Solid-state Battery: Are We Entering in a New Era?

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Volkswagen announced its partnership with QuantumScape, which confirms the growing interest of EV/HEV makers in solid-state battery technology. Is the solid-state battery entering in a new era? Not now for sure but probably by 2022, announces Yole Développement (Yole) in its latest Solid-State Battery report. According to its aggressive market forecast scenario, mass production of solid-state batteries will begin by 2022.

There is no commercially-available bulk solid-state battery, over the last several years, numerous different players have made announcements regarding the readiness of prototype cells and expected commercialization starts, only to see these ultimately be cancelled or postponed. And despite decades of development, many technology challenges remain unsolved.

Why is there a strong, growing interest in solid-state battery development and commercialization? What are the key drivers? Yole offers you today to discover the technical challenges and market issues related to the solid-state batteries.

First research activities in solid-state battery technology date to the late 1950s. Solid-state battery technology has found applications in the form of microbatteries as a micro-power source for sensors, etc. Unfortunately, materials and manufacturing methods used for microbattery’s fabrication are extremely difficult to translate into bulk-size battery manufacture on a cost-effective basis.

According to Yole’s analysis, the current momentum for growing interest in solid-state batteries is the strong application-pull of game-changing battery industry players: the EV/HEV makers. Indeed, established automotive players including Toyota, Volkswagen, BMW, etc. and newcomers such as Dyson, Fisker, plan to commercialize EV/HEV with a battery that will be safer, lighter, and longer-running than conventional Li-ion battery.

A growing number of players involved in solid-state battery development is another reason for increased momentum, as is a variety of newly established solid-state battery consortiums.