This 'news' has been pushed about every month in the last ~6 months, and even before in 2021 there have been similar 'stories'.
But there is no battery. But they are near.
Here is one from 2021 : https://www.motortrend.com/news/toyota-battery-bev-hev-solid...
Enter the rabbit hole : https://hn.algolia.com/?q=toyota+battery
Japanese carmakers are really good and well-disciplined on building it with quality and also cheaply, I'm really excited about what they'll bring.
I've always enjoyed Toyotas, I have one. Toyotas are always cheaper than the alternative and extremely reliable.
From my last time shopping they weren't the cheaper at purchase time, but I do agree that they're reliable and I haven't spent a lot of money for repair so far, and when I do the parts aren't very expensive nor difficult to find.
So I'd say the total cost of ownership is likely cheaper than the alternative, and they also hold their value well compared to other brands.
Rather around the early-mid 2020s which has been impacted by COVID.
I am always reluctant to bet against Toyota since they have a long history of delivering.
First source link I could find on google. https://www.whichcar.com.au/news/byd-may-launch-first-sodium...
I like the fact that they show their intent without making you pay for it
The same thing goes for the Acura / Honda distinction.
Internationally a bunch of cars that have a Lexus badge in America have a Toyota badge on them.
Also no surprise that they have nothing to show except a "just wait 5 years!".
A grave of irrelevance so deep that they are the world's largest automaker and their net margins just hit an all-time high. Sometimes I do wonder from which planet these HN remarks are sent.
However I am sure that there are at least a few execs at toyota with your line of thinking: "Our ICE cars are selling better than ever, why are we wasting money on EV development?"
https://thedriven.io/2023/05/11/toyota-under-fire-for-anti-c...
Regardless, we'll see what happens in 5 years. The best outcome is that they are truthful about this development.
I think for cars it isn’t the most convenient. But at the same time hydrogen would be cool if it works because it’s so abundant. And it’s pretty cool that the hydrogen cars exhaust water.
Having said this, I have seen quite a few Toyota Mirai taxis in Berlin. I am wondering if they ever have range anxiety or problems finding a fuel station.
https://www.drive.com.au/news/toyota-develops-more-efficient...
>If the Japanese automaker does decide to put it into a production car, don't expect it to arrive on the scene until sometime after 2015.
>reportedly uses single crystals of lithium cobalt oxide
Would anyone like to guess why this one didn't catch on?
Anyway, practically all modern solid-state batteries are based on a phosphorus sulfide electrolyte system (P2S5, but also related PxSy phases), which was tested in batteries as early as 1988 by Eveready:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01672...
The material was discovered in France in around 1980:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/016727...
So this is not just a one-off technology; the challenge is mostly efficient production.
He has no background in car manufacturing, battery research etc or unique insight into Toyota's roadmap. With all due respect to him I don't think his opinion is worth all that much.
You also have to remember even 10-80 throttles SIGNIFICANTLY over that window as the battery fills. The higher speeds will run for longer on a larger battery assuming it is designed with sufficient cooling - one of the features of solid state batteries is supposed to be the ability to charge at higher rates for longer duration.
Supposedly, V4 chargers are still currently capped at 250kW output (same as current L3 chargers), but are capable of upwards of 615 amps once more cars are capable of charging at 800 volts.
I don't know what building 100,000 of them will take, but it'll be a lot of metal for sure.
[0] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Evolution-of-the-battery...
Then the calculation you're looking for looks something like this:
300 miles range * 1/5 kWH/mile = 60 kWH of power
We need to deliver that power in 10 mins, so:
60 kWH * 6 = 360 kW.
You need a 360 kW power feed in order to charge this battery in 10 minutes. Keep in mind the average modern household in the US has a 24kW feed, so it would take all the power available to 15 modern US households to charge this car. But it's only need for 10 minutes. Put another way, if people were continually using this commercial charging point all day long - let's say 16 hours for the day - then for the peak power consumption of 15 US households you could charge 96 cars using this fast charge.
Getting 1MW to a commercial fast charging station is not crazy. Plenty of fast charging stations have that kind of connection. But distributed over multiple chargers of course.
