BYD has already produced its first solid-state cells

https://www.electrive.com/2025/02/17/byd-has-already-produced-its-first-solid-state-cells/

by teleforce • 1 year ago

232 111 1 year ago

jmisavage• 1 year ago

This is just pilot production is the first of many steps towards mass production. They don’t expect actual production until 2027.

It even mentions that CATL is at roughly the same stage. So while good news its still going to take some time to get these into production cars and to get the costs down.

jillesvangurp• 1 year ago

Exactly. In order to be able to start production in 2027 they'd have to logically be quite far with the development of their battery cells to be able to say with confidence they'll be ready for that in 2027. You see the same with announcements from other manufacturers like CATL, Factorial, Quantumscape, Toyota, etc. Most of these are talking about timelines from 2026-2028 currently.

They have each been testing battery samples for years and making announcements about roughly where they think they'll be going to production. It's not like battery cells suddenly pop into existence fully formed and ready to go. There's a lot of work and problem solving that needs to happen.

2027 isn't when mass production starts but when early, low volume production begins. It takes time, and many billions, to build large scale factories. They'll want to see low scale production work first. Early batteries are likely to be scarce and expensive for a while.

People have unrealistic expectations about solid state batteries in general. Currently the best selling batteries aren't those with the highest density but those with the lowest cost of materials and production. That's why LFP is so popular currently. Solid state won't change that. LFP will be widely used for years to come. A logical place for relatively expensive early solid state batteries to be used would be in aviation related use cases and maybe some high-end vehicles or sports cars. Forget about these showing up in budget cars anytime soon.

audunw2• 1 year ago

Isn’t quantum scape at a similar stage as well?

Gareth3219• 1 year ago

And Toyota: https://electrek.co/2024/01/11/toyota-solid-state-ev-battery...

I'm hopeful that in the next few years we will see some serious range improvements across the board with EVs. Then mass adoption really takes off.

underseacables• 1 year ago

According to the battery business CTO, BYD expects to start “mass demonstration” of solid-state batteries around 2027. However, he did not provide any information on the number of prototype cells produced to date.

Awesome if true, but I'll believe it when I see it. Until then like similar announcements from Toyota and others, I'll hold my enthusiasm.

cmrdporcupine• 1 year ago

at least BYD is mass producing lithium-ion consumer vehicles in the interim.

Toyota is just spreading FUD as a delay tactic and milking the petroleum cow

readthenotes1• 1 year ago

It is another Better Battery Bulletin

mi_lk• 1 year ago

In theory, replacing the current liquid electrolyte in a battery cell with a solid offers a number of advantages. As the flammable liquid electrolyte is no longer required, solid-state cells are generally safer. At the same time, higher energy densities and more power are possible, resulting in a longer range and shorter charging times.

In case you wonder why it can be important

uxhacker• 1 year ago

What difficult to find metals do these batteries need?

throw-qqqqq• 1 year ago

Maybe this can satisfy your curiosity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_battery#Material... ?

sebazzz• 1 year ago

It doesn't however mean this battery won't go up in flames when there is an unprotected short. It has X kWh stored in it that must and will be released in a way when a short happens.

louwrentius• 1 year ago

However, BYD does not expect series production in the near future.

That's the most important part of this article I believe.

Animats• 1 year ago

Yes. Solid state battery prototypes do work and are available as expensive prototypes, but nobody has a low-cost volume production process yet.

Here's the lab-scale process of making a solid state cell, from the Fraunhofer Institute.[1] This is how different battery chemistries are tried.

Honda has announced that they have a demo version of their solid state battery pilot plant in test.[2] There are low-detail pictures of the interior of the plant.

Hyundai has announced that they will show their prototype solid state battery on March 9. They have built a pilot plant. They're thinking motorcycles before cars.

EHang demoed a version of their flying car with solid state batteries a few months ago.[3] They got 48 minutes of flight time. (EHang's flying car is a scaled-up battery powered quadrotor drone with 16 props. They've been flying them for years now, but flight time was too short for it to be useful.)

CATL says that the maturity of the process is at 4 on a scale of 9.[4] Large amounts of money are being spent in multiple countries to push this technology through to production.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5SVrp8N-1M

[2] https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/new-tech/2025/january/ho...

[3] https://www.ehang.com/news/1137.html

[4] https://www.batteriesinternational.com/2024/11/11/catl-bet-o...

ksec• 1 year ago

Considering Lithium ‘semi-solid-state battery’ (SSSB) already does 25% to 45% higher capacity with roadmap at 55% next year and double the battery capacity before 2030. I wonder what could we expect from ‘all-solid-state batteries’ (ASSB).

