[HN Gopher] Toyota aims to launch the ' first' all-solid-state E...
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Toyota aims to launch the ' first' all-solid-state EV batteries
Author : thelastgallon
Score : 81 points
Date : 2025-10-10 18:53 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (electrek.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (electrek.co)
| johnea wrote:
| It's great news to see Japanese auto makers coming onboard with
| EVs in a serious way.
|
| The capabilities of solid state batteries are just one example of
| the wide open opportunities for EVs that internal combustion can
| just never have.
|
| While storage, and generation, of electricity has a huge ability
| to evolve and advance, gasoline and other petro products have an
| inherent amount of chemical energy per volume that can never be
| changed.
|
| An EV with 1000 mile range is in the mid-term future, while here
| in the US we'll be focused on delivering the world's largest coal
| fired pickup truck 8-/
| rasz wrote:
| Promises of something 'in 3 years' is not in any way serious
| while selling mediocre overpriced EV right now. This is Toyota
| standard stalling while hoping their beloved Hydrogen somehow
| happens in the mean time.
| jfengel wrote:
| I do not get why Toyota is so wedded to hydrogen. There's no
| infrastructure for it. It would require a far bigger revamp
| than the switch to BEVs. There's no existing hydrogen source,
| and the stuff is tricky to transport and store.
|
| If they had a hydrogen source for cheap, it would have been
| so much easier to just transform it into hydrocarbons.
| They're easier to store, easier to transport, and all of the
| existing structure is already built around it. Just keep on
| making the same engines you always have.
|
| They already had a lead in battery-powered hybrids. It would
| have made so much more sense to lean into that, first into
| plugin hybrids and then plugin-only.
|
| Hydrogen is such an obvious dead end, and everybody sees it
| but them -- the ones who should have been the first to figure
| it out. I just don't get it.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > I do not get why Toyota is so wedded to hydrogen. There's
| no infrastructure for it. It would require a far bigger
| revamp than the switch to BEVs. There's no existing
| hydrogen source, and the stuff is tricky to transport and
| store.
|
| I think the answer is really simple and basically the same
| as for where this headline comes from: FUD about EVs so
| people instead buy a Toyota gas car while pretending to be
| eco.
|
| > They already had a lead in battery-powered hybrids. It
| would have made so much more sense to lean into that, first
| into plugin hybrids and then plugin-only.
|
| That was twenty years ago though.
|
| Just like twenty years ago "hydrogen cars" sounded like a
| possible solution.
| hvb2 wrote:
| I have no idea what a 1000 mile radius is good for. I would
| rather have 400 miles and a lighter car. There are some
| commercial applications maybe but nothing else?
| altcognito wrote:
| It's still all about charging in general. If it takes a 8
| hours to deliver 50 and you drive 80 miles a day, you'll want
| a buffer of miles to prevent, having an extra buffer might
| get you through to a period where you aren't driving as much.
| Or you can make longer trips without refill. Or you can worry
| less about inefficiencies at lower temps.
| bdamm wrote:
| Trucks. Inter-city Buses. Extremely lightweight EVs (think
| Mazda Miata EV).
|
| Also EV motor homes, but that's basically just a bus.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| For a variety of reasons it is interesting.
|
| Max charge rate is frequently dependent on battery size. A
| larger battery can absorb more power per unit of time. If you
| get 50% range in an hour of fast charging, the 1000 mile
| range car is much better for long distance travel.
|
| Having to only charge your car every 1k miles opens up a lot
| of use cases. People living in places where they have to
| street park, and can't charge at night, might feel a lot
| better about electric cars if they only have to charge once a
| month.
|
| Towing range is a major issue with the current generation of
| electric vehicles.
|
| Auxiliary power uses are also appealing to a lot of people.
| 1000 miles of range can also translate to 500 miles of range
| and 100kw of power. Think about ambulances, cop cars and
| other service vehicles that just run their engines for an
| entire shift to keep the electricity flowing. Plenty of
| people travel with generators for personal and professional
| reasons. No need if your car has power to spare.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Lots of good examples in the replies, but also quoted range
| tends to be best-case scenarios. Ideal temperature, not
| running the cabin heat, etc. In the real world, I want to be
| comfortable that on a -5F winter morning that I can defrost
| the windows and heat up the cabin and with cold-soaked
| batteries still get through my day of driving.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| It will be a luxury item. Unless batteries become incredibly
| cheap and lightweight, economics will strongly favor a car
| that has just the right amount of range and no more.
|
| However, some people have extra money to spend, and range is
| a meaningful upgrade. With gas vehicles, there are already
| people who get a much bigger vehicle than they really need
| and are willing to pay way more for the vehicle and for fuel.
| I don't see any reason not to expect the same with electric
| cars.
