Robustness is critical when developing new battery cells. In the automotive industry, companies shoot for no worse than a 20 percent capacity loss after 700 charging cycles....
Given that we’re talking about batteries… Remember what phone and laptop manufacturers say about their batteries?
On top of that, these are solid state batteries, not your usual Li-ion batteries with a liquid electrolyte. This is the first time I’ve heard of a large well known company announce they’re using solid state batteries.
That technology has been under development for decades, and it has been applied in some very special devices before, but maybe now it’s finally the time to start large scale production.
Finding the right materials has been really hard, but the next obstacle is scaling up the production. As long as we’re talking about small scale production, these batteries are going to be really expensive and only suitable for very few products.
VW is suggesting that they have solved both of these problems, which obviously makes me a bit skeptical. However, I don’t think it’s impossible, but I’m saying it’s really hard. I would have expected to see some luxury products use SSBs first before seeing them in main stream brands.
Given that we’re talking about batteries… Remember what phone and laptop manufacturers say about their batteries?
On top of that, these are solid state batteries, not your usual Li-ion batteries with a liquid electrolyte. This is the first time I’ve heard of a large well known company announce they’re using solid state batteries.
That technology has been under development for decades, and it has been applied in some very special devices before, but maybe now it’s finally the time to start large scale production.
Toyota has been telling us solid state batteries are coming soon since … 2012ish 😀
We’re still waiting
Finding the right materials has been really hard, but the next obstacle is scaling up the production. As long as we’re talking about small scale production, these batteries are going to be really expensive and only suitable for very few products.
VW is suggesting that they have solved both of these problems, which obviously makes me a bit skeptical. However, I don’t think it’s impossible, but I’m saying it’s really hard. I would have expected to see some luxury products use SSBs first before seeing them in main stream brands.