By Joel Stocksdale
It seems that we’re on the cusp of a solid-state battery revolution. The latest company to announce progress in developing the new type of battery is Fisker. It has filed patents for solid-state lithium-ion batteries and it expects the batteries to be produced on a mass scale around 2023.
Though Fisker is a very small car company that is currently taking deposits for its upcoming EMotion electric sedan, there are reasons to believe that the company could fulfill this promise. One of the members of the battery-development team was a co-founder of Sakti3, a company that formed to develop new batteries and announced its research into solid-state technology back in 2011. That company was purchased by Dyson, the vacuum cleaner company, which also intends on producing electric cars that AutoExpress reports will feature solid-state batteries in 2020. Toyota is also expected to have solid-state batteries just ahead of Fisker around 2022.
The reason all these companies are working on developing solid-state batteries is because they present a whole host of advantages over what you’ll find in today’s phones, computers and cars. The two big ones are greater energy density and rapid charging times. Fisker claims the batteries it’s developing have an energy density 2.5 times that of current batteries, and they should be capable of providing a 500-mile driving range. The company also says the batteries could be recharged in as little as a minute. Both claims are similar to past claims from others, including Sakti3. Other benefits include lower estimated cost than conventional lithium-ion batteries as well as very little risk of fires or explosions.
Fisker also announced that it will display the new battery technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. It will be on display along with a close-to-production EMotion, which will be using more conventional lithium-ion batteries from LG Chem. That car has its own impressive claims with a range of more than 400 miles and the ability to regain around 125 miles of range in about 9 minutes. It will also retail for around $ 130,000, and the company is taking $ 2,000 reservations now. Fisker intends for it to go into production in 2019.
