost be similar to existing batteries right now, or will it command some sort of price premium? Will other cell costs have dropped even more by 2025, or have things really tapered off?
- Can it actually be mass produced at the scale needed to satisfy a lot of customers? Or will this be relegated to some high-end models for the next 10 years, only to slowly filter down to the EV equivalent of Corolla (whatever that ends up being)?

The skeptic part of me thinks Toyota is talking fluff . Maybe they are t alking these things up, just like how VW said they were going to be the world leader in EVs by 2020. (Y eah, that didn’t quite happen, considering they are just now launching their first serious EV in any significant volume ). So far, it seems like Toyota has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into producing anything other than the Prius. The first plug-in Prius had an abysmal range. The second gen plug-in Prius had a much better range, but still was less than that of a first-gen Chevy Volt. The Rav4 Prime? Yeah... they announced that they were only going to deliver 5,000 to the US market for the entire year. You can bet there’s a waiting list for those. This tells me that they still aren’t serious about producing an EV in significant quantities for the world market. (China is a different story - they are basically being forced into it there, and even then, their efforts have been half-hearted).

DISCUSSION (12)

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/20/2020 at 11:57

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Well, Toyota’s said for years that they’ll be at price-parity with fuel cells (compared to same range Lithium Ion battery cars) by 2025. The pace of improvement in Lithium-Ion, despite the Cult Claims, is only 4% per year. There’s lots of time for “something better” to come into the market.

So, yeah, the market’s really ready for a change in how “electric” is applied here.

Also lost in the FUD is how BEV sales have stalled out in the last five quarters. Same market sales are down across the globe and products like TMY are only stealing sales for TM3... classic Early Adopter market behavior. Punchline is that Toyota made $25 billion in profit in the prior year and has profitably sailed through COVID. So, Toyota’s really lost out nothing to Tesla, at least to this point. And, with Lithium Ion vehicle sales stalled out and a recession on? Toyota seems pretty well positioned with better tech when the market’s ready.

Tesla’s like Univac was in mainframe computers based on relays and vacuum tubes in 1955... an early lead, but all their R&D was going in building better vacuum tubes and relays. Toyota’s working on this strange notion called “solid state”... Wonder who will win?

lone_liberal > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/20/2020 at 12:12

I’m sure they’re serious about this but the solid state battery seems to be one of those technologies that is always two years away. If they bring it out they’ll change the market, but I wouldn’t put off a car purchase waiting for it.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/20/2020 at 12:44

At the same time, Tesla does seem to have an edge on overall efficiency given a battery pack of a certain size . Their inverters seem a notch or two above everyone else’s. Given the same size battery pack, Audi (e-Tron), Jaguar (i-Pace), Mercedes Benz (EQC) haven’t been able to come close to the range.

Although part of could be aerodynamics, and using a smaller battery buffer because they are more confident in their long-term cell degra dation. The other manufactures don’t have the same sort of long-term data to rely on to make sure things are going to hold up in the long term.

4% per year is still pretty good. Imagine buying a car with 40% more range 10 years from now for the same price. E.g.: 250 mile range -> 350 mile range. That’s still pretty significant.

I’m still disappointed to see them flogging the fuel cell horse. For big trucks, or other infrastructure, sure. But so far batteries seem to be the better bet. I guess they are “roman riding” - riding with one foot on each horse until they can see the outcome, and jump on the right horse.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > lone_liberal
08/20/2020 at 12:45

I’m just hoping to keep my current car running another 5-6 years. Currently at 291 ,000 km or so, then hoping to make the jump to an EV (likely used, not brand new).

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/20/2020 at 13:20

Dunno. Univac’s “test and burn in program” for their relays and vacuum tubes made them the most efficient and reliable machines in their era. Those all proved to be only transitory advantages.

The real issue remains charge time— and I think Toyota’s understood that math for a long, long time. That’s the real advantage of hydrogen.. fast ‘refuel’ times and the ability to “peak shift” via storage. Plus all the excess solar and nuclear heat can be used to synthesize hydrogen for later usage.

The Cult’s done a pretty good job disparaging fuel cells, but that ignores how much progress has been made on the tech. All the bus and truck trials are going really well... and pretty much all the baggage that comes with battery trucks doesn’t exist with FCEV.

I don’t think it’s a great wager to bet against Toyota. The next five years will be very interesting.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/20/2020 at 13:48

If they can pull it off, then I’ll consider EVs as viable replacements for ICE.....but only if they can DRASTICALLY decrease the cost of EV cars.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
08/20/2020 at 14:00

I hear you. I’m not sure it’s going to happen that drastically, though, at least not any time soon . It is a bit frustrating to see the focus on the higher end segment of the market. Or like how the Model 3 was supposed to cost $35k, but really it’s closer to $39k. That’s still too high. Unfortunately, I think some manufacturers are going to eat up that extra profit, even if battery prices (and labour to produce the actual cars) goes down. Instead of making $25k Corollas, they’d be more than happy to make $35k Model 3 competitors that have a higher profit margin.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/20/2020 at 14:11

Yup, and that’s what I worry about. I don’t want an expensive car, even if I had money. I like cheap ecoboxes that are in the around or sub-20K price point...but there are no EVs anywhere near that right now...

This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja: > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/20/2020 at 16:46

Last I checked they hadn’t even begun using lithium ion and were still stuffing their cars full of nimh cells.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
08/20/2020 at 18:33

Right now, as much as I dislike GM, a used Bolt seems to be the sweet spot in value with a decent range.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja:
08/20/2020 at 18:34

I thought the plug-in variants use lithium ion, but the regular hybrids are using NiMH.

This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja: > BaconSandwich is tasty.
08/20/2020 at 18:37

They might. I honestly haven’t been paying attention to them all that closely, but when recently researching the local re- manufactured ev pack market all of the Toyota packs were nimh without a lithium one to be found, which I was honestly surprised by. I may have incorrectly assumed however.