Experiences this week from main media retailers say Toyota has made a breakthrough on stable state batteries that would revolutionise the way forward for electrical automobiles. However the claims ought to be taken with a grain of salt: Toyota has a historical past of unfulfilled large guarantees on batteries going again over a decade.
“Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential enhance for electrical automobiles” learn one headline in The Guardian this week. The article claims Toyota believes it may make a solid-state battery with a spread of 745 miles (1198km) that costs in 10 minutes.
The article states that Toyota is pursuing a plan to roll out electrical automobiles with the brand new stable state batteries by 2025.
That will be nice, had been it to occur. However the actuality is that Toyota produced simply 8000 electrical automobiles within the first half of 2023, making up simply 0.19% of the corporate’s whole manufacturing.
And Toyota has a historical past of speaking large on battery and hydrogen breakthroughs however by no means seeming to comply with by means of with precise manufacturing.
Toyota’s monitor document of battery spin was picked up at this time by local weather and power researcher Ketan Joshi, who posted screenshots of Toyota’s unfulfilled battery claims going again to 2009.
Howdy everybody! Do not take a single factor @Toyota says as actual till it is comprised of greater than 30% of their whole firm gross sales.
Screenshots from
– July 2023– July 2020– July 2017– August 2009 https://t.co/tUOnrwSGE5 pic.twitter.com/pAbKBpZYcr
— ketan.bsky.social (@KetanJ0) July 4, 2023
One headline from Forbes in 2017 reads “Ultrafast-Charging Stable-State EV Batteries Round The Nook, Toyota Confirms”.
One other headline from 14 years in the past reads “Toyota Develops Extra Environment friendly Battery, Tenfold Enchancment In Capability Could Be Doable”
“If Nikkei’s estimate is on the cash, a ten-fold enhance in vary means Toyota’s next-generation hybrids and EVs may simply journey between Melbourne and Sydney on a single cost.” says the 2009 Drive article, which stated on the time that such batteries weren’t anticipated to reach till someday after 2015. We’re nonetheless ready.
14 years on from Toyota’s battery claims ,the corporate was ranked as a laggard on EVs by the Worldwide Council on Clear Transportation (ICCT) in its current examine which ranked the biggest 20 automotive firms on market dominance, expertise efficiency and strategic imaginative and prescient.
In its story on Toyota’s newest battery claims The Guardian states: “Toyota says it has made a technological breakthrough that may permit it to halve the load, measurement and value of batteries, in what may herald a serious advance for electrical automobiles,”
The article quotes the president of Toyota’s analysis and improvement centre for carbon neutrality Keiji Kaita.
“For each our liquid and our solid-state batteries, we’re aiming to drastically change the state of affairs the place present batteries are too large, heavy and costly,” stated Kaita,
“By way of potential, we’ll purpose to halve all of those components.”
Nevertheless Kaita’s claims that present batteries are too costly additionally doesn’t match with actuality as Tesla is already producing automobiles with as much as 600 km vary with a number of the highest revenue margins ever seen within the automotive business.
Tesla has a number of suppliers of battery packs together with CATL and BYD. BYD itself can be worthwhile and final month had document EV gross sales together with Tesla.
Whereas Toyota’s executives seem comparatively relaxed concerning the state of affairs, Toyota’s shareholders appear to be getting nervous. This week particulars of Toyota’s current common assembly emerged together with one shareholder asking high administration “Can Toyota beat Tesla?”.
The response got here from government vp Yoichi Miyazaki was that Toyota would proceed its “multi-pathway strategy” of decarbonising by means of various choices. Code for persevering with to pursue hydrogen and hybrids and delay ramping EV manufacturing.
Whereas Toyota continues to say underdeveloped battery expertise as one of many causes it’s not producing EVs, a story its been pushing now for 14 years, maybe the true cause is far more easy: It merely hasn’t needed to supply EVs.
Daniel Bleakley is a clear expertise researcher and advocate with a background in engineering and enterprise. He has a robust curiosity in electrical automobiles, renewable power, manufacturing and public coverage.