- VW’s PowerCo might finally make as much as 80 gigawatt-hours of solid-state cells yearly
- QuantumScape and PowerCo will mix forces to scale up manufacturing
- Manufacturing timeline and site weren’t specified
Volkswagen’s PowerCo battery unit and the solid-state battery tech agency QuantumScape on Thursday introduced a path towards the industrialization and mass-production of solid-state lithium-metal batteries for electrical automobiles.
By way of an settlement, within the type of a non-exclusive license, PowerCo will be capable of make as much as 40 gigawatt-hours of battery cells yearly utilizing tech from the solid-state agency, with the choice to up that to 80 gigawatt-hours—sufficient for one million EVs yearly.
QuantumScape ceramic separator
QuantumScape’s solid-state tech makes use of ceramic separators to permit a pure lithium-metal anode for larger power and energy density, with sooner charging. As with different solid-state battery cell expertise, QuantumScape has way back confirmed that the concept is legitimate in a laboratory and smaller-scale environments, however scaling up mass-production—to be used over years in automobiles—has been the problem.
To that, the businesses say that they’ll mix core competencies, with “a mixed workforce initiative” to speed up the scaling-up of manufacturing and these cells’ integration into VW’s automobiles.
A location for the potential future manufacturing of solid-state cells was not disclosed, nor was a timeline.
VW Salzgitter cell facility
Volkswagen broke floor on its first EV cell “gigafactory” in July 2022, on the identical time it formalized the PowerCo. enterprise unit overseeing it. The power in Salzgitter, Germany, serves as a hub for VW’s world battery actions and the start line for what VW referred to as a “world battery offensive” created round localized battery manufacturing by market and a vertically built-in battery provide chain aiming to chop cell prices by 50%.
That German battery manufacturing unit is producing a brand new prismatic unified cell format that’s due for use with the automaker’s upcoming Scalable Techniques Platform (SSP) for electrical automobiles beginning in 2026 and can finally be put in in 80% of the EVs from the VW Group by the tip of the last decade.
VW Energy Day – solid-state composition
At its 2021 Energy Day, VW referred to as solid-state battery tech its “finish sport” within the shift to EVs, noting that it didn’t see the tech arriving till 2025 or later—in small quantity at first. It noticed solid-state tech as enabling 80% fast-charges in simply 12 minutes.
VW has seen solid-state cells and QuantumScape as a part of its long-term plan for greater than a decade already. It’s been collaborating with the agency since 2012. Toyota is growing solid-state cells with Panasonic and sees the tech “prepared for business use” by 2027 or 2028. Honda sees them as enabling inexpensive small EVs, whereas Nissan is working to develop its personal solid-state cells and sees probably game-changing EV packaging benefits from them.
