Solid-state batteries have encountered global difficulties in production, and the "Holy Grail" of lithium batteries is probably just a dream

"QuantumScape was also coy about battery safety late last year, when the company barely made its first prototype solid-state batteries and delivered them to automotive customers, founder, CEO and chairman Jagdeep Singh mentioned the reliability aspects of these battery products " There is still a lot of room for improvement.”QuantumScape CEO Jagdeep Singh Source: Financial Times

Not only that, but there are still many problems in mass production that have not been resolved. Although the oxide-based electrolyte material has better stability in the air, it has high requirements on the manufacturing process, and it needs high temperature sintering above 800 degrees Celsius to be densely formed. For the preparation of large-sized, ultra-thin and defect-free ceramics The process has extremely high requirements, which brings greater challenges to the large-scale manufacturing of batteries.

In terms of production environment and raw material purity, all-solid-state batteries have higher requirements than traditional lithium batteries. It may be difficult to produce large-scale electrolyte films in batches. Therefore, the initial mass production of all-solid-state batteries may only be produced on a small scale for some areas with higher cost tolerance. The SNE report of South Korea's new energy research institute pointed out that even in the mass production stage, the cost of all-solid-state batteries is at least twice that of lithium-ion batteries, which runs counter to the "cost reduction" pursued by the new energy vehicle industry.

In the carnival feast of solid-state batteries, the smartest capital is the first to calm down. Also at the end of last year, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas released a research report, downgrading QS from "wait and see" to "underweight", and lowering the target price from $12 to only $4, a new low on Wall Street. Reasons include uncertain timelines for scale-up and OEM approval, as well as a more difficult financing environment for companies. Adam Jonas said that while solid-state batteries may still represent the future of energy storage, the road to this goal has proven to be more difficult and farther than we and the market expected.

Due to the continuous dehydration of the market value, the stock price fell from a high of 132 US dollars to 7 US dollars today, and QS company also began to lay off employees, which seems to have entered the "bottom of bubble burst" of Gartner's technology maturity curve. As a result, the bubble surrounding this once dark horse began to collapse.

While QS is still struggling in the dilemma of technology and capital, the American new energy vehicle brand Fisker has announced that it will abandon its plan to develop solid-state batteries and instead launch ordinary electric vehicles equipped with liquid lithium-ion batteries. Many may recall that in 2018, the company said it would mass produce solid-state batteries within months. Now the founder of the company can only use this explanation to cover up the original embarrassment, "Solid state battery is a kind of technology, when you feel that you have completed 90%, almost reached the goal, and then you realize the remaining 10% % is much more difficult than the previous 90%."

Bounce is a key word in Toyota's solid-state battery story. Toyota, which has been betting on the gasoline-electric hybrid route in terms of new energy, has been lagging behind in pure electric technology, and has always hoped to overtake cars by laying out solid-state battery technology early. Its layout of solid-state batteries can be traced back to 2008, when the company announced that it would cooperate with the British start-up company Ilika to jointly develop solid-state battery materials.

Ten years have passed, and Toyota has at least seven or eight partners in solid-state batteries, and even has accumulated more than 1,300 patents in this area, which is far ahead of the four Japanese and Korean companies ranked 2-5. It is a pity that the difficulty from technology to mass production is no less than a journey from the west. At an event called the "2030 Battery Strategy Conference" the year before last, Toyota stated that the research and development progress in high-energy-density all-solid-state batteries was not optimistic, and it had not been able to break through the key issue of suitable sulfide electrolyte materials.

Under the background that technical difficulties cannot be overcome, Toyota has to postpone the mass production of all-solid-state products again and again. It stated in 2019 that it will launch a new energy model equipped with solid-state batteries at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. However, even if the Olympic Games are postponed One year has given Toyota more time, and consumers still have not been able to wait for solid-state batteries to be equipped with models. At the same time, it has chosen a promising route in terms of commercialization: to put solid-state battery technology into hybrid vehicle products first, rather than for pure electric vehicles in one step.

Considering that electrification, especially pure electrification, has formed an irresistible trend in China, the sunset of fuel vehicles is magnificent, and the dawn of pure electric vehicles is dazzling, making the market prospects of non-extended range hybrid vehicles bleak. In addition, Toyota's own vehicle technology iteration cycle is too long, generally reaching 4-5 years; its only pure electric model bZ4X succeeded in the first battle, but suffered a large-scale recall (although it was not for battery reasons), and finally officially announced the project a few days ago Completely discontinued.

Toyota's decision once again made people feel that the Japanese auto giant was at a loss in the new energy era, although Toyota said it would launch solid-state batteries by 2025. But "The Story of the Wolf" made people have to lower their expectations for solid-state battery technology.

There may not be much time left for Toyota to fulfill its promise. At the just-passed Shanghai Auto Show, Ningde era has released condensed matter batteries, with a high specific energy of up to 500Wh/kg and high safety. The key is to mass-produce them this year. Therefore, it is more likely that after the condensed matter is loaded into the car, the solid-state battery may completely lose the possibility of commercialization.

Today, solid-state batteries, the ultimate battery technology that has been expected by everyone, can no longer support the titles of "Terminator" for fuel vehicles and "Holy Grail" for lithium batteries. It looks more and more like a group of people on the wrong technical route, having a dream together.