The world’s largest electric car manufacturer does not believe in Donut Lab’s battery technology in the short term – “Far from commercialization”

Alma News Media’s auto editorial interviewed the vice president of the Chinese giant BYD Stella Lita about the company’s battery technology at the Paris Motor Show. In the interview, Li revealed interesting information about the company’s solid-state battery strategy.

Solid-state batteries are considered the Holy Grail of battery technology, solving the biggest problems of lithium-ion batteries. Riding on the same theme is the Finnish company Donut Lab, whose solid-state battery should bring with it a high energy density, fast charging speeds and a duration of no less than 100,000 cycles.

The world’s largest electric car manufacturer and the second largest battery manufacturer BYD is, according to its director Stella Li, the world’s leading company in solid state batteries.

However, according to Li, the technology is not ready yet.

“The solid-state battery is still far from commercialization, and it will take time. We do make prototypes and are in a leading position, but we are not putting it into mass production,” states Li.

High price and benefits as an obstacle

Although many manufacturers have set ambitious goals for solid-state batteries, the technology still has several unsolved challenges, according to Li. The main obstacles are manufacturing costs and scaling production.

“It still takes time to ensure the batteries’ extreme safety, durability, mass production capability and cost advantage. We need to find out what the real benefits of solid-state batteries are,” Li explains.

When asked separately if cost is still the biggest problem with solid-state batteries, Li says yes.

“Yes, costs are a big problem,” admits Li.

A breakthrough in fast charging

In the near future, instead of solid-state batteries, BYD will rely on lithium iron phosphate technology, or the more familiar LFP batteries, which the company uses in its own Blade batteries.

“Now, the LFP technology of the second generation of Blade batteries is solving many of the problems of fast charging,” Li explains.

The advantage of LFP batteries is that they are cost effective to manufacture, they are quite safe, they last well and last but not least, they charge well.

The weaknesses of LFP batteries, on the other hand, have been low energy density and cold sensitivity. BYD has now solved many of these problems.

According to Li, the second generation of LFP batteries makes a leap in precisely those areas that are valued even in the Nordic winter: heat management and charging speed.

“LFP will continue to play a very important role. With the second generation, it works in a wide temperature range. Even in cold conditions, fast charging can be done,” says Li.

According to Li, the rapid development of LFP batteries reduces the need to jump directly to more expensive battery chemistries.

“Since the second-generation LFP now solves the fast charging capability, solid-state batteries are not in such a hurry,” emphasizes Li.

Development does not stand still

According to Li, the limits of the energy density of LFP batteries can also be pushed forward. The background is the company’s massive investment in product development:

“The development work continues. We have 120,000 product development engineers doing this work every day,” Li reminds.

Donut Lab’s recent battery tests receive critical criticism – “There was no significant energy in the cell”