EZZ

Interesting that Toyota admitted its far from offering a solid state battery...what happened to 2025 lol.

I doubt solid state will be here this decade. At least they are finally investing into the inevitable transition to BEV. They need to spend way more if they want to get hydrogen powered cars to replace BEVs though.

Also, i'm surprised Toyota doesn't just go LFP batteries for their cars. Its heavier and less performance oriented but they have much higher charging cycles with much less degradation. The Model 3 with LFP have been getting great reviews.

Toyota to Spend $9 Billion on Electric-Car Battery Plants

Japanese car maker, late to the electric-vehicle race, accelerates plans as sales grow

TOKYO— Toyota TM +1.25% Motor Corp. said it would spend $9 billion over the next decade to build factories for electric-car batteries as it gears up to sell two million electric cars annually by the end of the decade.

The world’s largest car maker by vehicle sales has been relatively late in joining the global race to produce and sell battery-powered cars. For years, Toyota said it didn’t think battery-powered cars were a good solution to climate- and pollution-related concerns because the batteries were too expensive and took too long to charge. The company viewed hybrid gas-electric vehicles, which it pioneered, as the better option.

More recently, Toyota has ramped up spending on electric cars as countries began implementing stricter emissions regulations and sales of EVs grow.

The company declined to say how many battery factories would be built but said it planned 10 production lines by 2025 and eventually around 70. A single factory can contain several production lines.

The factories will be built around the world, said Masamichi Okada, Toyota’s chief production officer. “We want to localize production as a general principle,” he said.

Toyota has said it wants about 80% of its cars to include some battery power by 2030. Most of those would be hybrids but it also intends to sell about two million pure electric vehicles annually by then, a figure that includes battery-powered cars and those powered by hydrogen fuel cells. It has said it intends to start selling a fully electric sport-utility vehicle called the bZ4X next year.

Toyota’s announcement follows similar plans laid out by its global competitors. General Motors Co. , Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG have all said they plan to build their own battery factories. Toyota’s closest competitor in terms of sales, Volkswagen, hasn’t disclosed how much it plans to spend on these factories, but VW has said that by 2030, in Europe alone it would be able to produce batteries with output of 240 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually. Toyota said its factories would produce around 200 gigawatt-hours of batteries by the same deadline.

The roughly $9 billion investment in production is part of a plan to spend around $13.5 billion overall on batteries, with the remainder going into research, Toyota said.

Toyota has been slower than some competitors to bring an electric car to the market because it wants to offer consumers a good combination of safety, price and performance, said Masahiko Maeda, Toyota’s chief technology officer.

“There’s a trade-off. If we focus on safety, then performance suffers,” Mr. Maeda said. The company is trying to build its batteries so they retain 90% of their charging capacity after a decade, a target that is still elusive, Mr. Maeda said.

For years Toyota has been researching a solid-state battery in which the electrolyte—the material through which electrons flow as they travel between the battery’s terminals—consists of solid material. Standard lithium-ion batteries in today’s electric vehicles and smartphones have liquid electrolyte.

In theory, solid-state batteries could pack more power and recharge faster because they don’t have the fire risk of liquid-electrolyte batteries. But Mr. Maeda said Toyota was still dealing with development challenges, in particular the solid-state battery’s lifespan. He said it sought to sell a car containing the battery this decade.

“We cannot be optimistic yet. There are a lot of difficulties we are facing,” Mr. Maeda said. “We are looking for the best material for solid-state batteries.”

LeX2K

Can't trust anything Toyota says when it comes to electric vehicles unfortunately. If 2 million BEVs/HFCEVs by 2030 is the goal then I'd say Toyota is royally screwed, how are they going to sell 80% of their fleet with some form of petrol engine no one is going to want that in 2030.

Motorola

So many mixed messages, seems almost like a ploy to please investors.

spwolf

well, they will sell 11m cars this year, so more than 80%

Hameed

Exactly what occurred to me too.

AMIRZA786

Toyota is not the only company working on them: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...101720794.html

VW, Fiat, Ford, BMW and Hyundai as well as companies like Samsung have invested in SS batteries as well

EZZ

You forgot QuantumScape. They all have the same issues right now which is low recharge cycles. About 800 cycles before you hit less than 80% capacity and the batteries are still pretty low capacity. Its going to take awhile to solve but eventually, they will...just not by 2025. Its a good thing companies like Tesla have invested in the next generation of lithium ion battery tech to tide us over until then. The 4680 and other advancements will enable EVs to advance much further in this timeframe and when solid state is ready, i'm sure the industry will adopt with open arms if it lives up to the promises.

Vladi

This is VW of 2000 PR prmoise release

Bob04

You can't trust anything any company says about electrics right now. Most are just trying to get a piece of the trillions the government is about to blow on "green" energy.

AMIRZA786

I'm pretty happy investing in an EV that uses Lithium Ion tech. If I can get 300 miles out of an F-150, be able to fast charge it to 80 percent in 20 minutes I'm good to go. I'll probably lease for the next few cycles as batteries keep improving

AMIRZA786

I'm just curious why you don't have a problem with government blowing green on oil subsidies. I would actually be very happy to pay taxes if my tax dollars went into actual innovation instead of in the pockets of Billionaire oil tycoons, or Warlords as I like to call them

AJT123

Innovation is everywhere. Innovation is a Corvette getting close to 30MPG on the highway while doing 0-60 in 2.8 seconds at lights.

Innovation is luxury cars posting SUPERCAR acceleration numbers from not long ago.

Innovation is super duty 8500lb trucks doing 0-60 runs as fast as top-line luxury cars 20 years ago, while getting 16mpg unloaded, not one particle of soot visible from the diesel that produces 1000lb-ft of torque.

So many people (not saying you) just focus on EVs and conveniently leave out how incredible ICEs have become.

situman

No one as in Midnight Jan 1, 2030, everyone just gets up in the pajamas and set their ICE cars on fire or send it down a cliff or swear off ICE cars and rush to whoever is selling EVs? All of this in 8yrs time?

AJT123

Yep. It's sort of ridiculous to me that some people (not saying that poster) literally think we we will have so many EVs on the road in 5 or 10 years. It will be a LONG time.

They're what, 2% of sales now? Half of America flat won't own one for personal or political reasons, myself included.

AMIRZA786

LOL that's completely 100 percent avoiding the question I asked. I get that there are different types of Innovation. And like you, I love ICE. But why is it that people have no issues with their tax dollars subsidizing Gas and oil companies, but throw a fit when it comes to cleaner tech like EV's? That's all I want to know