EV Battery Technology: The Road To A Breakthrough

Investors Business Daily ^ | May 13th 2022 | APARNA NARAYANAN

[Jacquerie]

Battery technology is the new bull's-eye for companies striving to meet the world's growing appetite for electric vehicles.

Battery companies and automakers are investing heavily to build cheaper, denser and lighter batteries. New technologies run the gamut. Some give old battery chemistries a new twist for incremental improvements. Others change the battery form factor or battery assembly for significant gains in performance or costs. In the future, radically different chemistries and other big breakthroughs are expected to emerge.

"Batteries are the new gold rush as far as automakers are concerned," said Ram Chandrasekaran, a mobility analyst at Wood Mackenzie who formerly worked for Ford.

Better, more powerful batteries will drive the adoption of electric cars. Entire car platforms are being built around the battery, which not only supplies power but also serves as a critical structural element in EVs today, Chandrasekaran says.

Major automakers want half their vehicle sales to be electric by 2030. As the energy transition quickens, global battery supply will meet only 60% of the expected demand by decade's end, Oslo-based Rystad Energy forecasts.

That lends more urgency to the quest for the holy grail — a cheaper, simpler, better battery.

Battery technology companies, aiming for both incremental and breakthrough gains, have their task cut out. Car companies continue to invest in new battery plants and technological advances.

In the meantime, electric cars will continue to run on lithium-ion or LFP battery cells for now, with costs likely to spur shifts back and forth.

Some breakthrough battery technologies may be a decade or more away, like solid-state cells. Other promising ones, such as sodium-ion batteries, are closer at hand but come with drawbacks.

"The importance of these investments cannot be overstated," said Marius Foss, a Rystad analyst.

[CPT Clay]

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