BMW has entered a partnership with solid state battery start-up Solid Power to further advance the development of its EVs.
The two companies will work together to develop Solid Power’s solid state batteries to the point where they would be viable for use in mass production automobiles. Solid state batteries are much more energy dense than liquid or gel-based lithium-ion batteries and can also recharge much faster, but are currently too expensive to be produced en masse. BMW and Solid Power will work to bring the costs down to the point where they could be used in an EV, though the German automaker hasn’t yet said what kind of vehicle the tech would find its way into.
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BMW is far from the only automaker to express an interest in solid state batteries. Toyota recently proclaimed it could get the battery tech on the road by the early 2020s, while Fisker has also filed patents for a solid state battery that it hopes to be widely producing by 2023. Hyundai is reportedly developing its own solid state batteries as well, and unlike BMW, the Korean automaker has decided to go it alone, developing the tech without an outside partner.
[Source: Engadget]
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