Toyota with SOLID-STATE Battery hits the road as Toyota promise £10bn battery investment

Toyota is to invest £10 billion in the development of batteries for EV, and a solid-state battery-powered Toyota hits the road.

We’ve followed Toyota’s long journey towards solid-state batteries for a decade, and it looked like they were going to showcase a Toyota car powered by solid-state batteries at the Toyota Olympics.

But as Covid put paid to the 2020 Olympics, it seemed to have done the same with Toyota’s showcase for its solid-state tech, although Toyota did promise we’d see it by 2021.

Now we’re in 2021 – and the Tokyo Olympics have finally happened a year late – Toyota is back on the battery track with the promise of big investments – some £10bn in the coming years – and a video of a Toyota running on-road powered by solid-state batteries (video below).

Beyond the video, we don’t have much in the way of detail on the solid-state plans, but Toyota has outlined what they’re going in the coming years as it invests heavily to make their EV push a success.

With a £10bh investment in the years to 2030 to advance the technology, Toyota will start by delivering a battery in the new bZ4X which will be able to maintain 90 per cent of its performance after a decade, will cost 30 per cent less to produce, and a further 50 per cent reduction in cost by the end of the decade.

Toyota says they are now on track to put solid-state batteries into production cars by 2025 – including in hybrids – as well as a newly-developed structure for the older nickel-metal hydride batteries which doubles power density.

The goalposts are starting to shift.

Toyota with Solid-State Battery on the road