World’s 1st Production Solid-State Battery!

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A small company in Finland, Donutlabs, has announced the world’s first production solid-state battery. The batteries are rated at 400 Wh/kg. Verge Motorcycles has incorporated Donutlabs’ true solid-state battery (SSB) into its motorcycles, the TS Pro and TS Ultra, creating motorcycles with up to 600 km (360 miles) of range and an 80% charge in less than 10 minutes with 200 kW charging. The motorcycles incorporate in-wheel motors, and Donutlabs calls them donut motors, because they look like the wheels in the movie Tron. The two technologies combine to make an incredibly high-performance motorcycle with over 700 lb-ft of torque (1,200 N-m).

Take a look at the announcement here. The star of the show is the solid-state battery Donutlabs is claiming has a 100,000 cycle life and works at -30°C and 100°C. That’s right, 100°C. That is the boiling point of water, or 212°F. They are safe and free from explosion and fire.

In addition, the battery is safe, made from widely-sourced materials, and relatively inexpensive. We do not know the price of individual cells. However, both the 20.2 kWh and 33.3 kWh super bikes are advertised at about €30,000. On top of that, they are safe, free from explosions and fire even under extreme conditions. The batteries are made from widely-sourced, abundant materials easily found in countries of origin. In total, Donutlabs says their batteries are extraordinarily free from constraints in:

• Range
• Charging
• Degradation
• Temperature
• Safety
• Cost
• Supply Chain

Donutlabs is wisely adding full support and a vertically integrated technology platform for battery and electric motor system integration, something CATL has done with its fulls service cloud support in ship battery swapping, shore technology, and replenishment. Those efforts provide the tools OEMs need to integrate technologies into their applications.

If those claims hold true, then I agree, combustion does not make sense any more. The implications are enormous and transformative. This will affect so many applications, like cars, motorcycles, ships, stationary storage, and charge buffering. It is possible these batteries will create new possibilities for applications that do not exist yet.

I suspect this is a solid-state sodium battery. We will find out eventually. For now, pause and take a deep breath. This may be the start of a transformation as big as any we have experienced in decades, and the impact of this is difficult to fully comprehend. It heralds the end of combustion for many applications and hastens the advent of full electrification of world energy. You might consider shorting your oil stocks or selling them. They will be worth a lot less in a few years.

As the co-founder and CEO of Donutlab’s Marko Lehtimaki says, “This is the moment internal combustion stops competing, and starts becoming irrelevant.”