One of the hottest commodities today is the battery, and this is because it has become
so crucial to modern appliances.
One of the most prominent applications is the electric
vehicle, a form of transportation that does not produce emissions.
The competition to make the next-generation EV battery is intense,
but Toyota is coming out ahead of the rest!
After many years of research, its new wonder battery, the solid state battery, is
finally hitting the market!
What does Toyota offer with its solid state battery, and which
Toyota car gets the battery first?
These and more are what we look at in this video!
Toyota is the king of car manufacturing.
With decades of experience under its belt, the
Japanese company has made millions of automobiles.
However, Toyota is charting a new course for itself in automobile production
as it tries to move away from environment polluting internal combustion engine cars.
The Asian powerhouse is now neck-deep in electric cars!
A lot has been said about Toyota's misguided effort to promote hydrogen fuel cell cars
when it should have been doubling down on electric cars and taking advantage of its
initial lead in the industry.
However, the company's top brass have finally got the memo
that electric cars are the future!
Toyota's EV dream hangs on the battery as the company with the best battery takes the
crown.
The battery space is crowded with companies trying to be the one to make the
big breakthrough!
The landscape involves Tesla, known to even organize a battery day
event, Volkswagen, who is following Tesla's template with its own battery event, GM
with its Ultium battery, etc.
There are also countless startups jostling for the pole
position!
Toyota, however, is at the forefront with its new solid state battery.
Despite failing to capitalize on its early success in electric
cars, the automaker has one advantage; EV battery experience!
After selling millions of hybrid cars, Toyota knows one or two things
about how batteries work!
Toyota has another advantage that has let it come top; might!
Thanks to its deep pockets, Toyota is pumping more than 35 billion
dollars into electric vehicles before the end of the decade.
About half of that amount is going to battery research and
development.
Toyota also has extensive manufacturing abilities that can let it easily
produce large quantities of batteries.
So it is no surprise that Toyota is leading the pack in solid state batteries!
But before we go into details of the battery, why is Toyota
spending so much on solid state battery research?
Toyota will soon start selling the BZ4X, an SUV offering up to 317 miles on a single
charge, according to the WLTP assessment.
The electric car uses a lithium-ion battery, which comes with many limitations.
For example, the battery weighs a lot, reducing the
energy density.
Part of the weight is the requirement for battery cooling technology,
which is necessary to prevent overheating.
Charging times is another weak point of the lithium-ion battery Toyota is using in the
BZ4X.
It may take more than 30 minutes to get to 80 percent using a DC fast charger.
And it gets worse as the temperature drops!
Toyota says below minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit, the all-wheel-drive version may
not even charge with a DC fast charger!
Imagine paying all that money for the all-wheel-drive electric SUV and not being able to
charge it fast because of the weather!
Lithium-ion batteries also have a potential safety problem.
The batteries may catch fire due to thermal runaway, even with enhanced
safety features.
The risk of fire is at the heart of the latest massive recall of the
Chevy Bolt.
Of course, the media can't wait to carry news of an EV burning, even though such
incidents are relatively rare!
So, how does Toyota's solid state battery work?
To understand this, you have to understand how lithium-ion batteries work
because the two have many similarities.
The main components in a lithium-ion battery are
the anode, cathode, separator, terminals, and electrolyte.
The anode and cathode store the lithium.
The electrolyte carries positively charged lithium ions from the anode to the cathode
and vice versa through the separator.
The movement of the lithium ions creates free
electrons in the anode, which creates a charge at the positive current collector.
The electrical current then flows from the current
collector through a device being powered, this time, the electric motor and other
secondary electrical systems, to the negative current collector.
The separator blocks the flow of electrons inside the battery.
During discharging, which means the battery is providing an electric current, the anode
releases lithium ions to the cathode, generating a flow of electrons from one side to the
other.
When plugging in the device, the opposite happens: Lithium ions are released by
the cathode and received by the anode.
A solid-state battery is essentially battery technology that uses a solid electrolyte
instead of liquid electrolytes, which are instead behind lithium-ion technology.
This is the main reason solid state batteries are safer
because they have less-flammable electrolytes.
Even under much abuse, solid state batteries are still safer to operate.
Another advantage in terms of safety is the greater resistance to dendrites, one of the
worst nightmares of an EV battery.
Dendrites are the sharp, uneven build-up of lithium
that forms during movement from the cathode to the anode.
In fact, lithium does not move evenly and tends to group together and
create points that, like real pins, grow and, in some extreme cases, can pierce the
separator.
However, thanks to their thickness, solid separators are more resistant
to piercing from dendrites and therefore avoid possible short circuits and the gradual
deterioration of the cell.
But that is not all the benefits of Toyota's solid battery.
It offers Ultra-fast charging times.
In fact, solid state batteries are able to charge up to 6 times faster than the current
technologies on sale!
Solid state batteries are able to charge up to 6 times faster than
the existing technologies on sale.
The beautiful thing about solid state batteries is that
they work better at high temperatures, so there is no risk of heat damaging the battery
when charging with a rapid charger.
There is another advantage of the solid state battery, and it is record energy densities.
Studies independent of Toyota show that solid-state batteries have an energy density
multiple times higher than current lithium-ion technology.
This property helps EV makers boost their cars' driving ranges because the
battery is lighter and smaller.
This is nothing but a big deal in EV production.
This means Toyota cars using the new solid state battery may double our current
ranges.
For example, the BZ4X may offer more than 600 miles before you need to
charge the battery!
Also, one of Toyota's EVs could be the first to cross the 1,000 miles
driving range mark.
Toyota can also produce the solid state battery faster.
The solid electrolyte simplifies the process because there are fewer materials
to deal with.
Toyota is so far ahead that it already has electric cars being powered by a solid-state
battery.
The company released a video that shows a concept car running on the new
battery.
The vehicle shown in the video appears to be a version of Toyota's LQ
Concept, which first debuted at the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show as an AI and self-driving
demonstrator.
The car has appeared in some series of commercials for the Tokyo
Olympic Games.
Thus far, it was simply reported to be a "battery electric vehicle";
however, in this release, it bears a large decal announcing its "All-Solid-State" battery.
Of course, you can see from the video that the prototype is moving independently.
The carmaker is also thinking of rolling out the battery across its product lineup.
While Toyota has found a way, the way is not the
best news for battery-electric vehicle lovers!
Toyota's solid-state batteries will debut not in an EV but in an upcoming hybrid, an
executive said in a recent interview with Autoline.
While you might wonder what Toyota executives are thinking again, there are valid
reasons for this seemingly suicidal decision.
The batteries will appear in hybrids first because that allows for a smaller battery
pack that's less cost-sensitive, Toyota chief scientist
Gill Pratt said.
Solid state batteries are not so cheap yet, and putting a full-sized
one in a BEV may make the car price exorbitant!
Hybrids are also a tough testing ground for solid-state tech because of the higher
battery cycling inherent in that use case.
As Toyota gains more experience with solid- state battery cells, and as costs come down,
the automaker will expand use to all- electric vehicles.
So you can view these hybrids as the guinea pig for the rest of the EV
industry!
But which hybrid will get the new battery first?
The iconic Toyota Prius is a great candidate for the solid state battery.
It will even jazz up the line, which has become a
long-enduring brand.
Toyota has also committed to building batteries in the US.
So the first production version may be made on American soil!
Let's hear what you think of Toyota's solid-state battery in the comment section below