What you see these days is, say, 150kW shared with t who cables. If you’re the only one charging you get 150kW. If there’s another car you get 75kW. If we ever get to 1MW I think that’ll be the model. Should still be quite beneficial since if people finish their charging faster you’ll also have more instances where you’re not sharing capacity with others.
As batteries get cheaper we’ll also see more stations with battery packs to provide peak power to those super fast charging cars.
We're talking megawatts here, and (at least over here) getting a grid connection of more than a couple of hundred kilowatts means serious talks with the grid operators. Because larger max loads mean larger potential impact on the grid when your load suddenly switches on, there is a progressive fee where a 0.1 MW versus a 1 MW rated connection is not simply 10x cheaper.
Absent huge investments in the grid, I think the only thing you could do is put these on prem with power production, or put up a big battery near the charger that you fill up at a lower rate?
Not an expert, but I wrote simulation code for "virtual power plants" so industrial sites with electricity producers, consumers and storage could simulate their loads to help spec the grid connections to their sites... this is what I vaguely remember from the business end of things.
240kWh in 10 minutes translates into 1,44MW - for charging one car! (Assuming 100% efficiency.)
The bottleneck when installing EV charging stations in many parts of Norway at the moment is simply getting the AC oomph needed to the right place. Our electrical ferries (much bigger load than an EV) sidestep this issue by having huge battery banks shoreside, which are being charged at a uniform rate, then once the ferry connects to the shore terminal, it charges off the batteries shoreside rather than the grid as such. Presumably something similar will have to be thought out to take full advantage of solid state batteries.
no price listed, alas.
edit: did find a fuel consumption number; 50% load for a 3MW model should be 45-50gal for 10min (quotes 467gal/hr).
so ~14 miles/gallon or 6 km/liter
Since battery life like this might be a step change, it will leave most EV manufacturers behind if they don’t have an answer.
EV buyers may want to consider a used EV until new tech comes out, since old or current tech is not always worth paying new prices for.
It might also be a factor in the relationship between Toyota and Tesla growing in the last week.
I'm not basing my purchase decisions on pie-in-the-sky press releases from Toyota and wild-ass guesses from some random person on the Internet. Build a car, Toyota, then we'll talk. Or maybe I'll just buy a Tesla instead, I've heard that their "Full Self-Driving" is just a few months away.
Sounds like exactly what Toyota is hoping for with regular press releases like this. Shutting down competitors electric sales while consumers wait for this someday-tech would be fantastic for Toyota.
Until you can buy it, it's meaningless at best.
"At a news conference last week, Toyota president Koji Sato also admitted that production volumes of solid-state batteries were likely to be small when the company rolls them out in electric vehicles as early as 2027."
and in fact Toyota may actually be late to the game:
"Other companies have also made progress recently. Chinese battery maker CATL revealed it was preparing to mass-produce its semi-solid batteries before the year’s end, while South Korea’s Samsung SDI has completed a fully automated pilot line for solid-state batteries."
For passenger BEVs, maybe. For many reasons, none of them related to batteries.
For batteries? No way. Demand far exceeds supply. Every battery made for the next 10 years will be bought by some one.
Battery technology is mapped out for 10-15 years. Every battery startup (cathodes, anodes, minerals, process, etc, etc) has a general plan to "skate to where the puck will be", and hopefully get there before competitors. Any one starting a gigafactory today knows what kind of batteries they'll be making (at scale) in 5 years and what their market share will be.
The trick is being profitable. And Toyota has a pretty good chance. Mostly because they have access to (cheaper) capital. And maybe because they can lean on their long relationships with Panasonic and the like.
I'm suspicious for many reasons. If they can't build their prime hybrids — or even supply gas Siennas in Canada — I'm not very confident about their manufacturing in the mid-term.
I hope I'm wrong.
I have no confidence they will successfully produce an EV with the classic Toyota reliability because of the software piece.
It's completely wrong to call them the tortise, they are the hare. They took their nap, and now have a very different field to race on; one in which Hyundai is suddenly a strong competitor with years of practical experience - without domestic politics restricting them to daydreaming about Hydrogen.
I hope they surprise me, because I still love my 2016 Sienna.
