Graphene, solid-state batteries hold promise

After a year marked by growing EV share, the launch of several new electric vehicles and potential technology breakthroughs, electrification is set to be a major focus at CES.

One of the event's biggest moments will come from General Motors, which will show off an all-electric version of its Chevrolet Silverado pickup. Meanwhile, established suppliers and startups alike will look to showcase their work in the EV space as they vie for business from automakers investing major resources into electrification.

Automakers are planning to roll dozens of electric models onto the market in the coming years. And EVs' share, while small, is growing quickly — EVs accounted for 2.9 percent of all new-vehicle registrations in the U.S. in 2021 through October, up from 1.7 percent a year earlier, according to data from Experian.

As more consumers were buying EVs, there were several significant technology developments that hold promise for the industry as it looks to reduce charging times and increase battery range. Here's a look at a few of them.

Solid-state batteries have long held possibilities for an industry desperate to cut charging times and improve energy storage. Automakers and suppliers have invested billions of dollars and significant resources in recent years to develop the batteries, and some have recently set aggressive targets to roll them out.

Daimler and Stellantis, for instance, invested in battery-maker Factorial Energy in November, with the goal of commercializing its solid-state batteries. Toyota plans to invest $14 billion in battery technology between now and 2030, including solid-state batteries that it hopes to develop by 2025.

These batteries speed the movement of ions between the cathode and anode by using a solid structure in place of the usual liquid or gel electrolyte.

If solid-state batteries are proved out in the coming years, the technology holds great potential to improve charging times and EV battery performance, two factors that consumers frequently cite as concerns preventing them from purchasing EVs, said Conrad Layson, alternative-propulsion analyst at AutoForecast Solutions.

Still, Layson said more scientific data needs to be released by battery-makers to determine how close solid-state batteries are to being market-ready. And while the batteries hold great promise, to consumers, it won't matter what the ultimate solution for reducing charging times winds up being, he said.

"If the promise of solid-state batteries is realized, that's great," he said. "But I think the bigger promise of lower charging times is really what the public's looking for. They don't care how they get there. It could be solid-state. It could be kryptonite. They don't care. They do care that their time is being wasted."

Some in the industry have also pinned their hopes on graphene — an incredibly thin but strong and highly conductive material — to address concerns over charging times and range.

For instance, Canadian auto supplier Martinrea International Inc. in the summer entered into a joint venture with Montreal graphene producer NanoXplore Inc. to prove out the potential of enhancing lithium ion batteries with the material.

Graphene holds potential, the companies say, because it is stronger than steel and more conductive than copper and would not break down at high temperatures. In theory, that could mean greatly reduced charging times and batteries that last longer, both over the course of a single charge and over the lifetime of the vehicle.

"In order to develop graphene's use in batteries not just for ourselves but for other folks, the best thing to do is to prove it out," Martinrea Executive Chairman Rob Wildeboer told Automotive News Canada in July.

Other companies — including Chinese automaker GAC Group — have also made investments in graphene-enhanced batteries in recent months and years.

Meanwhile, vertical integration appears to be back in style for automakers as they look to develop EV batteries in-house.

"It's an idea so old that it's new again," Layson said.

Vertical integration generally began to go out of style in the industry in the 1950s and 1960s, as parts suppliers could produce components at a cheaper price. But for EV production, that calculation has changed.

For example, Tesla has plans to produce its own 4680 battery cells, which the automaker is banking on to reduce the price of its vehicles, making its much anticipated $25,000 vehicle possible. The battery cells would be cheaper to produce and have higher energy density, according to the automaker.

Tesla aims to deliver vehicles with those batteries in them in 2022, though Senior Vice President Andrew Baglino said in October that "unknown unknowns may exist still" as the technology is proved out, according to Reuters.

Elsewhere, Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley has changed the automaker's tune on vertically integrating battery cell production. Ford, once skeptical, now plans to produce battery cells and in April said it would spend $185 million to build a battery lab in southeast Michigan.

"In the first inning, you could buy batteries and you could cherry-pick the technology, energy density and cost from multiple sources," Farley said during an Automotive News World Congress interview that month. "We're in the second inning now. The volumes are going to grow."