Asian car and battery manufacturers are currently overdoing themselves with success stories about the supposed “Holy Grail” of electric vehicles: so-called solid-state batteries, also known as solid-state batteries. The Chinese car startup Nio, founded in Shanghai in 2014, now wants to launch its first car with a semi-solid-state battery. The promise: a range of up to 930 km (577 miles) on a full charge.
These are not the 1,000 kilometers promised in January 2021 at a presentation of new batteries for electric cars, but they are close. Specifically, the upcoming ES6 model (in the EU it is called EL6), an electric SUV, is to be equipped with batteries from the Chinese manufacturer WeLion. However, the ES6 starts at $52,000 and is therefore not one of the cheapest electric cars. WeLion, on the other hand, is a young company that only announced the start of construction of a solid-state battery factory in March 2022 and then raised the equivalent of 206 million euros (1.5 billion yuan) in a series D financing round at the end of 2022.
What exactly are the batteries supposed to be able to do? They come with a charging capacity of 150 kWh and weigh 575 kg – only 20 kg more than the 150 kWh battery of conventional lithium-ion design. The energy density is 261 Wh/kg, about 45 percent higher than the 180 Wh/kg of the 100 kWh battery. According to an application to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Nio wants to supply two other car models with the new battery option in addition to the SUV. One of them could be the sportier ET5, one of the Model 3 rivals.
Solid state battery: Why the “Holy Grail” of e-mobility is still a long way off
Batteries come from WeLion in China
The batteries that WeLion produces at its factory in Huzhou, China, are so-called semi-solid-state battery cells. It uses a solid electrolyte material in addition to the liquid or gel electrolytes used in lithium-ion batteries. This allows the energy density to be increased. Only when no liquid is used at all would one speak of a real solid-state battery.
It’s not just WeLion that, alongside Nio, also supplies Geely (which includes the Polestar subsidiary), which has been making strides in solid-state batteries. The world‘s largest battery manufacturer CATL from China also recently reported a breakthrough in its technology. According to the Chinese company, a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg is to go into mass production this year. Toyota also claims to have made great strides in Solid State. Tesla, on the other hand, has achieved values of 272 to 296 Wh/kg with its 4680 cells.
It will be interesting to see how solid-state batteries will affect car prices. The production of solid state batteries was previously considered to be significantly more expensive than conventional battery systems. But Toyota is already saying that the batteries can be made for half the price of today’s lithium-ion batteries. This should then also be reflected in the price of e-cars in the race for consumers.
Solid state battery: Why the “Holy Grail” of e-mobility is still a long way off