Japan's No.2 oil refiner, Idemitsu Kosan <5019.T> plans to build a large-scale plant for lithium sulphide, a key material for all-solid-state batteries, at its Chiba refinery, near Tokyo, the company said on Thursday. Automakers and battery suppliers worldwide are racing to develop solid-state batteries, touted as crucial for longer-lasting, safer, and more affordable EVs amid slowing EV growth. The project builds on Idemitsu's partnership with Toyota Motor to commercialise next generation batte
  • Beastimus@slrpnk.netEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    This represents a dramatic improvement if they can get this working. Like improved capacity and charge times are the main thing, but SSBs are also lighter (reducing tire particulate emission,) require less rare metals (like cobalt,) have dramatically reduced fire risk (which is a huge factor for some people,) and have potential applications in other fields (e.g. smartphones and stuff.) It looks like the tech Toyota is going to be using to make these (presumably for way cheaper than everyone else) is hella patented (they’ve gotten OVER 8000 patents since 2020.) They’ll probably still be piloting these things at way too expensive for everyone, but it’ll be interesting to watch this, cause if they can get a fully SSB EV in the price range of a reasonable consumer, that could represent a serious tipping point in the car market.