Toyota will reveal Electric Car powered by SOLID STATE batteries in 2021

Toyota are set to reveal an electric car powered by solid state batteries in 2021, promising lower cost, greater range and quicker charging for EVs.

We’ve been following Toyota’s quest to develop solid state batteries for almost a decade now, and although Toyota’s plan to reveal a prototype EV powered by solid state batteries at the Tokyo Olympics was scuppered by Covid, they are now expected to reveal it next year, according to Nikkei.

Despite many in the industry believing Toyota’s solid state batteries won’t be production-ready for some considerable time, it looks like Toyota are about to prove them wrong, and will have solid state battery EVs on sale ‘in the early 2020s’.

The Japanese government is also gearing up to play its part with plans to support the development of solid state batteries in Japan, with subsidies and grants to wrest a monopoly on EV tech away from China, and Japanese car materials makers like Mitsui Kinzoku are gearing up to produce solid electrolytes for the new solid state batteries.

Assuming all this is right, and it certainly looks like it, batteries which cost less to produce, offer twice the range as lithium-ion and take 10 minutes to fully charge will be a real game-changer for the car industry. Although, paradoxically, they could disrupt EV sales – who’ll want to buy a lithium-ion battery powered EV when there’s a solid state option waiting in the wings?