Good news! By 2028, Toyota expects to make electric cars with a 1000 kilometer (600 mile) range with batteries that can be charged in just 10 minutes!

They're using 'solid-state batteries'. Currently a lot of car batteries use an organic solvent with a dissolved lithium salt. The new solid-state batteries replace that flammable liquid with a glassy material containing compounds of lithium, sulfur and phosphorus. They charge faster, they have 10 times the energy density, and they don't catch on fire. But they are tricky in various ways.

Toyota wants to win the race, and they've teamed up with a Japanese oil company that will manufacture the battery material. But Mercedes-Benz and other companies are also in the race. The activity in China is particularly intense, as you'd expect.

https://electrek.co/2026/02/09/big-oil-is-betting-big-on-toyota-to-win-the-solid-state-battery-race/

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