We Could Be on the Verge of Major EV Battery Advancements

The battery is everything to the electric car. Of course, the car won’t move without its electrons. Beyond that, the battery also represents a significant portion of the cost of an EV. Up to half of the cost of an EV could be tied up in its battery.

An EV’s battery also contributes a sizeable portion of the car’s weight, meaning more powerful motors are needed to move everything forward. A full tally of the significance of the battery also needs to include its environmental impact, which incorporates consideration of the societal and ecological damage resulting from mining the critical minerals that are used in the battery.

Batteries have been getting better during the past decade and a half modern EVs have been around, but they still need to get better. The initial applications of small batteries in electronic devices didn’t require the kind of energy density needed for automotive propulsion batteries. The job presented to an automotive battery is to efficiently move a 4,000-pound car from its resting state to freeway speeds.

RMI, a non-profit organization focused on energy efficiency, reported earlier this year that over the past 30 years, automotive scale batteries have seen a 99% drop in cost while the energy density has increased by five times, enabling automotive applications. During those three decades, lithium-ion batteries became the primary type of EV battery, but employing a variety of different chemistries.

Batteries take new paths

Concerns about the negative the environmental impacts and high cost of some battery materials (like nickel, manganese or cobalt) have car makers shifting to lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries. LFP batteries are about 32% cheaper than some earlier battery configurations, according to a BloombergNEF analysis. An added benefit is those batteries last longer than previous ones and appear to handle extreme temperatures better. One issue, though, is they have less energy density.

Other companies are looking to take the lithium out of batteries to reduce costs and environmental impacts. Several companies are working on sodium-ion batteries that could charge faster, be easier to make and cost less. However, they at present they are heavier and less energy dense.

How a battery works

Several companies are researching other alternatives to our current batteries, looking at cost reduction while maintaining performance and durability. It may be worth stopping here to take a look at how an EV battery works. It has three major components — an anode, cathode and electrolyte. To deliver power to the wheels, a chemical reaction within the battery takes place when negative ions travel between anode and cathode, across the electrolyte. That creates the electricity that gets things moving. The cathode is the key element that is defined by its materials, like the LFP discussed above. But some companies believe the electrolyte is the key to the next generation of batteries.

Current electrolytes are liquid — and flammable. Moving to solid-state or semisolid-state would improve safety and potentially advance important energy density to provide more power in a smaller package. Two companies, Factorial Energy and QuantumScape, are already in the testing phase with automotive customers. Stellantis — the parent company of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Alfa Romeo and Maserati — will  test Factorial’s semisolid-state batteries in the 2026 Dodge Charger Daytona. VW will be testing QuantumScape’s solid-state batteries at one of its subsidiaries. Testing is expected to take more than a year, but automakers will be able to use the form factors of these batteries in future vehicle designs so their path to market could be not much longer than a couple years.  

You may not be able to see these battery changes that are coming in the next few years, but you’ll feel them in better-performing, more affordable, more environmentally friendly, safer EVs.  

About the author

Michael Coates is an internationally recognized expert on automotive environmental issues. He publishes the Clean Fleet Report (https://cleanfleetreport.com/), writes for a variety of publications and also consults in the automotive industry.