In about five years, there will be a transformation in the electric vehicles (EV) batteries market and range anxiety could be a thing of the past.
By 2030, EVs will become cheaper than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, electric vehicles will charge quickly and range anxiety issues will be tackled.
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| Breakthroughs on electric vehicle batteries have failed on many occasions. |
We have seen that stories of battery “breakthroughs” have come a cropper and this has left investors put on hold investments and also left consumers fuming.
Some of these are upgrades of lithium batteries and the advantage is that they can be manufactured in the current facilities, and fit into existing supply chains.
Investment in new battery tech can be very difficult because the money required can be so enormous — around $30 billion plus — that it can be hard to make it competitive in the initial stages.
Energy density of EV batteries
It’s possible to optimise a slew of features in a battery, to make it charge faster and last longer.
One of the benchmarks that indicate a battery’s performance is how much energy a manufacturer can pack into it — simply called energy density. Even though we have seen energy densities rise over the years, huge jumps in energy density are rare.
BMW plans to roll out battery in 2025
BMW will, in 2025, begin selling the first vehicle on the company’s new platform for EVs, dubbed Neue Klasse.
This category of vehicles will have a new battery type, which will hold 20 per cent more energy than the previous ones.
It will boost charging speed and range by around 30 per cent. These improvements are because of a new, cylindrical shape for the battery cells, and changes in the chemistry.
New battery by SES AI in 2026
As per Massachusetts-based battery-component manufacturer SES AI, it is set to come up with an EV battery with a much higher energy density in 2026, claims chief executive officer (CEO) Qichao Hu.
SES AI is the first company globally to deliver advanced prototypes of batteries with a particular kind of new tech to an automaker. It is working with GM, Hyundai and Honda for advanced EV batteries for their cars.
In 2025, SES AI hopes to deliver the next level of its cells, which can be used in a fleet of new prototype vehicles.
Say, if GM decides that the first vehicles to get SES AI’s new batteries would be the electric Hummers, then the battery maker will help GM build 100 prototype Hummer EVs with the new technology.
They would undergo a test run and if all goes well, the batteries would be put into production from 2025.
Superfast charging by 2028?
SES AI is not just the only company vowing upgrades to EV batteries in the next few years.
StoreDot, a battery startup based in Israel, is working on new battery tech for making EV batteries charge quickly so that it would be like stopping at a gas station by a conventional vehicle.
That is, the charging times would become comparable to an ICE vehicle filling petrol in a gas station.
StoreDot partners
StoreDot has BP, Daimler Truck, Volvo and Vietnamese EV maker VinFast as investors and partners. StoreDot has said that the first automaker to incorporate its batteries for “ultrafast charging” will be Polestar.
Like SES AI, StoreDot aims to replace the graphite anode in a battery with a different material. Instead of lithium, StoreDot is using silicon to increase both energy density and the charging speed of a battery.
E-Vroooom’s views
So, the EV batteries market seeing a transformation in five years and range anxiety being a thing of the past could see hordes of people move to EVs but the price factor must also be taken into account for this mega migration to take place.
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