Volkswagen and Quantumscape claimed to have solved a key problem in the development of solid state batteries.
Solid state batteries would give great benefits to both the automotive world and other industries, but have so far been frustrated by the inability to come up with a separator that can keep the battery from failing prematurely.
Quantumscape claims that it has come up with a better separator that has been proven to work. It has come up with a ceramic separator that gives good power, doesn’t grow dendrites, and can last over 1,000 cycles.
For multilayered batteries (which would be needed to power an electric car), it claims to have achieved over 800 cycles with similar capacity as the single layered cells.
Being able to produce affordable, energy-dense, powerful solid state batteries would definitely be a breakthrough. It would propel Volkswagen and Quantumscape ahead of the competition if they can get it done in the next 3-5 years like they are saying.
Energy-dense EV battery cells would be a game changer because –
- Battery sizes and weights would be much smaller which would allow vehicles to either have much greater ranges or it would allow them to be much lighter.
- Greater power densities would also mean more Horsepower which would give better high-speed performance.
- The tire wear issues experienced by heavy and high-torque EVs would also be a lot less.
- Depending on how great the solid state batteries are, they may also give much higher charging rates like 500 miles (805 Kms) in just 5 minutes.
With a solid separator and lithium metals, batteries would be much more compact for the same power output and storage capability. This would bring electric vehicles closer to being able to compete with fossil-fuel vehicles in terms of range and weight.
Reference- Automotive News Europe, Inside EVs, VM website & PR, Quantumscape’s recent presentation, Clean Technica