Toyota solid state battery – is the next-generation battery technology

Although Toyota has lost its say in China’s new energy market in the field of hybrid vehicles, it has been caught up by a group of Chinese auto companies, but facing the future, Toyota is still full of confidence. In Toyota’s view, the short life of all-solid-state batteries is a core issue.

The solid electrolyte expands and contracts repeatedly as the battery is charged and discharged, which may cause cracks, making it difficult for lithium ions to flow between the cathode and anode. But now, Toyota has discovered a new technology to overcome this problem.

After calculating the cost, the all-solid-state battery will fully enter the stage of research and development for mass production. Although according to the plan, Toyota solid state battery products will not be available until at least 2025, and mass production is expected at least after 2027, but from the perspective of technology accumulation, the company’s current technical achievements related to Toyota solid state battery are indeed very impressive.

As the car company with the most patents related to solid-state batteries in the world, Toyota Motor recently announced that it expects to launch pure electric vehicles equipped with “all-solid-state batteries” on the market as early as 2027. Recently, the industrialization of solid-state batteries has once again attracted the attention of the capital market. Toyota announced its major breakthrough in manufacturing Toyota solid state battery technology.

In addition, Toyota announced that it will realize the commercialization of all-solid-state battery technology in 2027-2028, and put pure electric vehicles equipped with Toyota solid state battery on the market. Toyota has proposed to expand EVs. Although the world sales volume in 2022 is only about 20,000 vehicles, Toyota proposes to achieve annual sales of 1.5 million vehicles by 2026 and 3.5 million vehicles by 2030.

Potential and development prospects of solid-state batteries

Since the rise of the concept of solid state battery, the industry has been very optimistic about the potential and development prospects of solid-state batteries. According to the physical structure of the power battery, the liquid electrolyte content gradually decreases, and the development from the traditional liquid battery to the final all-solid-state battery can be divided into five major stages: liquid battery, gel-state battery, semi-solid battery, quasi-solid-state battery, all-solid-state battery.

At present, most of the power batteries on the market are almost liquid batteries, but due to the constraints of the principle, liquid batteries have many obvious shortcomings that are inevitable. For example, safety hazards caused by instability, performance degradation caused by low temperature conditions, and battery capacity approaching the bottleneck.

In contrast, the most prominent advantage of solid-state batteries is safety. Solid electrolytes can suppress lithium dendrites, are not easy to burn, not easy to explode, no electrolyte leakage, and no side reactions at high temperatures. Working under high current will not cause a short circuit due to lithium dendrites piercing the diaphragm, will not cause side reactions at high temperatures, and will not cause combustion due to gas generation.

On the other hand, although the solid-state battery itself cannot increase the energy density, due to its more stable and safer properties, it is helpful to increase the energy density of the battery cell regardless of the material, structure or packaging level.

Advancement of Toyota solid state battery development

If Toyota’s claims are true, this could be a milestone moment for the future of electric vehicles. According to reports, as early as August 2020, Toyota electric vehicles equipped with all-solid-state batteries have obtained licenses and started driving experiments.

Toyota revealed to reporters that before 2025, Toyota solid state battery will achieve small-scale mass production, and it will first be equipped on hybrid vehicles; by 2030, Toyota solid state battery will achieve continuous and stable production.

In 2021, Toyota Motor announced that by 2030, it is expected to invest 1.5 trillion yen in the development of power batteries and their battery supply chain. The goal is to gain leadership in key automotive technologies for the next decade and remain price-competitive for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Toyota has previously laid out plans to launch vehicles using advanced solid-state batteries by 2025, which offer many advantages over liquid batteries. Toyota solid state battery has simplified the production process of the materials used to make solid-state batteries, calling the discovery an important leap forward that could dramatically reduce charging times and increase range. Toyota says it believes it can simplify the production process, making solid-state batteries easier to produce than lithium-ion batteries.

Professionals from Toyota said that they have found a new method to manufacture a Toyota solid state battery with a range of 1,200 kilometers in 10 minutes of charging, which is 2.4 times longer than the existing EV assembly battery. And by simplifying the production process of the materials used to make solid-state batteries, the volume, weight, and price of Toyota solid state battery are expected to be halved compared with existing batteries.

Advantages of Toyota solid state battery

Generally speaking, all-solid-state batteries are different from the mainstream liquid lithium-ion batteries of EVs. The electrolyte is solid, which is characterized by short charging time and extended cruising distance. Solid electrolyte and solid electrode must be close together and cannot be separated.

If the electrode repeatedly expands and shrinks due to charge and discharge, the electrolyte and the electrode will separate, making it unusable. Previously, it was generally only possible to charge and discharge dozens to hundreds of times, which could not reach the thousands of times required for practical use.

Toyota is a leader in the research and development of all-solid-state batteries, with more than 1,000 related patents. In the summer of 2020, the world’s first vehicle equipped with an all-solid-state battery obtained a license plate and underwent a driving test. The goal at that time was to equip it with hybrid vehicles (HV) in the first half of the 2020s. Toyota will further advance the development and also intends to extend the cruising range to about 1,500 kilometers in the future with a charging time of less than 10 minutes.

Toyota solid state battery, the next-generation high-performance lithium battery technology, is regarded as one of the ultimate solutions to subvert the lithium battery industry.

The breakthrough in Toyota solid state battery technology claimed by Toyota is undoubtedly a sensation. If the full Toyota solid state battery can run 1,200 kilometers in 10 minutes of charging, and the cost, weight, and volume are all halved, it will not only solve the shortcoming of charging and battery life for electric vehicles, but also completely declare that fuel vehicles can withdraw from the stage of history.