| Simulacra wrote:
| I'm thrilled with this idea, but I also saw an article very
| similar to this years ago. I won't pretend to understand the
| engineering behind it, but I would like to understand exactly how
| far into the future this will apear.
|
| Is it feasible that this could actually happen in 2027?
| s0rce wrote:
| I think this is every few years.
| gpm wrote:
| It's be surprising if they were first at that point, but
| otherwise yes. Like the article says, lots of manufacturers are
| experimenting with solid state batteries and we've already seen
| prototypes.
| Animats wrote:
| In 2027-2028. Comment in the article: _The big company who doesn
| 't have a competitive product attempts to mess up the market by
| making bold announcements of fantastic products that are coming
| "soon"._
|
| Everybody serious, except Tesla, has a solid-state battery
| program. Here's an overview of where various car makers are.[1]
| There are a few prototype cars running around on all solid state
| batteries now. The problem is developing a cheap production
| process. Most of the big players are saying first production
| vehicles in 2027, solid state technology takes over around 2030.
|
| There's an interim "semi solid state" technology that's already
| in some cars. It's one of those stopgap ideas destined to go
| away, like "mild hybrids".
|
| [1] https://insideevs.com/news/771402/every-solid-state-
| battery-...
| Animats wrote:
| We can get a picture of the cost problem from this.[1] Samsung
| is about to put tiny solid state batteries in their watches,
| rings, and earbuds, but they still cost too much for phones.
|
| [1]
| https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_to_use_solidstate_batteries...
| tim333 wrote:
| That's a point. If solid state batteries are going to be a
| thing you'd expect to see them phones and laptops before
| cars.
| bdamm wrote:
| Tesla bought a solid-state battery company and also is running
| a research office dedicated to the subject, so I don't think
| you can say that Tesla has no solid-state battery program.
| Animats wrote:
| Yes, Musk _said_ something like that a few weeks ago in
| September.[1] Musk says a lot of things. As of August 2025,
| Tesla 's position was that the old technology plus expected
| improvement was good enough.[2]
|
| There was a rumor a few months ago that Tesla had bought
| Quantumscape. But that deal does not seem to have happened.
| Quantumscape is still publicly traded. Ticker symbol QS. Up
| 350% this year. Latest deal is a partnership with Murata for
| ceramic separators. They made enough sample batteries to
| power a motorcycle in Dubai. All the serious players can make
| high-cost samples now.
|
| [1] https://elonbuzz.com/elon-musk-announces-all-new-solid-
| state...
|
| [2] https://www.topspeed.com/tesla-stand-on-solid-state-
| batterie...
| cs702 wrote:
| That headline needs a few edits to make it, you know, _accurate_
| :
|
| "Toyota _believes it will_ launch all-solid-state EV batteries
| _by year-end 2027_. "
|
| My understanding is that 2027 is wishful thinking, due to high
| manufacturing costs.
| guywithahat wrote:
| What is actually happening is they're building a the Toyota
| Battery Manufacturing, North Carolina (TBMNC)
| (https://archive.ph/wip/y9iBR), which is slated to open this
| year. This factory has nothing to do with solid state
| batteries, and it makes me wonder how serious their solid state
| battery claim really is
| t1234s wrote:
| Is solid state for more durability (1m+ charge cycles) or
| performance (fast discharge, plaid) or both?
| choilive wrote:
| Safety
| t1234s wrote:
| With LFP being supposedly more safe than NMC would it have a
| weight benefit as well?
| randerson wrote:
| Also better performance, since solid state batteries are
| lighter. More flexible car layouts and longer range since
| they're more compact. Faster charging due to reduced
| resistance. More stable in extreme cold or hot temperatures.
| It truly will revolutionize EVs if they can mass produce
| these.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Solid state promises to be safer. Less likely to self-ignite
| when the battery degrades. The quick charging and performance
| are a bonus.
| legitster wrote:
| A solid state battery has no liquid components. So that should
| mean more longevity, safety, weight reductions, capacity per
| pound, and more forgiving thermal properties.
|
| It cannot be understated what an overall improvement it would
| represent if the technology pans out.
| supportengineer wrote:
| What is the liquid component in existing batteries?
| adlpz wrote:
| AFAIK, the electrolyte.
| daemonologist wrote:
| The electrolyte - usually some kind of lithium salt
| dissolved in an organic solvent.
| eisa01 wrote:
| Toyota's solid-state EV battery promises are almost as bad as
| Elon's full self driving timeline
|
| Only exception is that they give themselves a bit more lead time
| "early 2020's" in 2017. Probably because they have an interest to
| delay competitors EV sales, while Elon is pumping FSD sales
|
| Will be interesting to see which technology comes to market first
|
| https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/toyota-claims-a-leap-that-w...
| simondotau wrote:
| A few choice headlines:
|
| 2017: "Toyota's new solid-state battery could make its way to
| cars by 2020" https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/25/toyotas-new-
| solid-state-ba...
