Donut' Lab’s Solid State Battery, a Finnish company, is a new form of battery that is faster charging, more energy-dense, and capable of a longer range ride. They recently announced that they are ready to scale this technology into a new level.
They also claim that their materials are “100% Green” where it would not have a significant impact on our environment even if mass production happen.
As of right now, our EV economy uses Lithium-ion batteries. These have liquid electrolytes. However, these can be flammable really easily if accidents happen. Regarding safety concerns, it is reasonable to switch our daily EV system of solid-state battery.
Solid-state battery can have massive benefit over Lithium-ion battery. For example, Liquid electrolyte can degrade way faster compared to solid-state battery. As a result, it naturally have a longer lifespan providing more range.
However, not everything is sunshines and rainbows. Producing solid-state battery has its limits. It is really hard to manufacture this type of battery. Solid materials can crack, they’re expensive to produce, and nobody really figured out how to manufacture them cheaply and reliably. Donut Lab is saying that they figured out how to tackle these big hurdles. Donut Lab claims that their manufacturing processes solved all these problems and their batteries are outperforming every other solid-state battery on the market. This is a clear sign of revolutionary change in our EV market if their claim is set to be true.
Although it shows bright signs of the revolutionary change in the EV market, many experts are skeptical about this new technology. According to the MIT Technology Review, there is a high entry to this specific field. It is really hard to research and make significant progress in the field of solid-state physics.
Furthermore, this news from Donut’s Lab came from nowhere. There weren’t any hype behind this at all. There were no demos and some people have a very conservative take on this new technology. Many people might not like this new technology because it isn’t reliable and doesn’t have any reliable pillar. All other EV car brands(ex. Tesla, Rivian) uses liquid electrolytes. It is reasonable to have doubts on this new technology when they do not reveal the chemistry behind this new innovation.
My take is this. We cannot deny that if Donut Lab’s solid state battery technology pulls through, its going to be revolutionary. Its going to be a 5minute charging session. It might completely sweep the combustion engine market. However, I am also skeptical about this new innovation. I feel like Donut Labs did a great job introducing this new technology to our innovative market. In a capitalistic world, other companies are definitely going to be born to tackle this manufacturing problems that we currently have. It is going to be a more reliable system in a future, around 2027-2028. Currently, I don’t think this technology is reliable enough to be used in everyday usage situations.