Toyota has announced an aggressive timeline for its battery technology, including the production start of its next-generation electric vehicles by 2026. The plan was unveiled at the launch of the Japanese carmaker’s BEV factory in Japan.
Takero Kato, president of Toyota’s BEV Factory, indicated that the next-generation BEVs will first hit the market in 2026 and that 1.7 million of the 3.5 million BEVs Toyota expects to sell by 2030 will be these next-generation models. He also highlighted that a range of battery technologies will be key to appealing BEVs to a wider range of customers and their needs.
Toyota has unveiled four next generation batteries including state-of-the-art advances with both liquid and solid electrolytes, and gave a preview of two further steps with solid electrolyte battery technology.
Batteries with liquid electrolytes, which are currently the mainstream technology for BEVs, are being further developed by Toyota to deliver improved energy density, cost competitiveness and charging speeds.
There are three main technologies under development for liquid electrolyte batteries – ‘Performance,’ ‘Popularized,’ and ‘High Performance’
For ‘Performance,’ these will be introduced by 2026. These lithium-ion batteries will increase the cruising range of Toyota’s next-generation BEVs to over 800 kilometers when combined with improved aerodynamics and reduced vehicle weight. It will also offer a rapid charging time of around 20 minutes or less.
For ‘Popularization,’ Toyota will use lithium iron phosphate as its core material, but will adopt bipolar technology—the same tech used in Toyota’s current NiMh (nickel metal hydride) system. This will allow it to have 20 percent increase in range, 40 percent reduction in cost, and a fast recharging time of 30 minutes or less (compared to the bZ4X). This will launch around 2026 to 2027.
Combining the bipolar structure with lithium-ion battery chemistry will produce Toyota’s ‘High Performance’ battery range. This will have a capability of cruising well over 1,000 kilometers while still delivering a 10 percent cost reduction compared to the ‘Performance’ battery and a rapid charging time of 20 minutes or less.
Finally, Toyota has given some update to its solid-slate battery.
Long seen as a potential game-changer for BEVs, Toyota has made a technological breakthrough in its quest to improve the durability of Li-Ion solid-state batteries. Solid-state batteries have a solid electrolyte, allowing for faster movement of ions and a greater tolerance of high voltages and temperatures. The trade-off, until now, has been an expected shorter battery life. However, recent technological advancements by Toyota have overcome this challenge and the company has switched its focus to putting solid-state batteries into mass production by 2027 to 2028.
Toyota’s first solid-state battery is expected to offer 20 percent increase in cruising range versus the Performance battery (approx. 1000 km) and a fast charge time of 10 minutes or less.
Toyota already has a higher specification Li-Ion solid-state battery under development which is targeting a 50 percent improvement in cruising range compared to the Performance battery.
EV versions of Avanza,Wigo and Raize please
ReplyDeleteHow would you say that? Of course not, those models you have mentioned are not going to turn them into electric vehicles since these are not supposed to be built as one, as if you remeber that the models you said are built exclusively for emerging markets and its also because that most of these products are built from out of date Daihatsu technology. (Hence the reason why Daihatsu is currently not available in the U.S. since its honestly hard to believe that Daihatsu already left that market in 1992 just 20 years before Suzuki pulled out of the USA in a similar fashion.)
DeleteWell if you want a Toyota EV, then why can't Toyota form a partnership with Renault (since as having said already that it owns Nissan and Mitsubishi and to a lesser extent Dacia of Romania) so that Toyota would build and sell EVs with Nissan technology similar to the Kicks? (By the way both Nissan and Toyota are also hard to succeed in India as that country is also a diesel-loving market as given how both Ford and General Motors withdrew from that nation years earlier.)