On a related note, before I bought my Model 3, I went for a test drive at the Subaru dealership. The dealer specifically told me that, if I really wanted an electric car, I should go with Tesla because "Toyota will never get an equivalent charging network going here".
Conservatism and playing it safe resulting in overbuilding and longevity? Yes.
Management? Disaster!
Here is one of their more recent ~$1B blunders "How Japan's Greatest Supercar Flourished and Failed" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdVWKpqZaXg LFA was delayed by at least 5 years and released just as Toyota announced pulling out of F1 in December 2009 after spending $1.6B there with no wins. Probably the reason they stopped developing sports cars altogether and resigned to reselling repackaged Subarus and BMW.
I get range anxiety is a thing. But no one needs that kind of range in a car.
Why not make it 400mi/650km and save a ton of weight? The battery here gives double the range of an Accord. Who needs that?
Less battery is less weight. That’s better for tires, roads, charge times, brakes, accidents, acceleration, drivability, cost, and probably more.
250mi is plenty. For most even less. But there’s a psychological factor, I get that. Outside something like a truck that’s going to get a very low mi/kwh when towing no one needs that much battery.
If I only drove 400 miles a day, it’d have taken me 2 weeks to drive there and back. I have better things to do with my time and paid vacation than spend two weeks driving. No, this is not an every day/week/month journey for most people. I get that 250 miles is plenty for most people, but failing to account for all use cases is poor planning and inconsiderate to those left out.
The correct thing to do is segment the market for all use cases, not just the ones that are convenient for MBCook. Don’t forget that HN is a bubble just like every other social network. People need more than 250 miles.
You charge your car at night, just like your phone. So it effectively takes zero time to charge, and you always get a full day out of it. It's different from gas cars, the same way smartphones required new charging habits compared to a Nokia 3310 with its two-week battery life.
(And yes, if you live in an apartment or don't have a parking space, this sucks and it doesn't work for you. Same as if you used to charge your 3310 only at your girlfriend's house on weekends because you lost your charger a year before, and then you switched to a smartphone and needed to figure something else out. Conceded.)
It would make owning an EV less tedious.
With this sort of range it might actually make EV pickups useful. You can now probably tow an RV 400-500 miles in cold weather with this. If this is legit, it’s going to revolutionize everything.
0 EV infrastructure in Argentina, but they could sell that car tomorrow, they have dealerships everywhere here.
I could make the trip I normally do to visit my parents on my ICE car and still have some margin for emergencies.
why don't you take a plane you say? there are no inter-state flights here sadly so traveling by car here is the normal thing.
Freight Carries?
Locomotives with battery cars for energy recovery (braking, downhill, etc)
Toyota is the biggest auto manufacturer on the planet. They don't make wild bets or predictions that they don't believe to be fully achievable.
https://electrek.co/2023/10/12/toyota-joins-race-to-try-and-...
Maybe we'll get in-car cold fusion first.
how is the actual progress and its rate, though?
every time the comments section decends into a combination of bitter laments about the state of journalism, random topic-adjacent bloviating, meta-commentary about the industry/market context (american's chattin about cars!), tangential speculation about other battery tech.
its so purely content free. you never learn something. why does HN work this way?
There seems to be a lot of noise, confusion and FUD coming from Toyota lately.
Not really? The old CEO with his irrational hate of all-electric cars left, and Toyota is now free to catch up with the rest of the industry. And the best way to catch up has always been to leapfrog a tech generation ahead, rather than trying to copy what the competition designed last year.
What? It seems to be there is a lot of irrational hate on Toyota for its pragmatic approach. There's going to be a need for ICE vehicles for decades to come. As far as I'm aware, the people most likely unable to switch to EVs are likely already Toyota customers. It's not like they've relying on gas guzzling monsters like Ford/GM/etc. They've had hybrids and plug-in hybrids for how long? And in case you did not know, they do have an EV which is available to purchase. I guess they snuck that under the old bat's nose.
> Toyota is now free to catch up with the rest of the industry.
Toyota has been out in front with their hybrids. It's the rest of the industry that's catching up with Toyota. Whom do you think is actually ahead of Toyota?
