Toyota’s New Battery: Aluminum-Ion Wonder or Solid-State Reality?

The electric vehicle (EV) world is buzzing with rumors about a revolutionary new battery from Toyota. Whispers of a 1000-mile range and a 5-minute charge time have dominated headlines and YouTube videos, all pointing to a groundbreaking aluminum-ion battery. But what’s the real story behind these incredible claims? We dove deep into the official announcements to separate the hype from reality for our readers at aluminiumion.com.

The Aluminum-Ion Buzz Recent online reports have been ablaze with claims of a game-changing aluminum-ion battery from Toyota. These reports, largely fueled by a series of viral YouTube videos, suggest that Toyota’s CEO, Koji Sato, has unveiled a battery that could make current lithium-ion technology obsolete. The rumored benefits include:

A 1000-mile driving range A 5-minute charging time Lower cost and greater abundance of aluminum compared to lithium Improved safety and recyclability If true, this would be the breakthrough the EV industry has been waiting for. But as with all things that sound too good to be true, a closer look at the official source is necessary.

Toyota’s Official Roadmap: Solid-State is the Star While the idea of an aluminum-ion battery is exciting, Toyota’s official battery technology roadmap tells a slightly different, but no less impressive, story. The company’s primary focus for next-generation battery technology is on solid-state batteries.

According to Toyota’s own news releases, they have made a significant breakthrough in solid-state battery technology and are aiming for mass production by 2027-2028. Here’s what Toyota’s solid-state batteries are expected to deliver:

A 20% increase in cruising range compared to their upcoming “Performance” lithium-ion batteries, which are already targeting a range of over 800km (around 500 miles). This could mean a future range of nearly 1000km (over 600 miles). A rapid charging time of 10 minutes or less (from 10-80% state of charge). Improved safety due to the use of a solid electrolyte instead of a liquid one, which reduces the risk of fires.

Lies, click the link, it goes to your post 63 in this thread
Alow me to post is again
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4352314/posts?page=94#63

Are you saying you are not the same TexasGator who wrote post 63? Reality must really suck for you given how hard you deny it.

Here is a cut and paster also of your post 63:
Which states:
“To: Skwor

/11s I recall a level 2 charger, typically the best you can get for a home, which already requires a serious electrical upgrade, “

You can plug it into an existing dryer outlet ...

63 posted on 11/13/2025, 5:25:18 PM by TexasGator (750 hp Florida Gnat)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies | Report Abuse]”

Well, I live in California, where electricity costs over 40cents/kwh!!(Because of all the cheap renewables we have) So they almost force you to go solar. So we did about a year and a half ago and haven’t paid for electricity (except for infrastructure charges) since then. and we currently generate way more than we use, so we just installed a heat pump for heating and cooling, and even with that we still have left over power. That’s why we’re looking at EVs or plug in hybrids.

Right now we’re leaning more toward PHEV since my wife typically drives 30-40 miles a day, thus she could run on electricity most of the times. Every once in a while she takes longer trips and then she could supplement that with gas and avoid range anxiety.

In California do they do net metering? In other words, when you have excess power do you sell it to the grid and get paid almost as much per kWh as you have to pay when you pull from the grid, without having to pay a lot of extra fees for doing so?

We don't have net metering here in Alabama. If I sell power to the grid it's usually about 1/4th per kWh that I earn compared to how much I pay when I buy power. And there are extra fees added for the privilege of selling power to the grid. I'm not complaining, it is what it is. So it's part of the math and planning (buy a hybrid inverter that allows you to turn off the grid sell feature until you've had it a while and do the math on if you'd sell enough power to make enough money to more than offset the fees for selling power). Plus having a hybrid inverter means I still have power when the grid goes down (my inverter doesn't have to automatically shut off power to the home when it detects grid outage). I do sell power to the grid when I have excess. And I do make about $100 net per year ($100 more in "revenue"/credit than the extra fees I pay). But always the most feasible thing is to use up however much solar power is coming in before I sell power (think of it as the last resort).

For example, in the past $365 days I paid about $44 for buying power on days that my battery stack was charged to 100% the day before. In other words, there's no need to expand my battery stack if doing so at best would save me $44/year. However, I bought $551 in power on days that I didn't charge the battery stack 100% the day before. So expanding my solar capacity (and being more sure to charge the batteries the day before), could save me $551/year. Plus there was $95 worth of power bought because I didn't have enough inverter capacity at the time.

So adding to my solar capacity, which would also mean adding to my inverter capacity, would save me potentially $650/year in purchasing power. And would even more so add to how much excess power I sell to the grid in a year (about 3 times more added to selling power kWh than is reduced in purchase power kWh). But the extra selling would net only about $400 per year. (If I purchased as many solar panels as an extra inverter could allow, which is what I'd do if I bought a 3rd inverter anyway.)

That's the kind of math we have to do for those of us decentralized solar users in states that don't do net metering.

California got rid of net metering a couple of years ago. But I’m on net metering because I got it done just before the deadline.

So now whatever I send to PG&E I can use the same amount of their non-peak time power from them at no charge. And if you give them more than they give to you you get some credit for it but only a fraction of the 40cents. It’s basically like having an infinite backup battery.

