Featured Solid State Battery - next generation EV?

Not without waivers from the EPA to allow their extra pollution. Given that the xl1, which is much better than these cars has only sold 250 units, I doubt many would have been bought if forced on the road, and 2002 was clearly impossible.

The bolding is mine, but feel free to read the article from the time of the program. Yes diesels were sold in 2002 and are still polluting and stinking on the road. I believe the jetta diesel was one of the most popular, but people didn't really want these. It got 45 mpg on diesel in the old epa, but NOx and particulates were quite high. To reduce emissions on these "supercars" or super wastes of money, pollution went higher than the cars vw and mercedes sold.
Fuel Economy

From that moldy car and driver article from the time the government was starting to cut off the diesel prototypes of pngv -

That seemed to be saying at the time, why would anyone pay for one of these cars when they could get a gen I prius? I don't think you would have chosen a precept, ESX3 or prodegy.

Absolutely. I had read the technology assessment a long time ago. Before a single prototype was presented, it was well known that none of the cars would meet Emissions standards at the time. I figure instead of presenting one of the assessments about what went wrong, you might be enlightened by thoughts at the time.

We have the logical extension of the PGNV program, the VW XL1, which was sold in europe. I Found The Last VW XL1 For Sale In All Of Spain

Oh and one other bit of trivia about those 2002 diesel standards that the pgnv couldn't meet. VW advertised about the new clean diesel with SCR and UL sulfur fuel not smelling. Their 2002 diesel exhaust did smell. How clean do you think it was?

 

a conservative company might make announcements about it in order to slow consumers switching to less conservative companies.

 

It is a shame none of the 2001, PNGV vehicles were even given a chance to be sold in the USA market:

	year	Prius	Precept	Prodigy	ESX-3	Fuel Cell(1)
1	1999	0	0	0	0	0
2	2000	5562	0	0	0	0
3	2001	15556	0	0	0	0
4	2002	20119	0	0	0	0
5	2003	24600	0	0	0	0
6	2004	53991	0	0	0	0
7	2005	107897	0	0	0	0
8	2006	106971	0	0	0	0
9	2007	181221	0	0	0	0
10	2008	158574	0	0	0	0
11	2009	139682	0	0	0	0
12	2010	140928	0	0	0	0

(1) Only available via lease like the ill fated EV1.

The three PNGV vehicles used existing technology that could be sold using the EPA/CARB standards of the day. These PNGV hybrid cars at ~72 MPG versus the contemporary ~36 MPG diesels would have half the emissions rate, 36/72 ~= 0.5. Sure, they would have been expensive, a familiar complaint lodged against the early Prius and todays +$100k Tesla.

Canceling the PNGV pretty well let the USA manufactures take a 10 year holiday and even today, they are trying to catch up. They effectively spawned Tesla and sold over a million Prius. The irony is Toyota is today's leading fuel cell car vendor for that island of hydrogen stations in California.

Just another case of defeat being snatched from the jaws of victory.

Bob Wilson

 

Yeah, there are lots of announcements from the car companies over the years that were just press releases without any intention of doing anything. I remember when every car would be a hybrid... I remember when the Volt technology would be available in more vehicles than just the Volt...

 

The Volt system is used in the Malibu hybrid.
Toyota has expanded their selection of hybrids, and companies like Hyundai are now making them.
The public shares part of the blame in there not being more by choosing less fuel efficient models when gas is cheap.

 

A little more development on solid-state-bateries from Toyota (from 7 minute mark):

"We believe our solid-state battery technology can be a game changer, with the potential to drastically improve driving range. We are the leader in the field, in terms of intellectual property, and currently, we have more than 200 engineers working hard to be able to commercialize this technology sometime in the early 2020’s"

Earlier in June the Koreans said that Toyota is known to be the most advanced in solid-state battery technology in the world, but Samsung SDI and LG Chem are not further behind. Samsung will first introduce the new technology in mobile market, but it could take till 2025 to introduce the technology in cars:
Solid-state battery for Samsung Galaxy likely in years

Toyota also filed many patents on the tehnology, maybe that is why they are more public about it:
A First Look At Toyota's Improved Solid State Battery Patent

 

We have some updated information -
Toyota scrambles to ready 'game-changer' EV battery for mass market | Reuters

Yikes! Promising technology, but that makes it seem that there is no way a conservative company like toyota will get them in a car in 5 years.

My guess is that since we have not seen these in laptop or phone batteries the tech is at least 7 years away in a volume car. They could definitely make it in something like the mirai, a low volume test vehicle that is leased, so they can swap batteries if there is a problem without tens of thousands of angry customers. Other indicators that 2025, not 2022 is a probable date for the tech.
Toyota won't share solid-state battery tech with partner Mazda - Roadshow

Now if toyota really was confident with a 2022 date, there would be no reason to design their joint venture plug-in platform for physically larger liquid electrolyte cells that need more physical protection in a crash. That would be a waste of money. Now, if on the other hand you think that the battery is unlikely to be ready, you design it for both.

Don't get me wrong, I think a solid or air battery will come along within the next 20 years that has advantages versus liquid or gel electrolyte, but today's lithium ion batteries are very good and getting better. They need to be competitive on cost and longevity to replace them.

LG battery cells in the 60 kwh bolt battery pack cost gm about $145/kwh and one has run for 400,000 miles, with plenty of longevity. Now the pack will cost more than the cells, and I expect by 2022 you want a healthy profit margin on a battery, but that is the minimum challenge. The pack seems small and light enough.

The tesla long range battery pack is 80.5 kwh and weighs about 1000 lbs. My guestimate is that it costs tesla about $190/kwh for the pack (not just the cells) but they are driving the price down toward $100/kwh. Tesla wants to make 25% margin which means the pack to consumers would be $20,400 (with the lower range pack having a lower profit margin) or $253/kwh. Toyota may not need to make the profit margin tesla wants, so its an easier lift, but a tough thing to bring a battery tech that doesn't work well enough in the lab yet, to a low price point and high reliability in just 5 years. Tiny isreali start up store dot appears to have a working technology to make lithium polymer batteries safer with higher energy and is being funded by samsung and the parent of mercedes. Storedot has its batteries working in a phone and phone case, and can charge in just over 5 minutes.

There are other solid state technologies that also may be in vehicles in 7 years. A team at UT has a promising solid state alkaline glass technology that is working in the lab, but they are waiting for patents to fully describe it. The University of Colorado at Boulder start up solid power has some interesting solid state batteries and is funded by venture firms, as well as battery maker A123.

I would say that having a toyota solid state battery in a volume plug-in in the next 5 years is hardly doubtful. Having a solid state battery in one, in the next 10 years is very likely though. There is lots of research and lots of money chasing it. I would say the toyota/denso/mazda joint venture should definitely have a bev with a better battery (interms of cost and weight) than in the bolt in the next 5 years though. We just don't know the chemistry ;-)

 

Dendrites formation is apparently a big problem in solid state batteries:
Smooth surfaces may prevent harmful deposits from working their way into a solid electrolyte.

The problem, according to this study, is that researchers have been focusing on the wrong properties in their search for a solid electrolyte material. The prevailing idea was that the material’s firmness or squishiness (a property called shear modulus) determined whether dendrites could penetrate into the electrolyte. But the new analysis showed that it’s the smoothness of the surface that matters most. Microscopic nicks and scratches on the electrolyte’s surface can provide a toehold for the metallic deposits to begin to force their way in, the researchers found.
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