While some of these improvements rely on a switch to electric, I would love to see as many of these implemented in a much shorter term.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/546/187/fb1...
This produced an “exact” number out of consumption averages. The public doesn’t yet know what “250 kWh” means.
It's just an open invitation for abuse (and has already been abused by battery makers like CATL who recently announced a new improved LFP with 4C charging and 750 miles range??).
When did this become a metric that mattered to any normal person? Do you even know the 0-60 of your car? Do you realize how quick 5 second is to 60mph? Most sports cars of a generation ago couldn't touch that. Why do you feel it needs to be faster? It's plain dangerous to inexperienced drivers.
Previously I had only had crappy used ICE vehicles, and the acceleration was so bad it had never occurred to me how much better driving could be with good acceleration. I probably wouldn't include it in my calculus for an ICE vehicle, but I'll probably never purchase another ICE vehicle either.
1946 it seems:
https://www.motortrend.com/vehicle-genres/c12-0603-icons-unc...
Because there's nothing I hate more than a car that doesn't respond when I try to accelerate.
The more important questions (for me) are how well it handles on curves, how efficient it is and what the range is.
The energy efficiency and weight (in American metrics) are 5.32 mi/kwh (extremely good), and a bit over 4000 lbs (pretty heavy; makes me wonder about handling), with well under 300 miles of range, depending on conditions.
So... It looks like it'd appeal to the people I know that buy Lexus cars. That's not me, but I hope they sell a lot of them.
Torque is generally what you need when you need that. Beat the person off the line because you didn't merge into the right turn lane early enough acceleration onto the highway and two lane highway passing.
Horsepower is largely a metric for top speed of the vehicle, and if we're talking about in a relative statistic for road cars, top speed is far more useless than 0-60
For the rest of the world: I have no idea.
I have seen car commercials my entire life stating the car's 0-60. EV's I think are especially good for this though because it's fun to accelerate in an EV. Fun does sell cars, see the Miata, S2000, every convertible, etc There are tons of examples.
I, personally, as an average Joe, definitely would consider acceleration when buying a brand new car, I think it can be a good differentiator.
It's fair to point out that, eg, a Corvette from 1960 was slower than 5 seconds for 0-60, but you don't have to be a total gearhead to want to be the fastest off the light.
Are you seriously going to try gaslight us that nobody cares about 0-60 times?
I'll be charitable and assume you're confusing max speed with 0-60. Most people care about 0-60 performance as it's what they experience after.every.single.stop. They may not know the documented 0-60 time, but they generally know and appreciate better acceleration.
But I do doubt most people know the actual top speed of their vehicles, and relatively few have ever operated their vehicles near or at vmax.
No need to be a sour puss, let car people love their cars
Toyota has been completely asleep at the switch for EVs which is baffling since they pioneered the hybrid electric vehicle.
What's really strange is after having such a huge lead and hybrid electric vehicle, they have really crawled behind other manufacturers and producing plug-in hybrid electric vehicles which are really just a plug adder onto the vehicle.
It really is mystifying
Keep in mind they're basically isn't a single car manufacturer outside of China and maybe Tesla that are actually doing original battery research. They are all partnering with actual battery manufacturers like Panasonic, Samsung, etc
People really need to let go of their EV fanboyism (and likely that includes Tesla fanboyism). In reality, if EVs were the future, Toyota would start making vast numbers of them in just a few years.
The real issue is that BEVs are not cost effective right now, and show no sign of that happening anytime soon. Until then, PHEVs and hybrids make a lot of sense.
PS: A lot of these Chinese EV makers are scam companies propped up by the Chinese government. They have no ability beyond shoving giant batteries into generic chassis.
Don't buy our competitors EVs, something much better is coming soon we promise...
There are people who have driven cars for 40-50 years and every car has been a Toyota. These are the people they're trying to keep.
"Our Super Great EV is just around the corner, but here's a new Toyota Corolla Hybrid for you for the mean time"
[IBM salesman's wife]: All my husband does is sit on the end of the bed and tell me how great it's going to be.
However, this exists, and kind of looks like a tall Corolla:
Oof size "La Grande".
