Solid-state Toyota battery to only land in a few thousand electric vehicles at first

Toyota plans to be first with solid-state battery cars in mass production and has now tipped how many it expects to initially make. Thanks to its recently announced partnership with the energy group Idemitsu Kosan, Toyota made a business plan to commercialize electric vehicles with its solid-state battery breakthrough by 2027.

The joint venture with Idemitsu is over mass production of a finicky sulfide solid electrolyte invention that requires high material purity, but is proving very promising in terms of durability, if Toyota's own tests are any indication.

While this Holy Grail solid-state battery material is undoubtedly a breakthrough that will allow mass EV production, at least in the premium Lexus range, Toyota has revealed the limited number of vehicles it expects to make with it. According to a joint press conference it gave with Idemitsu, the two companies will only be able to craft several hundred tons of the solid electrolyte when the first phase of the mass production plant is ready.

This may sound like a lot, but is in fact only enough for a few thousand Toyota or Lexus cars with a solid-state battery. In the next phase of the expansion, which Toyota expects to reach by 2030, Idemitsu will be able to churn out "several thousand tons (several tens of thousands of vehicles)," specifies Toyota when commenting on its future solid-state battery EV production plans.

Needless to say, that could still be way more cars with solid-state batteries than its main competitors will be able to offer in the premium segment at the time. These relatively small numbers Toyota expects to make, however, suggest that the real solid-state battery EV revolution can only be expected in the next decade, just as the world's largest EV battery maker CATL suggests.

Hopefully, there would be more technological advances in the meantime that would allow Toyota to manufacture its solid-state battery packs that will also be capable of a 10-minute charging time in higher quantities, faster, and cheaper.

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