Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Power

Mercedes-Benz Is Already Testing Solid-State Batteries In EVs With Over 600 Miles Range (electrek.co) 164

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: The "holy grail" of electric vehicle battery tech may be here sooner than you'd think. Mercedes-Benz is testing EVs with solid-state batteries on the road, promising to deliver over 600 miles of range. Earlier this year, Mercedes marked a massive milestone, putting "the first car powered by a lithium-metal solid-state battery on the road" for testing. Mercedes has been testing prototypes in the UK since February.

The company used a modified EQS prototype, equipped with the new batteries and other parts. The battery pack was developed by Mercedes-Benz and its Formula 1 supplier unit, Mercedes AMG High-Performance Powertrains (HPP) Mercedes is teaming up with US-based Factorial Energy to bring the new battery tech to market. In September, Factorial and Mercedes revealed the all-solid-state Solstice battery. The new batteries, promising a 25% range improvement, will power the German automaker's next-generation electric vehicles.

According to Markus Schafer, the automaker's head of development, the first Mercedes EVs powered by solid-state batteries could be here by 2030. During an event in Copenhagen, Schafer told German auto news outlet Automobilwoche, "We expect to bring the technology into series production before the end of the year." In addition to providing a longer driving range, Mercedes believes the new batteries can significantly reduce costs. Schafer said current batteries won't suffice, adding, "At the core, a new chemistry is needed." Mercedes and Factorial are using a sulfide-based solid electrolyte, said to be safer and more efficient.

Mercedes-Benz Is Already Testing Solid-State Batteries In EVs With Over 600 Miles Range More | Reply

Mercedes-Benz Is Already Testing Solid-State Batteries In EVs With Over 600 Miles Range

Comments Filter:
  • To be able to drive a full day without plugging in is a very obvious target for EV technology to meet. But the question is how expensive it will be. No one will pay twice as much for a vehicle to do that if they only take one trip a year, may as well just buy an ICE with the extra money.
    • As an EV owner I have just 1 question for 600 mile range (almost 1000KM): why?
      My current EV does 500KM (+/- 300 mile) on a single charge in summer. By the time the battery is getting low my body and especially my bladder were already complaining.
      Fast-charge speed is way more important then raw range. Who cares if you have to recharge after 2,5 a 3 hours of driving if it is back at 80% before you are done with your break?
      • Generally when we go on a trip the wife and I pack lunch and switch off on the shoulder if we get tired. When we stop for gas, the wife goes in while I fill up the car and pays while I go if I can't just pay at the pump. Or if we don't need gas we stop at a rest stop. Most people aren't interested in having a car that takes longer than that. Generally we spend our time looking for a dog park because we usually have our dogs with us and that is enough of a delay.

        If I was confident that there would be a
        • If you are traveling with your family: before the entire family including the kids has gone to the bathroom you are 15~20 min later.
          That is about the charge time in a lot of EV's with a fast-charger.
          • He is doing exactly what my brother and his wife do. I think you are missing a common travel mode. Retired boomers with kids gone. My bro and wife do this multiple times/year. They really like to visit their kids and do the national parks. My bro does not have an EV and I doubt it would work for them with current charge/capacity limits.
      • For trips exceeding 300 miles that cross regions of the South, West and Midwest, there are often no fast chargers located near interstates. The travel model using internal combustion engine vehicles - allowing drivers to travel freely and refuel in approximately ten minutes - is not matched by electric vehicles in the US. Charging delays of more than one hour, occurring at least twice daily, can extend the duration of an 8-9 hour drive significantly. PHEVs are the practical interim solution for the US.
        • This is more telling how bad the infrastructure in the USA is. That is NOT a compliment.
          Here in the Netherlands you can find fast chargers every 30/40KM (19~25 mile) on our high ways.
          About every "gas-station" also has fast chargers. Those roads are comparable with your interstates.

          When I go to my family who lives pretty much in the outskirts of the country it is a trip of 150KM. I pass at least 3 fast charge stations along the high way.
          Did not bother to check if there are more now a days.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by siege72 ( 1795922 )

        As an EV owner I have just 1 question for 600 mile range (almost 1000KM): why?
        My current EV does 500KM (+/- 300 mile) on a single charge in summer. By the time the battery is getting low my body and especially my bladder were already complaining.
        Fast-charge speed is way more important then raw range. Who cares if you have to recharge after 2,5 a 3 hours of driving if it is back at 80% before you are done with your break?