Most people think current AI development is the most important research, I actually think ASSB ( or any massive battery improvement ) would bring us far more real life, quality improvement with things that previously were not possible.

baq• 1 year ago

Economically viable safe methane fuel cells would be revolutionary, too.

number6• 1 year ago

Fusion!

audunw2• 1 year ago

If we’re could get a breakthrough in fuel cells it’d be even nicer if it was an efficient fuel cell for a liquid fuel. And to get an efficient way to make it from CO2 and electricity.

Though I think for ground transportation, batteries will always be preferable.

AtlasBarfed2• 1 year ago

Still releases carbon. Better than ICE and gasoline, but the cheapest methane is still from the ground.

Svoka8• 1 year ago

I believe fuel cells with ubiquity of electricity is just beating the dead horse. Like, what are cons and pros?

EVs:

    + Much simpler design
    + Literally zero maintenance required
    + Centralized power production is extremely efficient
    + Power production can be 100% carbon free in 10 years, if there's will with nuclear and other 'renewables'
    + Can be charged literally everywhere where's sun in theory, but in every home with outlet in practice
    + Batteries are crucial to every part of our tech today so they will become better
    - Heavy (low energy density compared to fuel, which isn't great for planes etc)

Fuel Cells:

    + high energy density
    + less dirty than gasoline
    + allow oil producers to stay in business
    + keeps mechanics in business
    - requires mechanics and expensive maintenance
    - complex designs for combustion engines + gearboxes + drive trains
    - requires immense infrastructure change to adopt

Unless I miss something. What is the point of fuel cells/combustion engines for consumer use? I understand there are applications where energy density is necessary, like cargo ships, rockets or airplanes. Otherwise, seems like a welfare program for industries built around resource extraction and complicated machinery.

But for consumers, what is the point of fuel cells? This is honest question.

If I missed some con/pro let me know I'll add it.

davedx• 1 year ago

Meh, we need better charging networks more than we need better battery chemistry at this point.

smegger001• 1 year ago

fortunately we can do two things

johanvts• 1 year ago

For cars I agree, but a significant energy density improvement would enable aviation and other fields to electrify.

SideburnsOfDoom2• 1 year ago

These are 2 different things; "better batteries" is scientific and engineering breakthroughs. Engineering in the sense of building them in on time, in quantity, to quality and on a budget.

"Better charging networks" is infrastructure rollout that is underway. If it's an engineering issue, it's civil engineering. Charging networks are on the whole continually getting better. But maybe not at a fast enough pace.

Both can happen, though. Both would make a difference.

prododev2• 1 year ago

Better batteries require less frequent charging, reducing pressure on networks. But also, better batteries enable electrification of other modes of transport much more easily. Cars are bad, electric cars are at best "less bad".

Gareth3219• 1 year ago

I disagree. Range anxiety is one of the top concerns for EV car buyers and telling them they can just charge more frequently won't assuage their fears, for many reasons. No matter how many stations we build (at enormous cost) there will inevitably be issues related to access from time to time. Today this presents as chargers offline, slow, or full with queues. Worst of all is that no matter how ubiquitous, one still needs to exit the freeway and navigate to one of these chargers. Today my Model Y gets about two hours on the Autobahn before I need to charge it. That's just not enough, and it has what is considered good range for an EV.

There are undoubtedly people who like to take frequent breaks. Many people are not like that. The future is both ubiquitous chargers and much larger battery capacity.

skellington• 1 year ago

Hard disagree (as a person that owns EV).

While it's true that most people don't drive that far daily, it's also true that most people want their cars to be multipurpose.

Most EVs can only be time-efficiently charged to 80% while DC fast charging because the charge curve drops a lot.

And nobody want the pucker factor of getting much below 10% while road tripping.

So, you're really only working with 70% of the max range. At 'normal' freeway speeds of 70mph+, most EV max ranges are less than 300 miles, and 70% of that is 210 usable miles.

You can make it work, but it feels like you're always managing and thinking about charge level vs a car which usually has 400+ miles of range on the freeway.

IMO the base range for EVs needs to be 500 miles, to get 350 miles of usable range, plus 350kW+ charging so charge stops are 10 minutes ish. And the Chinese EV companies have 400kW+ charging cars already, with announcements for 600kW charging!

So battery energy density is critical to getting the range that people want without making the cars even heavier.

surajrmal• 1 year ago

There are a lot of other potential wins here : lighter cars meaning less road and tire wear, cheaper evs, lower crash fatalities, etc.

dzhiurgis4• 1 year ago

Agree. 300km range seems to be sweet spot. Anything over 50kW charging is enough and 150kW is good. So long there are reliable stations every 50km - current EVs are sufficient.

DrScientist• 1 year ago

If your battery charges faster and has a higher range then you will need less charging points ( less time charging and less frequently ) - just through better batteries.

