...AND CHEAPER...:

IF ELECTRIC VEHICLES are ever going to fully supplant gas guzzlers on the world's roads, they're going to need an entirely new type of battery. Despite steady improvements over the past decade in the energy density and lifetimes of lithium-ion batteries, the cells in new EVs still lag behind internal combustion engines on pretty much every performance metric. Most EVs have a range of less than 300 miles, it takes more than an hour to recharge their battery packs, the cells lose nearly a third of their capacity within a decade, and they pose a serious safety risk because of their flammable materials.

The solution to these problems has been known for decades: It's called a solid-state battery, and it's based on a deceptively simple idea. Instead of a conventional liquid electrolyte--the stuff that ferries lithium ions between electrodes--it uses a solid eloctrolyte. Also, the battery's negative terminal, called its anode, is made from pure lithium metal. This combination would send its energy density through the roof, enable ultra-fast charging, and would eliminate the risk of battery fires. But for the past 40 years, no one has been able to make a solid-state battery that delivers on this promise--until earlier this year, when a secretive startup called QuantumScape claimed to have solved the problem. Now it has the data to prove it.

On Tuesday, for the first time, QuantumScape's cofounder and CEO, Jagdeep Singh, publicly revealed test results for the company's solid-state battery. Singh says the battery resolved all of the core challenges that have plagued solid-state batteries in the past, such as incredibly short lifetimes and slow charging rate. According to QuantumScape's data, its cell can charge to 80 percent of capacity in 15 minutes, it retains more than 80 percent of its capacity after 800 charging cycles, it's noncombustible, and it has a volumetric energy density of more than 1,000 watt-hours per liter at the cell level, which is nearly double the energy density of top-shelf commercial lithium-ion cells.

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