Want an EV With 600 Miles of Range? It’s Coming

The push for solid-state batteries could lead to extra-long battery ranges as soon as 2027.

By Dan Gearino  August 22, 2024  insideclimatenews.org

Solid-state batteries—which pack more energy into each unit of volume than current batteries and will stretch the range of electric vehicles—have long felt just out of reach. 

But they are getting close, and recent progress helps to clarify when the first models may arrive.

Samsung SDI said in March that it will produce solid-state batteries for use in high-end vehicles by 2027. The vehicles would be able to travel more than 600 miles before needing to be recharged. Samsung, based in South Korea, didn’t say which automakers would use the battery, but the company has relationships with GM, Hyundai and Stellantis.

A range of 600 miles would be roughly double the ranges of today’s most popular models.

Samsung’s announcement puts it ahead of Toyota, which told investors in January that it is on track to develop a solid-state battery by 2027 or 2028, followed by a ramp-up to mass production.

QuantumScape, based in California, said in July that it had reached an agreement to license its solid-state battery technology to Volkswagen to develop for mass production. The announcement did not include a timetable for when those vehicles might be available to consumers.

Most EV batteries on the market today have a liquid or gel electrolyte, the material through which lithium ions flow as the battery charges and discharges. In a solid-state battery, the electrolyte is a solid, usually ceramic or polymer. The design allows for much higher energy density, faster charging times and a reduction of fire risk.

Other battery makers—such as Blue Solutions of France, Factorial Energy of Massachusetts and Solid Power of Colorado, among others—are working on their own solid-state systems, with timelines that would have their products on the market by about 2030. Nissan has an in-house team working on solid-state batteries and is aiming for a public rollout by 2029.

Tesla is a special case, saying little about plans to develop such batteries.

But a lack of publicity isn’t the same as a lack of progress, said Rory McNulty, product director for new technology at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a firm that tracks market information related to battery mineral supply chains.

“The thing you always get with these larger companies is that they don’t need to shout about the fact they’re qualifying technologies,” he said. “They can be much more of a closed book about it.”

This is different from battery startups that need to publicize their progress to be able to raise money from investors and attract industry partners.

So far, I’ve been talking about the companies that sell batteries and vehicles in the United States.

In China, next-generation batteries have already arrived. China is the world’s leading EV market, but its cars are walled off from U.S. consumers by tariffs.

Nio, a China-based automaker, has a semi-solid-state battery that offers more than 600 miles of range and is now available in the ET7 luxury sedan. Several other Chinese companies say they are right behind.

Nio is using a battery manufactured by WeLion, also based in China. One interesting part of the product rollout is that Nio is doing battery swapping, in which drivers of the vehicle can go to a service center where machines quickly remove the existing EV battery and install the new one. Nio and WeLion can analyze the used batteries to improve how they work. 

CATL, the Chinese company that leads the world in battery production, has been developing solid-state batteries at the same time that its chief executive has downplayed the viability of the technology. Robin Zeng told the Financial Times in March that a variety of technical challenges have slowed progress, including some tests in which lithium expands during charging and damages the battery.

Zeng also questioned whether Toyota is really on pace to have a solid-state battery by 2027, based on his knowledge of the obstacles. (Plenty of others share his skepticism of Toyota, which has been slow to develop all-electric vehicles relative to its peers.)

China is taking steps to make sure it retains its lead in battery technology. The Chinese government said in May that it would spend the equivalent of $830 million to finance a collaboration between six of the country’s leading battery and automobile manufacturers to rapidly deploy solid-state batteries.

The companies are CATL and WeLion, along with BYD, FAW, Geely and SAIC Motor, according to Reuters.

The initiative “is a big statement of intent from the Chinese government to say, ‘Solid-state batteries are something we care about. We need to be focused on this,’” McNulty said.

We don’t yet know if companies will figure out how to mass produce solid-state batteries, but it is encouraging that Nio and WeLion have been able to make semi-solid-state batteries. Those are a step toward a solid-state battery, with some solid components that allow for higher energy density but without some of the design challenges of a solid-state product.

“A major question remains around the need for [solid-state batteries] when semi-solid could be good enough,” Max Reid, an EV and battery analyst for Wood Mackenzie, said in an email.

He emphasized that there are many ways to improve on current battery technologies without making the leap to a solid-state design. From a consumer’s point of view, the most important things are the vehicle’s range, charging time, reliability and price, and the technology providing those features isn’t as much of a concern.

The upshot is that EV ranges are going to increase under a variety of scenarios for developing new technologies. I expect to see high-end models by 2027 and 2028 with about double today’s typical ranges.

By about 2030, the long ranges will be available on cars the average consumer is more likely to drive. 

At that point, when a typical EV has more range than a typical gasoline model has with a tank of gas, and when an EV costs about the same or less than its gasoline equivalent, we can begin working on our eulogy for the internal combustion engine.