An electric car charging on the street. (Photo: Shutterstock/guteksk7)
Ringside: Next Generation Batteries Are Imminent
For the electric age to truly arrive, stationary storage of electricity also requires next generation technology
By Edward Ring, June 19, 2025 3:30 pm
When we talk about Electric Vehicles, it is reasonable to suggest that at their current level of price and performance, whoever wants to use one has already made the purchase. After a decade of rapid year-over-year growth, EV sales in California in 2024 were actually a bit lower than they were in 2023. There aren’t enough public charging stations, it takes too long to charge them, they cost too much for most buyers, and there are ongoing concerns about range and safety. We are waiting for the next generation, and without it, the market for EVs is bounded. But the technology is rapidly changing.
As it is, the 2025 Tesla Model 3 sells for a base price of $44,130. It has a stated range of 342 miles on a 75 kilowatt-hour battery. At a fast charging station, drivers can add 12 miles of range per minute (compared to 150-200 miles per minute for a gasoline powered car). The Model 3 battery weighs 1,060 pounds (481 kilograms), which is an energy density of 156 watt-hours per kilogram.
These variables, charging time and energy density, along with price, range, safety, durability and longevity, are the constraints that limit EV adoption. All six of these variables are primarily dependent on battery technology.
One of the world’s premier automakers, Toyota, was a relatively late entrant to the EV rollout. For years they limited their battery innovation primarily to building some of the world’s best hybrid vehicles based on price and performance. But Toyota is planning to leapfrog its competitors by introducing so-called solid state batteries by 2027, and they claim these batteries will have an energy density of 400 watt-hours per kilogram.
The implications of these claims is that the next generation of EVs is imminent. Theoretically, a battery pack weighing 1,000 pounds with an energy density of 400 Wh/kg, at 4.0 KWh/mile, would have a range of 725 miles on a single charge. You could drive from Silicon Valley to Los Angeles, and back again, without ever stopping to charge your vehicle. That’s what’s on the way.
Solid state batteries have other advantages. It is a broad term encompassing a variety of engineering designs, but they all share one characteristic: the electrolyte, through which electrons pass as the cell charges or discharges, is solid. This makes it less flammable, and able to withstand greater extremes in temperature.
Crucially, solid state batteries also have much faster charging times. Samsung, also heavily invested in the race to manufacture solid state batteries, claims their most recent 500 Wh/kg prototype “could power electric vehicles with a 600-mile range, charge in 9 minutes, and have a lifespan of 20 years.” That’s 67 miles of range per minute, a charging rate likely to be acceptable to far more consumers.
Although solid state designs appear to hold the most promise, it is just one of many significant innovations happening now in EV battery technology. The trend is obvious: the EV revolution has just begun. Many urgent questions – resource use, recycling costs, weight, safety, convenience, range, and requisite supporting infrastructure – may be answered surprisingly soon. What about stationary batteries?
For the electric age to truly arrive, stationary storage of electricity also requires next generation technology. That, too, is happening fast.
When it comes to feasibility, the great advantage of stationary batteries over EV batteries is that energy density is not a major concern. The Moss Landing battery farm sits on about 140 acres, with an installed storage capacity of 3 gigawatt-hours. California’s official goal is a total state battery discharge capacity of 50 gigawatts by 2045, which at 4 hours of discharge per battery (that will increase), equates to 200 gigawatt-hours of storage. Using Moss Landing’s footprint as a guide, 200 GWh of stationary battery storage would only use up 15 square miles. But the footprint of battery farms will be significantly reduced if the grid utilizes private, decentralized storage at homes and on EVs to collect and discharge electricity.
Then again, Moss Landing’s battery fire in January 2025 knocked out 300 megawatts (1.2 GWh) and terrorized communities for miles around. But while the lithium ion batteries installed at Moss Landing and elsewhere are becoming safer, there are alternatives that offer greater safety and cost less.
In competition with lithium ion technology are sodium ion batteries. While these batteries have a lower energy density (i.e., 200 GWh might require 50 square miles instead of 15 square miles), they use sodium instead of lithium, a mineral that is 1,000 times more abundant in the earth. Aluminum can be used for both charge collectors, replacing much more expensive metals. Sodium ion batteries also generate less heat, reducing the risk of fire.
Another stationary battery technology is the so-called flow battery, which instead of storing electrons in the charge collectors (anode and cathode), store them within a liquid electrolyte. Manufacturers of flow batteries claim they are safer, longer lasting, and cheaper than the alternatives.
Also interesting are what are referred to as iron air batteries. These batteries are still in the prototype phase, but manufacturers claim they will cost one-tenth as much as lithium ion batteries. The main materials they use are iron, water, and air, and they store and discharge electricity by utilizing the natural rusting process. But these batteries do not have a good “round trip efficiency,” i.e., only about 60 percent of the electricity used to charge them can be recovered when they are discharged, compared with over 90 percent for lithium ion batteries, 80 percent for sodium ion batteries, and 70 percent for flow batteries.
