Car Battery of the Future

While Tesla seems to get all the headlines, it is a surprise to many that it is Toyota that leads the EV industry in the number of patents it owns.  In fact it owns over 1,000 patents related to solid state batteries.  It is a leader in R&D for car batteries and aims to be the first company to release a an electric car with a solid state battery.

The solid state battery is the next big leap forward in car battery technology giving vehicles a range double of that offered by Lithium-ion batteries and a charge time of under 10 minutes. Solid state batteries are expected to become a viable alternative to lithium-ion batteries in the first half of this decade, offering an alternative that is capable of storing energy at a density of multiple times that of current Electric Car Batteries.  In practical terms, this means the ability to make smaller cars with acceptable driving range as well as larger vehicles witgh longer range.  The physical size of the battery will no longer be a major limitation on the vehicle design.   The Toyota prototype solid state battery powered vehicle is expected to be unveiled in 2021.

With EVs becoming commonplace now, this new technology is going to make them suitable for a much wider range of driving conditions and uses and will broaden acceptance of EVs to a much bigger customer base. Of course this technology is not backwards compatible in any way and in a country like Australia where the average age a registered cars is 10.4 years, the majority of drivers will be driving traditional vehicles for many more years. That means reliance on cheap reliable car batteries to get you started and keep you moving.