- toyota announced that its first vehicle to use solid-state batteries will go on sale by 2025 in an interview with autoline.
- the first toyotas to use the new batteries will be hybrids, rather than fully electric vehicles, making it possible the first to get the new battery could be the prius.
- solid-state batteries promise to bring quicker charging times and longer ranges.
the next major step in electric-vehicle development is solid-state batteries. compared to the lithium-ion batteries used in the current crop of evs, solid-state units promise better range, quicker charging times, and a longer battery life. more development is needed, however. back in 2020, toyota said that it was working on prototypes powered by solid-state batteries, and now in a video interview with autoline during the 2022 ces technology how, toyota confirmed that it will begin selling vehicles with solid-state batteries by 2025.
in the interview, gill pratt, toyota's chief scientist and head of the toyota research institute, said that toyota is aiming to "commercialize" its solid-state batteries in the first half of this decade. surprisingly, pratt said that the first toyotas to receive the new batteries will actually be hybrids instead of fully electric vehicles.
pratt outlined a couple of reasons why toyota intends to debut solid-state batteries in hybrids. solid-state batteries are, at the moment, more expensive to produce, he said, and since hybrids have smaller battery packs than evs, implementing them in hybrids first will reduce the cost. the other challenge facing solid-state batteries currently is battery life, with repeated charging taking a toll on early prototype batteries. in a hybrid, the smaller battery is charged and recharged far more often, and pratt suggested that the increased amount of cycling for the batteries will make hybrids a good test bed for the new technology.
"we want to start by putting them in vehicles where we believe that they're both the most well suited in terms of lifetime but also that will exercise them sufficiently so that as costs continue to come down, we can roll them out in the future in [battery-electric vehicles] also," explained pratt. expect more details to trickle out as 2025 approaches and toyota prepares its first solid-state-battery hybrid vehicle.