|
| 2020: "Toyota's game-changing solid-state battery en route for
| 2021 debut" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25400725
|
| 2023: "Toyota Touts Solid State EVs with 932-Mile Range,
| 10-Minute Charging by 2027"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36353474
|
| 2023: "Toyota Only Plans to Make Enough Solid-State Batteries
| for 10k Cars in 2030"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38374322
| LightBug1 wrote:
| At least there's an actual, verifiable end result for Toyota.
|
| I don't see that for Schrodinger's FSD.
| recursive wrote:
| It's verifiable in the sense that you can check whether they
| followed through, and they did not? How is that better?
| sixQuarks wrote:
| You're obviously not paying attention then. Tesla's FSD works
| now.
| slaw wrote:
| I saw Waymo without driver behind the wheel, but never
| Tesla.
| simondotau wrote:
| Waymo had supervisors in their cars during the early
| months of their roll-out too.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| All recent model Teslas can use FSD now, at least in the US.
| It's a $100/month subscription.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| Tesla calls it "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)" now, no?
| Seems odd to call it "full" self-driving if it has to be
| supervised.
| simondotau wrote:
| I agree it's a bad choice of name, though I think the
| controversy is somewhat overstated.
|
| In Tesla's view, "full" is an antonym to "limited", where
| Autopilot designed to work on a limited class of roads.
| In this way, "full" was intended to describe the system's
| intended ability to perform the full task of piloting a
| vehicle, not that the system has achieved some unspoken
| threshold of engineering perfection. In its current
| state, FSD can perform complete drives without
| intervention almost every time. (Yes, "almost" is doing a
| lot of heavy lifting. But the same is true of some human
| drivers who hold driver licenses.)
|
| And to be fair, it's important to disambiguate technical
| and regulatory achievements. It is "supervised" because
| "unsupervised" would necessarily mean Tesla's software is
| the legally licensed driver of someone else's privately
| owned vehicle, which is a situation regulators are
| nowhere near contemplating. And it would require a vastly
| different insurance product to what is currently sold by
| insurers.
| breve wrote:
| > _In this way, "full" was intended to describe the
| system's intended ability to perform the full task of
| piloting a vehicle, not that the system has achieved some
| unspoken threshold of engineering perfection._
|
| No. Tesla simply lied. Tesla very specifically claimed it
| would outperform human drivers.
|
| In 2016 Tesla claimed every Tesla car being produced had
| _" the hardware needed for full self-driving capability
| at a safety level substantially greater than that of a
| human driver"_:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20161020091022/https://tesla.
| com...
|
| Wasn't true then, still isn't true now.
| simondotau wrote:
| I don't think it's proven that Tesla knowingly lied as
| opposed to catastrophically misjudged the level of
| processing power required. But you'll get no argument
| from me that it's a distinction without a difference.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The "supervised" part is more legal than technical.
|
| It can drive anywhere a human can.
|
| Of course the goal posts can always be moved so the
| current real FSD isn't actually "Full" because of some
| inevitable imperfection.
| testing22321 wrote:
| You've never seen a self driving waymo, and extrapolated that
| to trucks and other commercial uses that will no longer need
| drivers?
| ajdude wrote:
| * in 2027
| testing22321 wrote:
| Toyota's strategy for the last many years:
|
| "We're going to release a breakthrough EV in the kind of near
| future. Don't buy an EV now" (instead keep buying our ICE
| vehicles!)
|
| Getting very old at this point.
| carabiner wrote:
| And it was the correct strategy:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/business/toyotas-hybrid-e...
|
| The best selling vehicle in the US is the RAV4, and not any EV.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| The correct strategy would have been to basically within 10
| years of the release of the insight and the Prius, to mandate
| hybrid electric vehicles for all consumer vehicles, and 20
| years after they, phevs.
|
| You may be technically right because our policy is idiotic,
| and the chances of this happening unde the bush
| administration was zero.
|
| But don't pretend this is some optimal engineering formula
| you've reduced in an economic journal.
| kulahan wrote:
| Similarly, you should not pretend this strategy you've
| posted above is some optimal engineering formula you've
| reduced in an economic journal. There are many roadblocks
| to consider before mandating all vehicles go electric, not
| least among them being an electrical grid which simply
| cannot handle this level of energy, a lack of access to
| enough lithium, or tax considerations for vehicles no
| longer contributing to highways (while creating an order of
| magnitude more damage) because they don't buy gas.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| You didn't address GP's proposed policy. Hybrids and
| PHEVs need a lot less lithium than full EVs. The
| electrical grid can already handle off peak charging of
| many more EVs than are on the road today. It's
| straightforward to replace gasoline taxes with
| electricity taxes and car registration fees, which could
| also vary by weight, but many states are going further
| and implementing road usage fees, which can be done by
| reporting odometer readings.