With massive storage capacity, intermittent renewables become a more feasible source of electricity. Competitive and decentralized private investment in photovoltaics along with EV and stationary batteries will push rates down. On the grid and on the road, the electric age is coming.
- Ringside: Is California’s Water Infrastructure Ready for Climate Whiplash? - July 10, 2025
- Ringside: Politics and the Cost for Water Infrastructure - July 3, 2025
- Ringside: The Grand Water Bargain - June 26, 2025
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July 25, 2024 -
So, solar isn’t the end all, after all?
I am literally numb to all of these “new batteries are going to save the world articles”. This has been going on for decades now. If any of them are written by engineers, they should have their degrees revoked. I call these articles “battery cheerleading”. You never hear the technical downsides or the challenges of manufacturing said battery at a competitive price. If it was that easy, they would already be in mass production.
These batteries are always characterized as a new breakthrough. Yet, let’s take solid state batteries as an example. They have been around since the 19th century. This is not new.
Technical challenges are never mentioned in these articles either. Solid state batteries have a high resistance at the electrode/solid state electrolyte interface which limits charging and discharge rates. Solid state batteries are very expensive to produce. That’s why you don’t see them in consumer electronics. Solid state batteries are difficult to stabilize, particularly in the area of dendrite formation, which can cause short circuits and safety hazards.
Then we really have to ask ourselves, are batteries actually the best choice for energy storage, especially for grid storage? I doubt it. Battery production consumes huge amounts of mined ore, 500,000 pounds of ore for one car battery. Batteries have a limited life. Their capacity goes down with every passing year. Then they need to be disposed of at end of life. They’re expensive.
Letting politicians make technical decisions is a very poor idea.
Do you believe in magic?
You meant subsidies, right?
I have heard the hype over and over again. Regardless of battery technology you still need massive power generation for electric cars that the author keeps pushing. Solar and wind are not going to do it which means either NG or nuclear. The absurdity of 50 square miles of batteries makes me wonder if the author is serious.
That’s a lot of effort and expense to deal with a scam.
Do you believe in magic batteries?
I appreciate all of the comments made to this article, but believe my body of work offers sufficient evidence that I am not going to be a cheerleader for absurd mandates that waste money and just make our lives difficult. For many years I’ve been following energy innovation and energy economics and am on record with blistering criticism of renewables schemes that are grossly unsustainable, uneconomic, and the refuge of rent seeking opportunists who couldn’t care less about the planet or human prosperity. I don’t have to establish my credentials as a skeptic. I have years of work that proves it.
On the other hand, I don’t want to dismiss any energy innovation that may be tainted with cronyism in the past, if there is a possibility it may eventually become competitive in the future. Maybe I should have been explicit in this article, but I’ve said it repeatedly: what we need is a level, unsubsidized playing field for all energy solutions. That way, if and when electrification becomes more economic and more sustainable, we aren’t fighting it based on old evidence that has been superseded by new innovations. Batteries at their current level of technology cannot scale to the level required to fulfill the dreams of California’s delusional legislature, but that doesn’t mean that they never will. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Thank you for your rock solid reporting and all the time you have spent researching energy and water issues for us. I appreciate your very pragmatic approach to these essential topics.
Battery plants should have smaller groups of batteries with sufficient separation between them so fires don’t spread.
I can remember when those screwy CFL bulbs were going to save the planet.
Such an absurd leap from concept to implementation! I too, suffer fatigue from claims of “this latest solution will work”!
No matter what dreamers dream, there is no economic power that can implement this stuff.
It is painfully obvious that we are financially living on borrowed time here in the West.
My feeling is that as day to day survival takes center stage, these goofy distractions will vanish.
I get a kick out of those who think everything is just A – okay and we’re just rolling down life’s road, or that these “solutions will be worth anything.
The magical thinking is about to run out of time.
Nothing draws a crowd like silent vehicles at Laguna Seca!
There is a technology emerging that will convert hydrocarbon fuel to electrical power with an infintismal carbon footprint.
Each wheel will be driven independently and the revolutionary device will also provide full braking.
Every battery possesses internal resistance and degenerates with every charge discharge cycle.
It’s watt density that no battery chemistry can replacate compared to hydrocarbon fuels.
The newest latest greatest and largest cruise ship afloat is the Icon Of The Seas: As hard as my company’s engineering staff and many of our peers tried only hydrocarbon fuel would suffice.
In fact the major aircraft engine manufacturers explored the feasibility of hotter jet fuels.
For EVs it will have to be a replenishable electrolyte as battery deterioration predicated on heating caused high charge currents is the nemesis of batteries.
Hydrocarbon fuel is here to stay: The question is will your corrupt government deny you access to the mobility hydrocarbon fuels currently provide?
You didn’t mention lithium- sulfur technology. Being developed by a company named Lyten. Their batteries will have more energy density and lighter weight than some of the other batteries mentioned, and can be made with earth metals available here in the US. However, manufacturing is tricky and that is the current sticking point in making the technology widely available.