TDK claims insane energy density in solid state battery breakthrough

Apple supplier says new tech has 100 times the capacity of its current batteries.

See full article...

 

[LlamaLaBama]

Another breakthrough? Yawn...

Financial Times strikes again

 

[Systema Encephale]

The new material provides an energy density—the amount that can be squeezed into a given space—of 1,000 watt-hours per liter, which is about 100 times greater than TDK’s current battery in mass production. Since TDK introduced it in 2020, competitors have moved forward, developing small solid-state batteries that offer 50 Wh/l, while rechargeable coin batteries using traditional liquid electrolytes offer about 400 Wh/l, according to the group.

For reference, gasoline has about 9,000 Wh/l.

 

[matthewslyman]

Will this lead to an Apple Watch with >7 days operation between charges, or will Apple make the cell and watch smaller or use the space savings for other features?

 

[Mardaneus]

Missing information:
Loss per charge/discharge cycle (efficiency), how often can this material cycle and still be at 95%/90%/80% capacity, charge and discharge speed.
How far along the stage from discovery to actual production, expected challenges to get it to production.

 

[AmanoJyaku]

Another breakthrough? Yawn...

I'm willing to give TDK the benefit of the doubt. They've been remarkably silent in the last 20 years, I had forgotten all about them until this article. They've pulled out of consumer goods (e.g. CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray dics) in favor of commercial goods and research.

But they've been a research institution since their inception, so they very well could be making progress in battery tech.

 

[numerobis]

I’m confused how 1,000 is a hundred times more than 50.

 

[TimeToTilt]

I'm willing to give TDK the benefit of the doubt. They've been remarkably silent in the last 20 years, I had forgotten all about them until this article. They've pulled out of consumer goods (e.g. CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray dics) in favor of commercial goods and research.

But they've been a research institution since their inception, so they very well could be making progress in battery tech.

Right this isn't a random university with a lab level only "breakthrough". These guys own the small electronics market, so much more likely to see this be real.

 

[numerobis]

Will this lead to an Apple Watch with >7 days operation between charges, or will Apple make the cell and watch smaller or use the space savings for other features?

It will let them make the watch thinner.

 

[IncorrigibleTroll]

Financial Times strikes again

Yeah, I clicked into it thinking it was a really big deal. Then I saw the byline and realized it's just a press release.

 

[JCarnage]

“Industry experts believe the most significant use case for solid-state batteries could be in electric cars by enabling greater driving range.”

industry experts are clowns. The goal is to make vehicles lighter. Today, batteries add a lot of weight to the car to get to 400miles range. If you could reduce that weight by 50 or 75% you’ll have improved vehicle performance. Most gas cars have a range of 400 miles, so EVs at 400-450 miles is plenty - weight is the big issue today.

 

[AmanoJyaku]

I’m confused how 1,000 is a hundred times more than 50.

If you're referring to this:

The new material provides an energy density—the amount that can be squeezed into a given space—of 1,000 watt-hours per liter, which is about 100 times greater than TDK’s current battery in mass production. Since TDK introduced it in 2020, competitors have moved forward, developing small solid-state batteries that offer 50 Wh/l, while rechargeable coin batteries using traditional liquid electrolytes offer about 400 Wh/l, according to the group.

You misunderstood. Competing batteries are producing 50 Wh/l. The article doesn't say what TDK's best are.

 

[Galeran]

I’m confused how 1,000 is a hundred times more than 50.

Indeed that's awkwardly written, but I think it's 100x TDK's own battery which one could infer offers only 10Wh/l vs the "moved forward" performance of the 50Wh/l competitors. So TDK did a thing; competitors did it better, TDK is now doing 100x better than they started, but that only 20x what the competitors are now doing.

 

[Galeran]

...it's not a breakthrough.

Definitely not in terms of energy density alone. I think the appeal would have to be in not needing those messy liquid electrolytes.

 

[ThatEffer]

I’m confused how 1,000 is a hundred times more than 50.

Go ask Terrence Howard.

 

[entropy_wins]

For reference, gasoline has about 9,000 Wh/l.

and the best physical efficiency (for ICE) is 30%. ~ 2700 Wh/l.

 

[Jeff S]

I’m confused how 1,000 is a hundred times more than 50.

Edit: Well, by the time I wrote this and got it posted looks like 4 other people pointed out the same thing lol

Unfortunately, the article tells us that the density is 100 times greater than TDK's own current batteries, while then telling us what the density of it's competitors batteries are, so you are falling into a trap of making a comparison that the article tempts you to make, but that is a totally invalid comparison.

The article doesn't tell us what TDK's current density is, though one would presume, by math, that TDK's density must be about 10 Wh/l, while TDK's competitors offer 50 Wh/l density batteries.

 

[Troglodytes troglodytes indigenus]

“Industry experts believe the most significant use case for solid-state batteries could be in electric cars by enabling greater driving range.”

industry experts are clowns. The goal is to make vehicles lighter. Today, batteries add a lot of weight to the car to get to 400miles range. If you could reduce that weight by 50 or 75% you’ll have improved vehicle performance. Most gas cars have a range of 400 miles, so EVs at 400-450 miles is plenty - weight is the big issue today.

If you save half the weight it won't do the range any harm at all.

