The Forever Battery That Promises to Change the EV Industry

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  • While batteries make things work, today’s batteries are actually keeping EVs from working as well as they could.
  • Conventional lithium-ion batteries which are currently the dominant status quo are built on liquid battery chemistry.
  • But due to a liquid electrolyte’s physical constraints, they’re now reaching their limit in terms of energy cell density enter the solid-state battery.
  • QuantumScape has figured out how to reduce solid-state battery costs and eliminate the dendrite problem.
forever battery - The Forever Battery That Promises to Change the EV Industry

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Editor’s note: “The Forever Battery That Promises to Change the EV Industry” was previously published in March 2023. It has since been updated to include the most relevant information available.

As passionate as I am about electric vehicles and their potential to transform the transportation sector, there is one major obstacle that prevents EVs from reaching their full potential: the limitations of current battery technology

Batteries are essential for powering electric vehicles, but they also pose significant challenges. Today’s batteries are expensive, heavy, slow to charge, and prone to degradation. These factors limit the range, performance, and affordability of electric vehicles.

To overcome these challenges, we need to develop better batteries that can store more energy, charge faster, last longer, and cost less. This is not a trivial task, but it is a necessary one. Without better batteries, the EV Revolution will remain a niche phenomenon rather than a mainstream reality

So how do we make a better battery? Well, how much do you remember from your AP chemistry course?

The Battery Conundrum

Batteries comprise three essential components: a cathode, an anode, and an electrolyte. Ions move between the cathode and anode through the electrolyte, creating electric current.

Two images comparing the features of a conventional vs. solid-state battery

For years, we have relied on conventional lithium-ion batteries that use liquid chemistry. These batteries have a solid cathode and anode, connected by a liquid electrolyte solution.

But they have one major drawback … the liquid electrolyte limits how much energy they can store in a given space. This means that we cannot make our phones, watches, and electric cars last longer and charge faster without changing the battery design.

That’s where solid-state batteries come in.

Solid-state batteries are exactly what they sound like. They replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid one. This makes for a more compact, more efficient solid battery that outperforms conventional batteries in terms of energy density and charging speed.

The potential of solid-state batteries is enormous.

With a solid-state battery, our phones could run for days on a single charge … our smartwatches could charge in seconds … and our EVs could travel thousands of miles without stopping.

That’s why some experts call solid-state batteries “forever batteries.” And that’s why these forever batteries are the key technology to accelerate the EV Revolution to the next level.

Forever Battery: The Impossible Just Became Possible

While solid-state batteries have long been a pipe dream, a group of brilliant Stanford professors and scientists partnered with tech leaders to get funding from top-notch venture capitalists. Together, in 2010, they founded QuantumScape (QS) and set out to revolutionize the battery industry.

Thirteen years later, they have achieved the impossible: a solid-state battery that actually works

Previous efforts to create a working solid-state battery were thwarted by “dendrites.” These are tiny cracks that form in the solid electrolyte when the battery charges and discharges. They grow bigger and bigger until, eventually, they ruin the battery.

So, the key to making solid-state batteries is finding a solid electrolyte material that can resist dendrites.

That’s exactly what QuantumScape did at the end of 2020, with a single-layer battery cell. Sure, that’s not enough to power a car. But since then, the company has scaled up its breakthrough battery technology to 10-layer and 16-layer cells. In December 2022, the company began sending out its 24-layer cell prototype!

QS started sending prototypes a few years ago to car makers, and it got positive feedback. The company has already made several deals with automakers, including Volkswagen, who plans to have 25 million EVs on the road by 2030.

In other words, QuantumScape has cracked the code. It has made a solid-state battery that can power a car!

And within a few years, QuantumScape will start selling those next-gen EV batteries – and raking in billions of dollars in profits.

This is history in the making, folks. Forever batteries are here.

Obviously, QuantumScape stock is one way to profit from the forever battery revolution. Indeed, we think QS could go up by 10X from here…

But QuantumScape stock is not the only solid-state battery stock with huge potential

The Final Word on the Forever Battery

Solid-state batteries are among the most amazing and innovative technological breakthroughs of the 2020s.

But the impossible is only becoming possible now because of computing advances.

That’s because solid-state batteries depend on a lot of complex chemical reactions. To make solid-state batteries that work well, you need to experiment with a lot of different compounds and see how they perform under various stress tests.

Doing this physically would take forever and cost a fortune. But doing this virtually on a computer is much faster and cheaper. You can simulate millions of reactions, find the most promising ones, and then test them in the lab.

This is the smartest and most efficient way to make batteries. Use the power of computing to explore millions of possibilities; Pick the best ones and verify them in the lab; Push forward with what works best.

Computing power is the driving force behind solid-state battery development.

And thanks to a secret technology that will make today’s computers obsolete, that driving force is about to become unstoppable.

This technology is the ultimate key to unlocking the full potential of solid-state batteries.

And one small company is leading the way with this game-changing tech. In fact, a major top 10 automaker is already using it to create better electric vehicle batteries.

Learn more about this little-known company and how its revolutionary new tech could transform the electric vehicle industry.

On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/hypergrowthinvesting/2023/04/the-forever-battery-changing-the-ev-industry/.

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