| breve wrote:
| Toyota's main strategy is to sell cars. They sell the most cars
| of any automaker.
|
| Toyota had record sales of 11.2 million in 2023. They're on
| track to set another sales record in 2025:
|
| https://www.autoblog.com/news/nearly-900000-cars-sold-toyota...
| testing22321 wrote:
| While delaying the uptake of EVs.
| breve wrote:
| No, by simply understanding the car market. Toyota's in the
| car business. They sell cars.
| testing22321 wrote:
| So why all the announcements since 2017 about their
| revolutionary battery coming soon (tm)
|
| It was to stop people buying other EVs.
| breve wrote:
| No, it's because they're developing solid state
| batteries. They're also developing hydrogen fuel cell
| drive trains. They're even trying hydrogen combustion:
|
| https://www.toyota-europe.com/news/2022/prototype-
| corolla-cr...
|
| Toyota's big enough that they can try everything. It
| isn't a conspiracy.
| legitster wrote:
| Everyone is poo-pooing this, but in car development years, 2027
| is _really_ soon. Their announcement was not that they were about
| to have their breakthrough, but they are _setting up production_.
| And specifically that they are announcing manufacturing partners
| - this is not "looking for potential factory sites" this is
| tooling up existing factories.
|
| A lot of other companies are saying 2027-2028 so I'm thinking
| this could be the real deal.
| recursive wrote:
| It might be the real deal, but the last half dozen times they
| said it, it wasn't. They don't have much credibility with these
| statements.
| legitster wrote:
| I think this is a bit unfair. In 2017 said they were going to
| have the technology by 2021. They are a couple of years late,
| but they say they have the technology in test cars now and
| are moving to production.
|
| Given it was over 20 years before Lithium batteries were
| first proposed and when they were commercially viable, we're
| probably being a bit harsh.
| unclad5968 wrote:
| If someone says they'll have something by 2021 and they
| don't have it in 2025, you've adequately explained why no
| one believes them. Nobody cares whether or not the delay
| was justifiable, because they could continue having
| justifiable delays for the next decade.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Unless they're Elon Musk, apparently.
| recursive wrote:
| I think most people also don't believe Elon about these
| kinds of promises either.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Sure, and yet TSLA stock continues to reach even higher
| heights of insanity. It's worth almost 6x what Toyota is.
| recursive wrote:
| It would seem that life's not fair. Invest in Toyota I
| guess.
| simondotau wrote:
| A bit harsh? Toyota have destroyed their own credibility.
|
| I don't even take new battery tech claims seriously AFTER a
| company begins shipping product. Wake me up when a new
| battery has been independently tested, the economic
| viability has been demonstrated, and factory capacity is
| ramping up to supply enough product to make a meaningful
| impact in the market.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Wake me up when they've been in use for at least five
| years so that there are some useful real world statistics
| about their performance, safety, and degradation levels.
| deepfriedchokes wrote:
| From an article last month linked in the above press release:
|
| "Toyota's all-solid-state EV battery plans officially gained
| approval from Japan's Ministry of Trade and Industry (METI).
| The certification gives Toyota the green light to develop and
| build next-gen EV batteries as part of Japan's plans to boost
| domestic supply."
|
| Seems like it's more legit this time.
| kjksf wrote:
| Even if true, I don't see this as significant.
|
| The current battle for electric batteries is cost, not energy
| density.
|
| LFP and sodium batteries are less dense that non-solid state
| lithium ion batteries but they are good enough to be used in
| standard version of Model 3 or Model Y and those are best selling
| ev cars.
|
| Energy density is good enough, durability is good enough, what
| matters is lowering the price.
|
| A battery with higher energy density but without lower price is
| not competitive.
|
| Toyota still doesn't have a high volume electric car. Lack of
| batteries is not the cause of that but Toyota's own decisions.
|
| Even if they get a slightly better battery, they still need to
| design a good ev car and that's way more to that than replacing
| gas tank and engine with a battery and motors.
|
| Furthermore, you don't just mass produce ev batteries. Panasonic
| was struggling and loosing money for several years making
| batteries for Tesla. When Tesla decided to make batteries
| themselves, it also took them years to go from 0 to a significant
| number of batteries.
|
| Idemitsu doesn't seem to make ev car batteries so I don't see how
| the could possibly have meaningful production in 2 years.
|
| Furthermore, going solid state is only an incremental improvement
| of a component of the battery. It has the most economic value
| when applied at scale. So it would make most sense to license
| this technology to existing high volume manufacturer like LG Chem
| or CATL.
|
| The realities of volume production vs. cost make it very unlikely
| you can just compete with CATL and LG Chem making 1/100 of their
| volume even if your battery is slightly better.
| jayd16 wrote:
| This assumes a static market but higher energy density means
| more range and more use cases, right?
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