        Reason #1: Climates with cold winters. EV range drops in the cold, even more when cabin heat is used.

        Reason #2: Charging speed for EVs is nowhere near ICE/hybrid refueling. Unless the batteries are pre-conditioned, charging speeds slow further - especially under 32F/0C.

        Reason #3: Current fast-charging increases battery degradation. In the US, home ownership is usually a requirement for overnight charging.

        Reason #4: EVs require planning skills. If someone forgets to get gas one night, a 5 minute stop at the

        • Thank you for reason #4. I have never been able to state the problem that well.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by shilly ( 142940 )

          I’m notoriously disorganised, and I don’t bother charging every night, because I’m lazy too. But I’ve only had once in the last ten years when I forgot to charge for my next day’s journey. So that one time, I drove to a nearby rapid, and charged for 10 minutes, and then I had enough.

          Remember, for this to be a problem, two things have to combine:
          1. Forget to charge the night before
          2. Have a long enough journey for that to be an issue the next day

          Given that the times I’m do

          • Why do EV proponents keep saying essentially, "this isn't a problem for me so it won't be a problem for you"? Unless you are going to own the finances for the EV that I buy and I find out I can't live with it. You said you were disorganized, but not that you have been diagnosed with ADHD. You are not all people and you are not the worst case example.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tippen ( 704534 )
              This drives me nuts and I have an EV! Quit dismissing what people tell you they need just because you don't happen to have the same needs. SMH

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by shilly ( 142940 )

              Because rare cases are rare cases. You keep talking about your need to drive with your wife and stay in cheap motels stopping only for five minutes at a time on these giant journeys in the Canadian winter, something that 99% of people who drive cars will never ever do, and you have absolutely no acknowledgement of this.

              The number of people who would find a big benefit from being able to charge at home massively outweighs both the number who will forget to plug in from time to time and face an issue added to

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hentes ( 2461350 )

        Guess how charge speed is increased? By putting more batteries in a car so they can be charged in parallel.

      • Agreed - there's a stat that Brits drive an average of 20 miles per day - so really no need of a 300 mile battery, let alone a 600 mile one. Yeah, I know that Americans do one road trip a year and so need to have a billion miles of range or else it's not worth getting rid of their butt-ugly truck, but Mercedes sells across Europe, who are more like the Brits than the Americans.

        However, cars are now in the Mhz wars, but for range. If the car can have a 600 mile battery, then it'll sell over cars with a 300 m

        • Agreed - there's a stat that Brits drive an average of 20 miles per day

          The UK is great for EVs: distances are short and while roads are busy EVs don't idle and use much less power when stopped in traffic. Also the climate is very mild so there is much less need to heat the batteries and car interior in winter and less use for AC in the summer.

          However, not everywhere is like the UK. Where I live in Canada we regularly get -20 to -30C highs in winter and some years we drop down below -40C. This really impacts the range of an EV since now the batteries have to be heated to fu

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tippen ( 704534 )

        Because whatever mileage claims are made about the EV don't translate to real world performance. First, cut ~30% off whatever the claimed range is because you don't want to take the time on the road to charge higher than 80% and you don't want to get below 10% and risk the charging station you are planning to stop at being broken or having cars already queued up.

        Next, give the range another big haircut because you aren't getting anywhere near that at 80mph on the highway.

        Winter driving, take another big chu

        • There are plenty of use cases where the true range matters.
          For example nearly all "Ueber" drivers here with new cars have an EV. With speed limits of roughly 60km/h.
          600km range allows you to use the car roughly 10h.
          And here in Thailand, there are no real winters anyway. You hardly ever have temperatures below freezing in far north.
           

          • And in those 10 hours they don't take a lunch break which they can hook the car up to a fast charger?

            • No idea. That was not the point of my math example.
              And driving in a city like Bangkok, most likely does not make you charging your car during a lunch break.
              You would prefer to charge at home at night.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shilly ( 142940 )

          It makes no sense to me that this is your experience as an EV owner, but I guess the US really is miles behind in infra.

          Here in the UK, if I do a long journey, then I charge to 100% the night before, and then I drive to wherever it makes most sense to me to have a break. This is dictated by things like “is this service station acceptable or foul?”, “can I get a reasonable bite to eat here?”, and “does this break my journey up into reasonable chunks?”. Not “am I goin

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by tippen ( 704534 )

            It makes no sense to me that this is your experience as an EV owner, but I guess the US really is miles behind in infra.

