The Japanese government may invest hundreds of billions of yen to support the development of solid-state batteries

In order to gain dominance in new power batteries, the Japanese government is reportedly going to invest hundreds of billions of yen to support the research, development and production of all-solid-state batteries.

According to a report by Nikkei News on the 10th, Japanese officials and citizens have begun to accelerate the pace of commercialization of a new type of power battery - all-solid-state batteries. Toyota Motor plans to launch electric vehicles equipped with all-solid-state batteries before 2025. Mitsui Metals is also preparing to produce related materials, and the Japanese government is also considering providing subsidies of hundreds of billions of yen.

Chinese companies currently occupy a high share of the global power battery market. With electrification becoming an irreversible trend, Japan hopes to gain control of the core technologies of the new generation of batteries through public-private cooperation.

The Japanese government believes that with the popularization of electric vehicles, if the current industry status quo continues, most of the core technologies of electric vehicles will rely on China. Therefore, it plans to assist Japanese companies in the research and development of all-solid-state batteries. It plans to establish a 2 trillion yen carbon reduction technology assistance fund to provide hundreds of billions of yen in subsidies for the production and research and development of all-solid-state batteries.

All-solid-state batteries are lithium-ion batteries that have their electrolyte replaced by a solid electrolyte. In addition to reducing the risk of battery fire and improving safety, the battery's energy density will also increase several times, and charging can be completed in only about 10 minutes, which is one-third of the current charging time.

Toyota currently leads the development of all-solid-state batteries in Japan, with more than 1,000 patents, ranking first in the world. Toyota plans to publicly release a trial vehicle equipped with all-solid-state batteries in 2021 and begin performance testing. The all-solid-state battery vehicle currently under development has a range of 500 kilometers, which is more than twice that of a vehicle equipped with a lithium-ion battery under the same conditions. In line with the development trends of automakers, Japanese raw material manufacturers are also accelerating their pace. Mitsui Kinzoku and Idemitsu Kosan plan to start producing solid electrolytes in 2021.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference held at the Prime Minister's Office on the evening of December 4 that in order to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, a 2 trillion yen fund will be established to provide assistance to companies engaged in the research and development of carbon reduction-related technologies such as batteries and hydrogen energy. Suga pointed out that an unprecedented 2 trillion yen fund will be established to provide assistance to companies that continue to challenge innovative technologies in the next 10 years.

Japanese private research organization Yano Research Institute estimates that by 2030, the global market size of next-generation batteries (including all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries, metal-air batteries, etc.) will expand significantly to 1.494 trillion yen, which will increase by about 22 times compared to 2018. Among them, the high-capacity all-solid-state lithium-ion battery market has the largest scale, which is estimated to reach 568.7 billion yen in 2030, accounting for nearly 40% of the total.

Japanese market research firm Fuji Keizai predicts that the global market size of all-solid-state lithium batteries (all-solid-state batteries; including sulfide-based, oxide-based, polymer-based, etc.) is expected to expand to 2.6772 trillion yen in 2035, a 1,114-fold increase from 2.4 billion yen in 2018.

As the 30th year of lithium-ion battery industrialization, battery technology will enter a new cycle of change in 2020. At present, the safety issues of lithium batteries have not been resolved, so solid-state batteries have become the direction of the next generation of lithium battery technology. At present, there are few mass-produced solid-state battery products, and the industrialization process is still in its early stages. There are mainly three camps in Europe and the United States, Japan and South Korea, and China.

European and American automakers are paying close attention to solid-state battery startups. Renault and other automakers have acquired and invested in startups such as Solid Power, SolidEnergy Systems, Ionic Materials, and Quantum Scape to acquire technology reserves. Dyson, which has given up on making cars, is also focusing on the research and development of solid-state battery technology.

Japanese automakers started research and development of solid-state batteries early on. Toyota began cooperation with solid-state battery startup Ilika in 2008, and in early 2019 it cooperated with Panasonic to accelerate its layout and strive to achieve mass production as soon as possible.

In South Korea, Samsung SDI is developing a new solid-state battery, and it is expected that a smartphone using solid-state battery technology will be launched in the next one to two years. LG Chem is also developing solid-state battery technology and has made good progress, reaching a similar level as Samsung.

Although China started late, more and more scientific research institutes and battery companies have participated in it, including research institutions such as the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Ningbo Institute of Materials of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ganfeng Lithium, CATL, BYD, etc.