Bosch Unveil Solid State Battery

[Joseph C.]

Looks like they have arrived. 2020 to get the price down. Most importantly they seem to have working cells.

http://insideevs.com/bosch-highlights-range-doubling-solid-state-cells/

A few weeks after its acquisition of Seeo, Bosch was presenting samples of its solid-state cells at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

Bosch believes that solid-state lithium-ion cells will enable doubling of energy density (no numbers were released), and expect that by 2020, costs will drop by half.

“A comparable electric car that has a driving range today of 150 kilometers would be able to travel more than 300 kilometers without recharging – and at a lower cost.”

Production of those new cells are five years from now, according to the press release.

Of course we now after to frame everything in the context of the just released news of $145/kWh cells that LG Chem is currently offering to companies such as GM with the Chevrolet Bolt in late 2016. We have our doubts that the quote (above) was in reference to anything like the pricing and density of these new 2nd generation batteries.

Dr. Volkmar Denner, the chairman of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH said:

“Bosch is using its knowledge and considerable financial resources to achieve a breakthrough for electromobility,”.

“Solid-state cells could be a breakthrough technology. Disruptive start-up technology is meeting the broad systems knowledge and financial resources of a multinational company.”

 

[Hillhater]

I would expect any company doing research into ne cell technology would be well aware of current state of the art commercial cell performance...
.....and they had better be using ~ 250Whr/kg as a minimum basis or they are fooling themselves.!

 

[Joseph C.]

I would expect any company doing research into ne cell technology would be well aware of current state of the art commercial cell performance...
.....and they had better be using ~ 250Whr/kg as a minimum basis or they are fooling themselves.!

Yep, 500 watt hours per kg but even 400 watt hours would still be a big improvement. Anything less is disappointing.

I'd prefer someone other than GS Yuasa involved after the Dreamliner fiasco too.

I wonder how much more lithium will be used in solid state batteries compared to the four per cent currently used? At four per cent battery prices are practically unaffected by rising lithium prices but will that be true for solid state?

This type of energy density should make all electric road-based transportation a reality.

If they can quadruple the energy density of current batteries and get the cycle life up to 10,000 cycles plus then large ships and trains come into play.

But there is still an enormous leap needed for commercial electric aircraft. Even if you can max out the energy density of solid state which is supposed to be at around 2kWh per kg. That would only be enough energy to fly a 747 for an hour an half if 50 per cent of its entire weight was battery.

Although smaller electric planes like the 737 might be possible for flights under 2,000 KM. Thinking about it now - conventional designs would probably be obsolete. You could fly electric planes at much higher altitudes with larger wings and the thinner air would be easier to travel through. So maybe it isn't that bad after all. At 4 kWh per kg long haul electric planes are probably more than possible.