            It depends heavily on where you live and whether or not you can use Tesla's charging network. In California with a Tesla, sure, generally not a problem. In Texas and can't use Tesla's chargers? Welcome to my world.

            Here in the UK

            The UK is tiny. Very different situation than driving across Texas, much less traveling to other states in the US.

            I frequently drive between Austin and Houston. The

            • Like Shilly said: the USA just has crap infra. That is not a fault of EV's. It is just your country being shitty.
        • That 500KM summertime is actual driving range of the 66KW battery with the legal speed limit in my country of 100KM/hour (62 miles).
          Considering that tickets here are about 10 euro's for every KM too fast, it is not worth it.

          But your cut numbers are way way too high. I generally indeed don't charge above 80% UNLESS I know I gonna need the range.
          Yes in the winter they have less range because you need power for the heating. An ICE has that energy loss (even more) all the time, also when you don't need heat.

          Btw
      • Some of us regularly drive than that in a day. Obviously, yes, it's specialized. But its existence is good.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        Even for those that don't need that much range, there can be benefits.

        The reason they can tout a goal of 600 mile range is that solid state batteries have much more energy per kg. NMC batteries are roughly 200Wh/kg, *maybe* someone can get 350Wh/kg in the most aggressive marketing claims I could find. Solid state batteries are more like 700-800 Wh/kg.

        So if you say for a given car and lifestyle you could accept a 150 mile range, then you could produce for example an electric Miata that could weigh about th

        • Sure solid state batteries to reduce the weight is totally wanted.
          But that big range? Why for the general user. Just make the car lighter and use less power to move.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shilly ( 142940 )

        As an EV owner, I have three reasons:
        1. Every EV I’ve owned has had better range than the one before, and the main benefit to me has been to increase the mean time between charging. I’ve gone from once every four or five days to once every fourteen or fifteen, in a decade. That’s a meaningful benefit to me.
        2. Larger batteries will go through fewer cycles and thus will see (even) less degradation in SoH over time
        3. If I could drive all the way from London to Durham without having to charge

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )

        As an EV owner I have just 1 question for 600 mile range (almost 1000KM): why?

        Road trips. Enabling EVs for people in apartments (just charge once a month at a fast DC charger).

        Another advantage is lighter EVs with more a reasonable 300 mile range.

        • I don't know about you but when I do road-trips with friends I tend to stop in places.
          Places where you can just hook the car to a charger.
          And in this country we just have street chargers a 3-phase 16A. They do fine for slow charging during the day/night if people don't have a home charger.

          Using this tech to make cars lighter en cheaper (less battery weight): sure give it to me.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kwerle ( 39371 )

        As an EV owner I have just 1 question for 600 mile range (almost 1000KM): why?

        So my partner (who irrationally worries about such things) will consent to buying one.

        That's it.

        The reasons don't need to be good. The arguments don't matter at all. 600 mile range is what some people expect/require from their vehicle.

      • On my electric motorcycle, the manual says that discharging below 20% will lower the battery's lifespan. Is it the same with your car? Also the fast charger only charges to 80% without a long wait. So that's 40% of your range gone. You get 60% of the advertised range, but that's when the batteries are brand new. Every year I use the batteries they lose a little capacity. I don't drive in the winter, but people tell me it drops your range by about 25% to run the car's heater. So if I had a car with 600 km
        • Car does not say anything about that. Just "don't leave it at below 2% without hooking it to a charger" Of course 0% in a car is not really 0%. More like 8%, it just does not let you discharge it further.
          When you use fast-chargers on longer trips you want to charge between like 20% and 80%. Not for the battery, but because that range is the fastest with charging. To 100% you do the night before you go on the long trip ;)
          My car is now 5 years old and the part of the battery I can actually see in the car mana
      • I don't drive 600 miles without stopping. I could, however, completely understand not refueling in that time.

        I expect to stop after about an hour or two on the road to use the toilet. After that, about every 4 hours until I'm there. I don't know if you've done much driving in the US, but the vast majority of our highways don't have service plazas such as are common in most of Europe. You actually have to exit the highway and find a gas station (or, if EV, charger). The only Tesla Supercharger in my area i
        • Well there is your big difference. Here in Europe you just take an exit to a parallel part of the high way with a rest stop, shop/restaurant, etc.
          And several fast chargers. You hook up your car and go to the toilet and grab a snack. Or even dinner if you are hungry.
          And during that time your car charges back up to 80% and off you go.

