EV BATTERIES

Ford Exec Says No Solid State Before 2030

November 9, 2022

Ford has big ambitions in the electric vehicle space, but it won’t be relying on solid-state batteries to achieve them!

Solid state electric car batteries have been treated like the “holy grail” of electric car adoption, promising lighter, safer EV batteries that could not only charge faster, but discharge faster as well, making for even faster vehicles than we have now.

Despite the promise and investment from innovative carmakers like Nissan and Renault, it seems as if solid-state battery technology is always a few years from being viable. And, according to Lisa Drake, vice president of EV industrialization at Ford’s “Model e” electric vehicle division, they may not be ready before 2030.

“I still don’t see solid-state heavy commercialization by the end of the decade,” Drake said during a recent fireside chat with Bank of America. “It’s still in the advanced research stage. We haven’t landed it into our product program yet. We need to do more work on it. It’s very promising. We think it will be the next step. It will be the next step, but it’s just not there yet.”

Ford and its EV battery joint venture partner SK On have both made multiple investments into Solid Power, a company that’s working on developing solid-state batteries for future all-electric vehicles. Solid-state batteries don’t use the liquid electrolyte found in conventional lithium-ion batteries, can be lighter, offer greater energy density, and provide more range at a lower cost, making them an attractive alternative to the batteries used in EVs today. Still, Ford seems to be planting its feet on the ground, turning away from “moonshot” technologies like self-driving cars in recent weeks, and focusing more on real-world tech, like its Pro Power onboard generators.