Toyota Only Plans to Make Enough Solid-State Batteries for 10k Cars in 2030 | Hacker News Reader

Toyota Only Plans to Make Enough Solid-State Batteries for 10k Cars in 2030

thedrive.com

37 pointsronron469333 comments

Toyota have been saying “just wait a few more years to buy an EV, we have revolutionary new battery tech around the corner that will be MUCH cheaper, MUCH lighter and MUCH faster to charge” for at least 10 years now.

Every time I see the headline and resulting conversation on major auto news websites I see hundreds of people say it’s not worth getting an EV now with such better tech around the corner, and that waiting is best.

I find it very hard not to think Toyota is intentionally lying to stop people buying EVs at all because they simply don’t make them (yet/ever).

Same goes for Toyota hydrogen cars. Whenever they get mentioned hundreds of comments get suckered into thinking EV infrastructure is just not good enough and never will be, but somehow magically hydrogen just will be “in a few years”. The idea the world will ever have hydrogen infrastructure that is even remotely as good as the EV infrastructure we have today is laughable. That’s trillions of dollars and decades away at very best.

Hydrogen infrastructure is a nightmare and requires you to store massive amounts of explosive gas under pressure. The energy density per gallon/liter sucks compared to gasoline. It was a bad bet and will never see mass adoption.

Hybrids, however, do make sense right now. Lithium ion batteries don't have the range (especially under load) and don't recharge as fast as filling up a tank. If you use fast chargers, the battery life also diminishes, and the replacement costs are ridiculous. Those aren't features which allow for mainstream adoption. Too much consumer behavior change is required.

I’d wager for 75% of vehicle owners the range and charge speed of the EVs on the market today meet their needs perfectly.

Remember, the average person in the US only drives 37 miles per day [1]

[1] https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/average-miles-driven-per-year...

I don't know the name for it, but I think there is a logic error in their math.

The average distance you do drive on days you drive, is what matters.

I'm willing to bet most people drive on most days.

WFH and everyone in NYC disagree.

You could double it and double it again, and essentially all EVs for sale today still have minimum of double that range.

EV range is not a problem for the very vast majority of drivers, we just keep being told it is by the companies that are making a lot of money from the status quo and want it to continue

Really depends on where the car sells. In the EU, todays EVs probably have plenty of range. In the US, 300 miles is just not going to cut it for many people far too often.

Look at this comparison. And hour+ commutes are far from unheard of in the US. (Common within cities even due to traffic.)

http://www.comparea.org/USA48+EU

If you are driving over 300 miles a day and not a truck driver or traveling salesman, you need to full stop reevaluate your life. Life is too short to sit in a car. Average commute in my “flyover country” city is 10 minutes.

You are absolutely right. An hour+ commute, let’s call it 75 miles.

150 a day. Show me an EV for sale right now that can’t do that in a day and charge overnight at home or at the workplace.

EVs for sale today do this easily, even in the cold

Maybe for day to day stuff. But sometimes, maybe even once per year, that one road trip where multiple charging stops at hokey non Tesla stations is enough to prevent a lot of people from jumping.

Lots of people want the possibility of doing XYZ with their car or truck, even if they only do it rarely or never.

Jim wants his truck to be able to tow a trailer, even if he only uses it for mulch. Maybe he buys an F150 instead of an old Ranger 4cyl.

Drive 2000 miles to FL just fine every year in my EV with my family of 5. Must be doing something wrong,

Just to be clear, I agree with you. I just don't think you the value that matters is total / days is meaningful when you realise how the number is generated. What matters is the average length driven, when driven.

It's not the average distance you drive, it's the maximum distance you drive. Most people are not going to select an EV as their primary vehicle until they can make that infrequent but important road trip without charge anxiety.

I would counter that it won’t see adoption in cars but will in heavy machinery. It’s a much better proposition for hauling huge loads than tonnes of batteries are (assuming you can’t use a train in the first place) or for things like large excavators. It also removes some of the need for regular filling stations along roads etc. if you can centre the infrastructure around where fleets are based and return to for more cargo.

I'm wondering if it would make sense for heavy trucks that don't have to travel far, like trucks used for shorter or medium-length trips to move cargo. Things like moving containers to/from shipping terminals and warehouses, or moving loads between cities/towns where cargo trains aren't economical.

This Canadian logging trucker has many excellent points. Apologies, it's TikTok.

https://www.tiktok.com/@freightfamous/video/7294648129654246...

I disagree with the notion that customer behavior change is required. This position sounds like unsubstantiated fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

For the vast majority of days, the car gets driven to work then returned home. As the driver leaves the car, they connect an electrical cable into the side of the car.

The biggest change here is the consumer no longer needs to make a stop out of their way to refuel their vehicle and will now have to take an extra 5 seconds to plug a car in.