      • As an EV owner I have just 1 question for 600 mile range (almost 1000KM): why? My current EV does 500KM (+/- 300 mile) on a single charge in summer.

        Simple, many of us drive a lot more than 500km in one day and while I doubt many people do that without stopping where we stop for a break and to e.g. have a picnic, is not somewhere that comes with a charger. This means that either now you have to have two breaks, one for the humans and one for the car or you have to forgo a picnic and just stop in a town with a charger which now means you are planning your travel around the needs of the car and not the needs of the family.

        If you could drive 1,000km wit

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by oic0 ( 1864384 )
      My EV has 300 miles of range. 99% of my driving is less than 100 miles and when its not, super charging is fast enough. The never having to buy gas the other 99% of my driving is more than a fair tradeoff. I would happily give up 30% range for a 300lb weight reduction though. Less tire wear, sportier, etc... for a little more inconvenience in the 1% of road trips I do.

      • That's great but the EV market is much larger than you.

        I get your point, and I can be convinced to agree if shown polliing or such to back that up.

        Whatever the miles per charge for any EV there's the potential to not have 600 miles of range but instead less mass and cost for the EV. That means sportier performance, less tire wear, and potentially other advantages.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      The average motorist is doing less than 40 miles for their daily drive and Europe its 30 or less. So most people, the majority of people could comfortably use their car and go days between charges, perhaps all week. And for longer trips, sufficient fast chargers along the route suffice.
      • With any technology there is low hanging fruit who have problems that are easy to solve. But when you live in a county where the cold can kill you easily, and you hear that these cars have less range and are more trouble in the cold, it's not a good feeling. We are being told that all new passenger cars will be EVs starting in 2035. leaving people a small number of years that their currently owned ICE will be useful. It is not hard to foresee going back to the days where people die on the highway unless g
        • The actual draw in an EV purely to keep the cabin warm after it already has warmed up is minimal.
          You could go for days in the cold before the battery is flat. And you have no risk of dying from exhaust fumes because there is no tailpipe to get covered by snow.
          By that time you have another bigger problem. Something called drinking water and food.

          The heater draw in deep winter here does max 1 to 1,5KW. Driving is at least 15KW/100KM...............
          And that is to keep the car on a nice 20C. If I just wanted t

  • EV (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @08:56AM (#65544500) Homepage

    My ICE car does 500 miles on one tank (it can do more, but that's the average).

    I don't need it to. That would comfortably last me a week and a half of commuting, my own usage of the car, etc.

    And every single time, the end of that journey is:

    - a workplace with EV chargers.
    - my house that I can put an EV charger on
    - some other place that I can get back from on a single charge and/or people wouldn't object to me plugging in and paying them for the electricity while I was there (e.g. family).

    To be honest, 150 miles is more than adequate, all other things being the same. Because, unlike fuel, I wouldn't mind putting an EV on charge every evening. It takes seconds. Finding a decent fuel station that's open, secure, cheap, and then pumping fuel takes a lot longer and a lot more thought.

    I'm pretty sure that most people - especially in Europe - are just the same. Range anxiety is dead. It's from when the EV ranges were 50 miles, not 350 miles. I've used vehicles like that at work, on the second-hand market they are almost worthless and they were basically being used in the same fashion as golf trolleys (literally one was only used to take mail / goods from one site to another just down the road).

    Nowadays? I don't even really look at the range of an EV. I'm in the market to buy my first one. My next car WILL be a full battery EV, not even a hybrid. You know what I look at first? The price tag. Then the size of the vehicle (I don't want a huge SUV like thing, I want a small hatchback with room inside it to carry a couple of friends comfortably if necessary). Then the extras. Then the finance (leasing, PCP, "optional final payment" nonsense can feck right off).

    Range doesn't really come into it any more than me checking it has headlights and wipers and all the other things I'd want to check. It's a non-issue nowadays.

    Sell me a CHEAPER EV not a more expensive one with a battery that I just won't use the capacity of and which in ten year's time will be even more expensive to replace.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Imagine how much time you waste going out of your way to petrol stations and standing around pumping the stuff into your car.

      300 mile EVs are sometimes cheaper than fossil cars now. In the UK at the moment you can get a deal on a pre-reg MG S5 with just under 300 miles of range for £23k, which I think is about $28k (accounting for differences in taxes). It's a very nice car, refined, quiet, powerful, comfortable, and MG has a good reputation for reliability. Charge time is about 30 minutes 10%-8

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shilly ( 142940 )

      If you are ok with second hand, then a Zoe would probably fit your needs quite nicely. Reasonable legroom in the bag and a surprisingly big boot. And good value now too

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Not to mention the focus on fast chargers.

