While electric vehicles are rising in popularity, they are still limited in range—a Tesla Model 3 can go for about 350 miles before it needs to be recharged—and concerns about safety have plagued the lithium-ion batteries that dominate the market.
In a quest to build batteries for electric vehicles that can take us farther safely, startup Solid Power is working to make solid-state batteries that could pack more energy into a smaller space.
The company has taken a step toward testing the technology in vehicles, starting up a large-scale pilot manufacturing line to make battery cells that replace the liquid used as the electrolyte in lithium-ion batteries with ceramic layers. The full-size cells the pilot line will produce are about the size of a small laptop computer, the same size as those that eventually will be strung together to power electric vehicles.
This solid-state battery technology is still years away from going commercial—Solid Power plans to ramp up to producing enough material for 800,000 cars annually by 2028—but if it proves practical, the batteries could increase the performance of electric vehicles significantly.
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