 

[Emon]

“Industry experts believe the most significant use case for solid-state batteries could be in electric cars by enabling greater driving range.”

industry experts are clowns. The goal is to make vehicles lighter. Today, batteries add a lot of weight to the car to get to 400miles range. If you could reduce that weight by 50 or 75% you’ll have improved vehicle performance. Most gas cars have a range of 400 miles, so EVs at 400-450 miles is plenty - weight is the big issue today.

If you had batteries with higher energy density you could use fewer of them and save weight, extending range.

 

[tucu]

I’m confused how 1,000 is a hundred times more than 50.

They are comparing against their own CeraCharge batteries, not the competition

 

[issor]

Am I missing something?

• The new method offers 1,000 Wh/l.
• It's 100x more than previous.
• It was introduced in 2020 (so not a recent breakthrough, or the 'current' tech was introduced in 2020).
• Competitors offer 50 Wh/l (so not 100x as much).
• Traditional electrolyte batteries offer 400 Wh/l.

None of this makes sense to me. If traditional means offer 400 Wh/l, this is only 1.25x as much. If TDK's current tech offers 50 Wh/l, this is only 25x as much, not 100. If the tech was introduced in 202, it's not new. If it offers only 50 Wh/l, it's not a breakthrough.

TDKs current battery was introduced in 2020. Assumed 10Wh/l. Competitors moved forward since then to 50. TDKs newer battery is 100x its 2020 battery.

Liquid battery is thrown in as a comparison but it is never really relevant to the evolution of performance claims because it is different category.

 

[Edgar Allan Esquire]

I’m confused how 1,000 is a hundred times more than 50.

50 Wh/l is the competitor's battery size, while the 1,000 factor is for TDK's current battery offering.

I didn't see it mentioned here, but TDK's own press release blurbed that they currently intend to use this specifically for wearables (earphones, hearing aids, smartwatches; per their examples).

Edit: Literally the first lines of the article and image caption. Going to get some coffee.

 

[numerobis]

Right this isn't a random university with a lab level only "breakthrough". These guys own the small electronics market, so much more likely to see this be real.

I have no doubt the lab has come up with something interesting. “We will continue the development towards early commercialisation” means they’re a ways away from actually having a viable product.

The FT article actually did a good job of explaining the practical impact of this should it emerge from the lab — and a dismal job of explaining how it works, basically the opposite of what a Wired article would have done.

 

[DaleL]

Just a reminder, Toyota in particular has a history of talking big on battery and hydrogen breakthroughs but never seeming to follow through with actual production. Toyota's EV production is under 1% of its total production. What happens in the lab frequently runs into issues once production begins. Tesla has been attempting to perfect the manufacturing its 4680 battery for the last couple of years. I hope the best for TDK, but many times these announcements are for the purpose of stock price and patent sales.

 

[JonathanSmith]

It's been a few years since I looked at solid state batteries, but if I remember correctly one of the gotchas of the field is they always talk in "Wh/L" - but they only include the chemically active parts of the battery in the volume and ignore the 'backer' material. Which, since the ceramics they make the SSBs out of are very brittle, has to be significantly thicker than the battery itself. The effective volumetric capacity is always worse than they advertise.

That said I'm looking forward to effective, stable batteries. The relatively low body count attributable to Lipos is frankly crazy given their instability.

 

[David Crowell]

For reference, gasoline has about 9,000 Wh/l.

But my Apple Watch doesn't run on gasoline.

 

[nehinks]

Do I believe them? Yes. But I also believe there are negative tradeoffs they are not mentioning. There are so many battery performance factors to balance to make a worthwhile commercial battery, and almost any time somebody claims a huge jump in a single one, they are decreasing other important ones.

 

[WereCatf]

The article kind of glosses over the supposed mechanical fragility, making it seem a larger problem than it really is. Yes, it would be a problem in any sort of moving device, but there are plenty of usecases, where the battery is fully stationary for possibly even decades at a time and for those cases, mechanical fragility is only a problem during transport and installation. UPSes, power grid offloading, home solar panel systems and so on and so forth would all be perfectly reasonable targets.

 

[numerobis]

“Industry experts believe the most significant use case for solid-state batteries could be in electric cars by enabling greater driving range.”

industry experts are clowns. The goal is to make vehicles lighter. Today, batteries add a lot of weight to the car to get to 400miles range. If you could reduce that weight by 50 or 75% you’ll have improved vehicle performance. Most gas cars have a range of 400 miles, so EVs at 400-450 miles is plenty - weight is the big issue today.

We don’t have EVs with 400 miles in the mass market today, we have closer to 400 km.

Adding 50% more range would be quite desirable, if it could be done within cost and mass budgets.

 

[numerobis]

The article kind of glosses over the supposed mechanical fragility, making it seem a larger problem than it really is. Yes, it would be a problem in any sort of moving device, but there are plenty of usecases, where the battery is fully stationary for possibly even decades at a time and for those cases, mechanical fragility is only a problem during transport and installation. UPSes, power grid offloading, home solar panel systems and so on and so forth would all be perfectly reasonable targets.

Those are all cases where density barely matters.

 

[MechR]

None of this makes sense to me. If traditional means offer 400 Wh/l, this is only 1.25x as much.

2.5x.

If TDK's current tech offers 50 Wh/l, this is only 25x as much, not 100.

20x. And the 50 is their competitors. Their own old tech is 10, apparently.

If the tech was introduced in 2020, it's not new.

2020 was when their old tech came out.