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Electric vehicles are great, but they would be even better if they didn’t have to lug around a big and very heavy battery pack. Making EV batteries smaller, safer, and more power-dense are top priorities for all manufacturers, but each is a challenge in its own right, and we’ve only seen incremental advancements over the last decade or more.
The lithium-ion batteries that are in most EVs today can be traced back to a concept introduced in 1991, and they were developed primarily for use in consumer electronics such as laptops. Through incremental improvements, they became good and cheap enough to be the go-to solution for automotive traction batteries. However, even though billions are being poured into battery research today, the limitations aren’t easy to overcome, and automakers are looking for a breakthrough solution that will fix all the problems of lithium-ion or the newer lithium polymer (LFP) batteries.
Solid-state batteries might be the breakthrough that the industry is looking for, but it’s still unclear when they will reach production vehicles. They are already used in small devices such as smartwatches and even medical implants, but we’ve not seen them used in many larger applications yet.
Read the full post at Inside EVs.