On longer trips, there is a bit more change I’ll admit, but most EVs will tell you where your next stop is and let you see the nearby amenities. Need to stop sooner? Tap a closer charger and it’ll replan accordingly. This is a change from reading highway exit signs for gas stations but hardly an impediment. And some states are adding EV badges to the highway signs.

Lastly there’s the question of what to do with the vehicle while fast charging. Probably the biggest change that’ll only impact people 4-8 times a year, and that’s what to do while charging. It’s simple: plug in the car, then walk over to a nearby restaurant and grab breakfast/lunch.

This is certainly a deviation from powering through a 8 hour road-trip as fast as humanly possible, but driving without breaks is dangerous.

My take is that companies using silicon anode batteries will eat their lunch.

Mercedes partnered with Sila - manufacturer of such batteries in 2019 and will be powering its electric G-class with it in 2026:

https://www.silanano.com/press/mercedes-benz-taps-sila-to-pr...

The technology offers "just" a 20-40% increase, but that is still a lot considering the pace of progress in this field.

Also it's more than one company starting production at scale in the next few years - the others being OneD (partnering with GM) and Amprius (not in the motoring space yet).

By the time Toyota has those 10k cars built, others will be already on the market for a while.

Toyota has very recently publicized their commitment to hybrid technology as it is the only foreseeable outcome for mass adoption and transition off of gasoline.

That's not opinion, that's their position.

This is pretty reasonable considering

Toyota is over invested in technology which has been overtaken by newer, better variants. They bet early, didn't see the promised gains, and their leadership have reduced faith in the likelihood that battery tech will be able to turn a profit.

I suspect they will be caught with their pants down and will need to resort to using someone else's supply chain to fulfill demand in the future. This will push the cost of their own supply chain up, and they will become increasingly less competitive and lose market share because of it.

They are conservative - looking at the ICE engines - while VAG has long transitioned to using turbo charged direct fuel injection (remember the infamous troubling and discontinued 1.4 TSi (supercharging/turbo)) they are focused on durability and efficiency of tried designs.

I wanted to buy a Toyota Prius Prime - the plug-in hybrid... But we discovered how much smaller it is than our 2008 Prius. Yuck.

So then we looked hard at the Rav-4 Prime plug-in hybrid. I like it.

But if Toyota is not committed, I'd rather go elsewhere...

Is there a plug-in hybrid that's close to the size of a small SUV that you'd recommend? Four people in the family and a great big Golden Retriever that we like to be able to put in the hatch back trunk of our 2008 Prius.

Not sure what you mean by “not serious.” They have a road map. I’ve elsewhere read they plan on a 100 mile electric only Rav4 prime (with the usual gas range) by 2027.

Last I checked, the R4P still has the highest electric range of any phev suv. (I think audi now claims 52 miles, but I’ve gotten that much in my R4P so this is within the estimated range of both. It’s all about battery capacity and I imagine those are close.)

They have been slow to release BEVs and past executives have had contrary views on going fast to electric. But, they also target a larger scale than other automakers. They also over engineer for their vehicles to last longer. If you want a car that could last to 3 million miles you get a toyota. If you want speed or whizbang tech you go elsewhere and possibly replace the vehicle around 30,000 miles.

This feels a little like old school linux hackers complaining about windows in the early 2000s. The positioning of toyota makes more sense from their positioning in the market. Might need more, broader political will power to demand a fast transition.

I'm still super happy to see solid-state batteries going into production. I wish it was faster than 20 years away from mass production, but progress is progress.

Right. Wish collective will was there to do for mass rollout what was done for covid vaccines.

Well, if they can ship 10K of these, even in expensive halo cars, it'll quickly establish itself whether these are game changers or not. I imagine volume production, by Toyota or a licensee, ramping up quickly if they really work as advertised.

By 2030 Tesla is making batteries for what, 6 million cars a year? 10k cars doesn’t matter, Toyota bet on hydrogen cars and lost.

Yes, Toyota is behind. But at least they’re going in a good direction now.

In what respect ??.

Think they reading the market right - we want hybrids and not pure EV - consumers except for the Tesla niche (California hug the planet) is not really convinced looking at inventories sitting on dealer lots.

Not all can afford a Iconiq or GTron.

I wonder if this is the state of affairs for all solid state battery tech like the sodium ion batteries BYD is supposed to bring out soon.

There are already solid state batteries on the market. We aren't actually talking about 'solid state' at all, that just a accidental marketing name.

The things that is the actual 'hotness' is lithum metal anodes. The reason why people use the term 'solid state' is because it was thought 'lithium metal' anodes would only be possible with solid state.

So companies taking a long time to develop lithium metal anodes doesn't mean other battery types that use solid state will take as long.

Changemimicry. Make the sound, stay around, worked for a ton of dinosaurs.

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