Are car brands throwing away money by investing in the 'holy grail of batteries'?

If charging takes as little time as refueling, EVs are just as heavy as petrol cars and if electric cars are just as expensive as fuel cars, would everyone switch to the battery car? That's what many car manufacturers are hoping for. Companies are investing heavily in the 'holy grail' that should make this possible: the solid-state battery. But isn't that all a waste of money?

A solid-state battery uses fewer raw materials, it retains more energy (and can therefore be lighter for the same capacity), you can charge it faster and it should be cheaper. Volkswagen is developing one that should last 500,000+ kilometers and Toyota's can be pumped full of kilowatt hours in 10 minutes. Sounds promising, but Mercedes is not so sure.

Today's battery is developing rapidly

Markus Schäfer is the technical boss at Mercedes and he thinks that the solid-state battery 'may not be necessary'. This is what he says to it British Coach. According to him, the development of current batteries is happening so unexpectedly fast that the lithium-ion battery can ultimately compete neck and neck with the solid-state battery. He doesn't see “any major advantage” for solid-state when it comes to cost or energy density.

Schäfer does admit that solid-state batteries have a safety advantage, but that there are also developments for current lithium-ion batteries in terms of safety. He says it will be a neck-and-neck race between the two battery types, of which he does not yet know the winner. However, he believes that solid-state no longer seems like a 'major breakthrough' at the moment.

It will take a very long time before the solid-state battery arrives

He also says that a “long, long development time” is still needed before the solid-state battery goes into production. Of course, Mercedes also invests in start-ups that are involved in new battery technology, because you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. The technical boss says he is monitoring developments with great interest.

According to Schäfer, the optimistic predictions about solid-state batteries remind him of the optimism surrounding autonomous driving. The prospects for autonomously driving cars have also deteriorated considerably, because it turns out to be a lot more difficult than expected to make a car drive completely autonomously in the real world. We will see.