Solid state battery tech looks to be game changing.... pushing EV's into the no-brainer territory for the vast majority of people.

SebFender• 1 year ago

In the next few years you'll witness AI won't be so important... true advancement is always energy management.

dartos• 1 year ago

true advancement is always energy management

Idk about that, but yeah I agree AI has got a good 3-5 years left in its hype run.

mannders• 1 year ago

IMO AI was extremely important, but the breakthroughs are mostly done. I’m just expecting incremental improvements with LLMs now.

A Turing complete personal tutor to explain any concept already exists. You can prompt a logo or video into existence. This is crazy.

The real value will be the creative people who use AI to self teach and build real world value, like energy management, or anything else.

Not this pipe dream that AGI will be achieved and automate the entire world, which for some reason gets so much focus. Seems like procrastination to obsess over this.

omgJustTest• 1 year ago

Grid scale batteries would immediately impact electricity costs. The potential is 2/3 of the cost of current electricity costs.

Mistletoe2• 1 year ago

Am I being too pessimistic to think we would actually get the same electricity costs if we are lucky and 1/3 more profits going up to the executive portion of the company?

Scaevolus• 1 year ago

Grid scale batteries are not very sensitive to energy density. Car batteries are very sensitive to it.

Gibbon1• 1 year ago

One thing interesting to me is solid state batteries would be a boon battery powered aircraft. Current 150 to 200 miles range. If you double capacity then 300 to 400 miles range becomes possible.

My rule of thumb with range is if you can go from San Francisco to Tahoe that's a notable milestone.

Also with AI it feels like we have 8 billion people in the world who are intellectually under utilized and often under fed.

fnord77• 1 year ago

A truly large-scale introduction of solid-state batteries could possibly only take place after 2030, Sun is quoted in the reports

So they're a bit behind Toyota

SideburnsOfDoom2• 1 year ago

Everyone else is behind Toyota in promising EV breakthroughs "any year now". Announcements are their main EV product.

andy_xor_andrew• 1 year ago

on this topic, I have been wondering lately - what's with China's dominance in the battery science area?

Is it still true that they're the only ones who can make LiFePO batteries? Is anyone else working on production of these?

What accounts for this gap - patents (ha), secret research, materials, manufacturing prowess, all of the above?

bergie• 1 year ago

What accounts for this gap - patents (ha)

China has been the country filing the most patents for a while now.

"While innovators from China continue to file nearly half of all global patent applications, the country’s growth rate dipped for a second consecutive year from 6.8% in 2021 to 3.1% in 2022. Meantime, patent applications by residents of India grew by 31.6% in 2022, extending an 11-year run of growth unmatched by any other country among the top 10 filers." https://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2023/article_0013...

bgnn• 1 year ago

It's not only battery technology.

I'm in chip design and they are dominating academic research in this area for the last 5-6 years, together with Korea and Taiwan. It's 70% China now and their research is good.

pjc50• 1 year ago

Single chart answer: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61843

The United States is basically self-sufficient on oil. Therefore it doesn't have to take the EV transition seriously. In China, there isn't a local powerbase dependent on oil profits, or an oil-based car culture, or a local politically connected dealer network sitting in the way.

China is making EVs work because getting off oil dependency matters there. The US is removing Federal charging points because it is not serious about EVs. Everything follows from there.

tim333• 1 year ago

There's a little more background in https://cnevpost.com/2025/02/15/byd-demonstration-use-all-so...

In April 2024, CATL said the were working on prototypes and made some by Nov.

They were saying conventional batteries topped out at 350 Wh/kg while solid state could potentially go to 500+

BYD's tech is similar based on sulfide electrolytes.

They still seem to have problems with cost and making them in volume.

wordofx2• 1 year ago

Now they just need to build a decent car.

locusm• 1 year ago

Drove the Seal round a track recently - exceptional bang for buck.

thecleaner• 1 year ago

They are much better than Teslas, which are b generally shit cars.

wordofx2• 1 year ago

I would never waste money on a Tesla. But this is simply not true.

dzhiurgis4• 1 year ago

I drove Atto3 not long and while build quality was ok, the tech and aesthetics inside were basically kitsch. Also owner complained about issues he had.

Basically you get what you pay for - smaller and cheaper car.

mikrotikker2• 1 year ago

Yea I won't be trusting any Chinese batteries. I've seen too many videos of BYDs exploding or catching fire after locking the occupants inside.

simjnd• 1 year ago

Thank god we've never seen videos of Tesla cars exploding or catching fire. Clearly American batteries are superior.

mikrotikker2• 1 year ago

I've never seen one. I've seen dozens of Chinese cars exploding.

BYD has already produced its first solid-state cells

Related Stories