Now, though, they charge you the full amount for the power you use from them but give you only a small credit for what you deliver to them. So today under the new metering scheme the only way solar makes sense here is if you have backup batteries. But that almost doubles your cost.

You don’t charge off the mains you charge off the shipping container megapack right behind the charge stalls.

BYD has a 14.5 megawatt hour pack that fits in a standard 20 foot iso box with its power converters at that.

14.5 Mw is 28 500kw charge stalls running flat out from a single 20’ box two of those boxes end to end would be the size of a American 40 foot ISO box which is more common here. So a typical 40’ would support 56 stalls at 500kw remember V3/V4 stalls are 250kw not 500 so double that again in supported stalls numbers.

Each EV to go from 10% to 80% of a 75kWh pack like a Model 3 needs 57kWh accounting for 10 ish percent DC-DC charging losses typical for fast DC rates into that sized pack. Two 20’ BYD 14.5 packs is 29,000kWh you could charge 511 Model 3 sized packs with those megapacks and charge them slowly over night for 8-12 hours.

But but the grid. Go look up at the typical suburban distribution lines in wood poles count the insulator disks each one is rated at 1000-2000volts so you probably have 7200 or 12000 volt triple phase lines top and one on each arm.

The Wal-Mart down the road has 7 lines per pole four on the bottom arm two on the top arm and one across the top all of them have 10 disk HV insulator stacks so that’s 3 phases , 3 phases and a G/N phase for the 7th wire. Those wires are 600 mcm sized aluminum. @12000V typical for T&D in suburban areas the top triple phase is carrying 400 amps per phase @12,000V not exactly triple it’s 2.77 due to the nature of Delta wired 3P AC so 13.296 megawatts the bottom four lines are a Y wired triple phase and in this mode you do get three equal phases of 400 amps relative to the 4th wire ground/neutral. It’s why there is four HV lines not 3. That second set under the first is carrying 14.4 megawatts for a total pole T&D of 27.696 megawatts.

So how much current is needed for an 8 hour overnight refill of said megapack ? Over 8 hours you need 3.6 megawatts extend that to a 12 hour refill and it’s 2.4MW

You are not even stressing that individual small power pole with 3.6MW that’s only 108 amps on the top triple phase. For comparison the Wal-Mart itself is a 1-1.2 megawatt load but it’s not open 24/7 it closes at 2300 and won’t open until 0600. Remember those packs are holding 500+ full charges worth for a sedan sized EV and could support 100+ V3 stalls all at once today with existing Tesla tech.

You have 27 megawatts at the property edge you need 1/10 of that over a 10 hour window or 3.6MW for 8hr buy cheap wind at night we had negative $11 a couple days in a row overnight in ERCOT and it’s almost always $20 or less at night for West Texas wind that’s 2 cents per kWh or less every night mostly all night. You can sell that at 30-50 cents at the fast DC handle rate Tesla owners pay less vs retail users. Sometimes under 30 cents off peak. I charge off my panels above the steel building so it’s zero cents effectively since the panels paid themselves off years ago for those sets. It’s what could I have sold that power for is the opportunity costs.

So yeah you can have 50+ stalls and 500+ full charges worth per day at your typical Wal-Mart parking lot. Even if you only had the top triple phase at 7200V you could fill the megapacks while the Wal-Mart is closed and using much less amps it’s only running it’s freezers and minimal AC until morning right before opening I used to manage a target night stocking crew right after secondary school and before deploying it was always hot because the A.C. Was off at night and dark too with every third light on and two off. So I know for a fact when big boxes are closed they ramp way down the power costs by design.

Forgot this is about 5 min charges...

The V4 Tesla standards can do a 5 min charge of 56kWh to a 75kWh pack which is 10% to 80% plus losses.

5 min which is 300 seconds.
56kWh is 201.6 megajoules now we have common second based units.

201.6/300 = 0.672 MJ/second

672 kilojoules per second is also 672,000 joules per second which conveniently is also watts per second.

So 672kw fills a Model 3 pack 10-80% in five minutes assuming the pack could take a 9C effective rate 56kWh/75kWh*time=9C

The V4 NASC through the existing plug maxed out during testing and certification at 1000 amps and 1000 volts so the plug can already do a solid megawatt it’s the packs that can’t take that rate.

672,000 joules pushed at 800 volts is 840 amps well under the V4 cert limits.

14,500 kw megapacks at 1C discharge rates supports 21 simultaneous V4 stalls at 672kw twin packs in a 40 foot iso box can support 42 stalls and given that LFP calls can do 5 C rates not just 1C you see how this works for a bucee’s sized Tesla complex. You still have 511 Model 3 packs worth of kWh in a 40 foot is box as well. Rate of discharge is higher but overall kWh is the same.

Again normal triple phase 12,000V T&D can fill that 40 foot iso pack in 8 hours cheaply overnight 12,000V is not even high for local T&D we have 32,000V just down the road on concrete mono poles not taller than wooden poles you can tell because they have 20 disk insulator packs vs 10 or 5 for 7200V single phase individual house rural drops.

I am well versed in the power industry I do consulting for a number of industries ERCOT & power is one, oil and gas is another.

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