[perching_aix]

Fingers crossed the Donut Lab solid state battery ends up being the real deal, lives up to the hype, and this sillyness can finally go away. Recent tests look promising from a (lack of a) thermal runaway standpoint at least.

The only question is if the rules will mind the difference in battery composition and chemistry.

[Animats]

Most of the solid state batteries have far less thermal runaway problem than lithium-ion batteries. At this point, several companies have working demo solid state batteries, but the price is far too high. Mercedes has one demo car with a solid state battery. Ducati has one motorcycle. Donut Labs just has one demo cell, not even enough for their motorcycle. The technology works but is so expensive there aren't even multiple prototypes.

Samsung says they will ship some solid state batteries in watches and earbuds this year, where the batteries are so tiny they're affordable. Even solid state batteries for phones are still too costly. Everybody in the industry is trying to solve the production price problem. Consensus is that the price starts to come down around 2028 or so.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries don't have a thermal runaway problem, either, but they have about half the Wh/Kg of lithium-ion, so they're not popular for portable devices.

Ten years out, lithium-ion batteries will probably be obsolete technology and totally prohibited on aircraft.

[Dylan16807]

> Donut Labs just has one demo cell, not even enough for their motorcycle.

They sent in multiple cells for lab testing, but more importantly the second Donut demo was a motorcycle charging.

[Animats]

Donut Labs: "The Future of Powering Electric Vehicles Is Here Today with Donut Lab Introducing New High-Performance Solid State Donut Batteries Ready for OEM Use Now and Powering All 2026 Model Verge Motorcycles On the Road in Q1 2026."[1]

They have until Tuesday.

[1] https://www.donutlab.com/ces-battery-announcement/

[Dylan16807]

Yeah, but lacking proof on the large scale is different from only having one sample.

[HaloZero]

So wait if solid state is too expensive? What replaces lithium ion batteries? What breakthrough do you expect in solid state to make it cheaper in 2028?

[jacquesm]

What is your take on Lithium-Titanate (sp?) cells?

[addaon]

Not the original poster, but I’m a fan, in appropriate applications. Robust, fast discharge, long cycle life, and can charge and discharge at lower temperatures than most other chemistries (-20C and -40C, for what I’m using). Downsides are limited availability and sizing, and absolute crap energy density even compared to LFP.

[jacquesm]

How many / what size do you have?

[addaon]

I have the 2.9 Ah SCiBs for form factor testing, and the 10 Ah Shenquans for some functional testing. I’m eagerly awaiting the 5.5 Ah SCiB — the application is designed around a 20S1P 5.5 Ah SCiB string.

[jacquesm]

Thank you. The moment these have reasonable pricing I'm ordering up enough to put together a 200 KWh home battery. It isn't quite economical yet but there is no way I'm putting such a quantity of Lithium-Ion in anything near or in a dwelling.

[mhjkl]

Afaik sodium batteries are much safer than li-ion and already in mass production. Unless Donut scales up really quick I think it will be more viable to just use sodium batteries for safety in the medium-term future

[pezezin]

We bought a sodium battery for our last trip, and it turns out that most airline companies don't even know what sodium batteries are and don't have any provision in their regulations, they are as restricted as lithium batteries :(

[YesBox]

I wasn't sure what a solid state battery is, so I looked it up on Wikipedia.

Fun fact though:

> Between 1831 and 1834, Michael Faraday discovered the solid electrolytes silver sulfide and lead(II) fluoride, which laid the foundation for solid-state ionics. Through his research, Michael Faraday took note of these solid compounds transitioning from insulators to conductors after being heated. While this would take almost another century to be acknowledged by Michael O'Keeffe in 1976, this mixed ionic/electronic conductions became the first record of a solid-state battery

(emphasis mine)

[numpad0]

Aren't those just regular Li-ion with thickened electrolyte solution? There seem to be some noises around "almost solid" batteries pushing the definition of the word "solid".

The real production solid states are made with inorganic materials, many not in pouches nor cylinders, and has wild environmental resistance like supporting charges in -55 to +125C(-70 to +260F) which won't be possible with most water inside.

[perching_aix]

One of the recent high temp tests showed a degradation in capacity that is supposedly [0] strongly consistent with solid state tech. I'm not qualified to know better unfortunately.

[0] https://youtu.be/vWwPySIm9tU?t=511