Toyota claims it is 'almost there' with the ability to manufacture solid state electric batteries that will give EVs a 1,200 km (745 miles) range and that can charge in 10 minutes
I’ll believe it when I can buy a car or a laptop with a solid state battery.
I'd be happy to buy a big, bulky, heavy, early version of any of these batteries for my house, as long as it's affordable, high capacity, and has a good cycle life.
It doesn't even have to fit in a car, it can be the size of a shed. Hell, I'll build a shed for it.
Yet this magical product has yet to materialize!
Some people might scoff at the 2027/28 timeline, but I doubt this is vaporware. Toyota is the world's biggest car maker, so their claims have some credibility.
Toyota's breakthrough is with mass-producing these types of batteries, they still face challenges in real world use - "Problems include the extreme sensitivity of the batteries to moisture and oxygen, as well as the mechanical pressure needed to hold them together to prevent the formation of dendrites, the metal filaments that can cause short circuits."
It's not vaporware, it's anti-EV FUD.
Don't buy one of those EVs, we're going to have much better EVs really soon now and you'll be stuck with something inferior. Same with their talk about hydrogen: EVs are just a fad, hydrogen is the future! ... and it'll be viable real soon now, so stick with gasoline until then!
Toyota is constantly in the news about battery advancements or hydrogen because it's defensive FUD to protect their fossil fuel vehicle sales.
Yeah this type of news makes people think current EVs are not enough and need to stick with gas. The realistic approach would be to be relying on consistent charging network that people can plug into for long periods of time and there needs to be more than two chargers per location. Yet right now people don't realize the necessary infrastructure upgrades to make our live more green and viable.
The size of the company making the claim has no correlation to the veracity of the claim.
BP, Exxon, Shell spent decades claiming global warming wasn't real.
Philip Morris & British American Tobacco spent decades telling us smoking didnt cause cancer.
All of whom are or were as large as Toyota.
Look at their track record and judge their words against their actions.
Toyota has spent considerable sums over many years campaigning against Electric Vehicles.
https://electrek.co/2021/09/22/toyota-facing-boycotts-over-fight-slow-electric-vehicle-progress/
So should you believe a company that says it's about to table the next huge EV breakthrough when it fouht tooth and nail to slow that transition ?
Your choice, but I won't until I see something more substantial than press releases
Also look at thier pathetic EV offerings at the moment: they're obviously still in the "build compliance EVs until the hydrogen ones are ready" mindset: https://youtu.be/yOeDJ7s_LCc
They'd be better off if they just took an off the shelf battery pack and put it in the muria instead of a hydrogen fuel cell...
I don't think it's vaporware, but they keep pushing the timeline. Years ago there was advancements and we were going to see it in 2026. Now it's 2027/28. In 26 it'll be 29/30
They'll get there eventually, the tech is real, it's just super new tech at scale is hard.
I doubt they're using pressure to prevent the dendrites. Honda figured out a while back to separate the parts in some sort of polyplastic mix of some sort in order to prevent the formation. I bet toyota is also going more that route.
I don't think time affects a companies ability to reinvent physics. At the end of the day you are limited by the laws of nature
Assuming efficiency of ~4 miles per kWh (on the high end of current EV efficiency), that's a 200kWh battery. charging that in 10 minutes would require 1.2MW's of power, enough to power about 50-100 homes simultaneously. Now imagine a handful of vehicles charging simultaneously, consuming as much power as a small city.
Imagine putting your tongue on the charging plug
Spread it over enough people and it's the same energy. For one person it's a much shorter charge. Over a population with random charging times it's the same consumption off the grid. The problem then becomes a distribution issue, not a production issue.
Likely these kind of chargers will be expensive and at supercharge stations. Homes will use lower over longer.periods as it's rare you want to pop home for 10 minutes needing a full charge.
This is a big step forward, no matter how you look at it.
It might be also useful for excess storage when we have wind and solar energy that the grid doesnt need. Being able to do so rapidly will mean a smaller array of batteries required for grod storage.
It's a big step forward IF it enters production.
As thevenin links elsewhere in the thread they've been promising this is "any day now" since 2010
I'm not sure people are going to be interested in paying for megawatt-capable chargers, anyway. There's a couple of sites near me that have old 50 kW chargers and new 250 kW chargers, and have higher prices on the 250s. I expect that sort of thing to continue - providers are going to want to cover their costs and higher powered chargers are more expensive to buy and operate.
Assuming efficiency of ~4 miles per kWh (on the high end of current EV efficiency)
Why should we assume this?
It's a fairly achievable efficiency.
They are being charitable to Toyota along the path of estimating capacity. Why shouldn't that be assumed?
I'm getting close to 8m/kwh on the high-end. Realistically, I'm ranging between 3.6 to 5 m/kwh. But when I drove for Uber, I did 200 miles using only 34.1 kwh, I drove slow, and it was mostly city driving. So I could only need 137 kwh for 800 miles. Still prohibitively unrealistic to charge in 10 minutes. It's about 1.4 MWatts to charge from empty for 10 minutes.
the charge power needed for the 200KWH is not 1.2 MWatts for 10 minutes, it's 2MWatts. Mostly because you can only charge fast at lower percentage.
That would be impractical even for fleet vehicles.
Unless they're also going to announce the development of nuclear fusion in order to provide the necessary cheap energy, then I don't think this is going anywhere.
I wouldn't want and keep burning gas till then though. With new manufacturing processes like this, delays are common, and it'll likely be pricey at first. I'm excited, but don't use this as an excuse to keep burning gas.
Look at Toyota's lobbying history. It's a load. They push the hardest against EV mandates.
Toyota's been claiming solid state batteries are just around the corner for 13 years.
Toyota may well produce a solid state battery, but they've moved the goalposts enough times that it would be foolish to take them at face value now.
Nice. I hope they do the same for phones.
I, too, eagerly await the release of phones with a 1200km range.
Transformers! Robots in...phones
It's just a matter of throwing it hard enough.
I wouldn't mind charging my phone only once every few days
Toyota last week announced a partnership with energy group Idemitsu Kosan to jointly develop and produce a solid-state battery material called sulphide solid electrolyte, which the companies said was most promising in addressing the durability issue.
I won't put too much hope considering so mucn time they've wasted ignoring the EV market. However, given that they are having a partnership with Idemitsu Kosan, they might be up to something.
People keep saying that but they've been using batteries to make wheels spin longer than any major manufacturers. The Prius came out in 1997!
The original Prius had been eligible for antique plates for like 6 years :)
Someone should do that
Almost is a big word
How big will the chargers have to be to push that much energy that fast?
you could understand it as: the technology has the capacity to receive power that fast without breaking or catching fire
They don't need to be big.
The physics of electrical conduction mean that you can't cram thousands of watts of power down any given wire without issue. This is why appliance cords are thicker than phone charging cords.
Pushing enough electrons to drive a car a thousand km through a wire in under 10 minutes is going to take a THICCC cable.
just three to five years guys!
Incredible news. Battery advancements can help a wave of innovation take off. This is a giant step in the right direction coming from one of the world’s premier manufacturers.
I can’t wait to see what energy storage advances we make in the coming decades. It’s going to continue to grow as one of the world’s largest needs in our effort to get away from fossil fuels.
Wonderful. Too bad that shit is going to be too expensive. Probably why I saw so much pollution in Indonesia. Just can't afford anything better.
If "I" go...you're going with me.