John Carlos BaezFeb 14

Good news! By 2028, Toyota expects to make electric cars with a 1000 kilometer (600 mile) range with batteries that can be charged in just 10 minutes!

They're using 'solid-state batteries'. Currently a lot of car batteries use an organic solvent with a dissolved lithium salt. The new solid-state batteries replace that flammable blend with a glassy solid containing compounds of lithium, sulfur and phosphorus. They charge faster, they have 10 times the energy density, and don't easily catch on fire. But they are tricky in various ways.

Toyota wants to win the race, and they've teamed up with a Japanese oil company that will manufacture the battery material. But Mercedes-Benz and other companies are also in the race. The activity in China is particularly intense, as you'd expect.

https://electrek.co/2026/02/09/big-oil-is-betting-big-on-toyota-to-win-the-solid-state-battery-race/

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Big oil is betting big on Toyota to win the solid-state battery race

Toyota has been working on a solid-state program with Japanese refining oil giant Idemitsu Kosan since 2023. Now they're building a factory.

Electrek
Show threadJohn Carlos BaezFeb 14

I'm trying to figure out how the new solid-state batteries work. So far I'm getting this:

They use a solid lithium sulfide-based electrolyte - a glassy ceramic material made using Li₂S and P₂S₅, which combine to form various lithium thiophosphates like Li₃PS₄, Li₇P₃S₁₁ and Li₄P₂S₆. The resulting sulfide glass has a high conductivity for Li⁺ ions, comparable to liquid electrolytes. The Li⁺ ions hop through the disordered sulfide lattice via vacancies and interstitial sites.

The hard part: the glassy material should be soft enough to keep contact with the electrodes as it expands and contracts during charge-discharge cycles, and not crack. Toyota claims to have solved this problem.

https://oilandenergyonline.com/articles/all/toyotas-breakthrough-solid-state-batteries/

(Nerdy nitpick: this article says the new car's range is 621 miles. Can you guess why they give such a precise figure?)

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Toyota’s Breakthrough in Solid-State Batteries | O&E Online

Promising longer range and faster charging than Tesla

Show threadSimonFeb 15

@johncarlosbaez Toyota have been saying this since 2012, while putting most of their R&D effort into ICE with a little bit in hydrogen.

Luckily plenty of other companies are putting significant effort into better battery technology.

The Japanese auto industry as a whole is in serious trouble, they've lost their major market, China, to high tech new market entrant, China, and are 15 years behind the market leader (also China) in BEV development.

Show threadJohn Carlos Baez

@Simian60 - a lot of sources say that with their partnership with Sumitomo Metal Mining and Idemitsu Kosan to mass-produce the cathode material (the stuff I was writing about), Toyota's dream may finally come true. But I guess only time will tell.

https://electrek.co/2025/10/08/toyota-aims-to-launch-worlds-first-all-solid-state-ev-batteries/

Toyota aims to launch the ‘world’s first’ all-solid-state EV batteries

Toyota is doubling down on the “holy grail” of EV tech — all-solid-state batteries. Its first EV could arrive as...

Electrek
Feb 15 at 7:06pmWeb
Show threadSimonFeb 16

@johncarlosbaez that is a press release about the continuation of a partnership that started in 2021.

Toyota's annual announcement of solid state battery cars in the next year or two is now a decade old running joke. A 2027/8 new tech EV delivery would require them to be running a prototype on the road this year, which would require low volume battery production today.

My suspicion is that "next year electric cars will be much better" is intended to deter people from buying an EV *this* year.