      Level 1 chargers can work for a lot of people - most EVs will do 3-5 miles per hour on level 1. At home overnight while you sleep, that's 30-50 miles. At work, 8 hours is 24-40 miles. The average commute is around 20. Even if you do a lot of errands and stretch it to 40 miles, you'll be topped up at work the next day.

      Let's have more chargers so people can park all day, not have faster chargers that require you move your car after a couple of hours. (Do you want 1 Le

  • Because that’s not going to be a meaningful difference from high end Li-ion cars at that time. We’re already nearing 500 miles.

  • Cold weather performance? (Score:3)

    by Mspangler ( 770054 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @09:04AM (#65544520)

    LFP batteries currently are terrible in below freezing conditions. How do these new ones do?

    How do they do at -20 C which is a cold but not exceptional winter morning?

    • LFP batteries really are terrible below freezing, especially when it comes to charging below 0C and discharging below –20C. But the EVs that use them these days are smart enough to manage around that. They’ll warm the battery before charging, and they’ve got efficient heat pumps that can use either the plug or the battery itself to keep things at a usable temperature. Yeah, you’ll lose some range in extreme cold, maybe you get 200 miles instead of 300, but that’s still plenty

      • So you save energy by using an electric heater all night to keep a battery warm enough to function at all. I detect a logical problem there.

        And if you don't have a charger that you can leave plugged in all night then what? You aren't going anywhere in the morning?

        If you can get the car moving in the morning, after a say 30 mile commute, then you park it in the company parking lot, I assume the car will discharge the battery as needed to keep the battery warm. After a 9 hour day sitting in a brisk wind at sa

        • Never measured it but yes it is noticeable how much charge is lost warming the battery. It's not huge but it can be a problem. I plug in so I've never really noticed. We need to shift towards parking lots having charging. You used to have to stable and feed your horse while you visited... parking your horse wasn't free either... the city had to pay to have the roads cleaned; often! People are clueless wimps today.

        • Compared to driving, conditioning the battery on my car is maybe 2%? of the total power usage.
          Second user in the winter is cabin heating at 20% (the car might be fine at -10C, but I'm not), the rest is driving.

    • Oh good. We have a new technology. We can just take today's word "LFP" and slap it on yesterday's talking points.

      Lithium batteries are also terrible in below freezing conditions. The reason they work in cars is because the vehicle has systems in place to manage this problem, not because of the underlying technology.

  • "According to Markus Schafer, the automaker's head of development, the first Mercedes EVs powered by solid-state batteries could be here by 2030. "

    Toyota has been doing this bullshit for years. "Oh solid state is just around the corner and we're testing it so better hold off buying that EV you're after because it'll be obsolete soon *wink* *wink*". solid state battery.

    Even if there were a viable, production ready, solid state battery announced today it would take years for that to translate into actual

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      Even if there were a viable, production ready, solid state battery announced today it would take years for that to translate into actual production because an entire supply line, infrastructure and factory would have to be built to manufacture the thing.

      That's what Mercedes is saying. Solid state batteries are now available as small-scale production samples, not as simulators and not as one-off lab toys. They are still too expensive for truly mass production, but they can be used to actually start designing real products. Engineers can start testing the batteries for real-life performance, mechanical durability, thermal envelope, etc.

      Production ramp-up is happening now, but it'll take years to scale up. It turned out that solid state batteries are compli

  • I've been wondering when an EV maker was going to start using Solid State Batteries. I know Dragonfly Energy had been developing them. Their BattleBorn LiOn batteries are top shelf I've been using them for several years now with a solar setup. I'm just wondering how long the charge time of the Solid State Batteries will be. If it's like a quickER charge then Mercedes might be the EV to top them all.

  • Important part: FULLY-solid-state battery (Score:3)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday July 25, 2025 @11:02AM (#65544878)

    If you have been following solid-state lithium-battery technology like me then you already know there have been varying levels of what is considered "solid-state" where some parts are solid-state and others not. The important part here is that this is the end product where the entire battery is fully solid-state [electrek.co]. What this means is that batteries will not combust due to heat or puncture. In fact, it will continue to function even if you punch a hole through the middle.

    This is it, this is the battery tech that people have been waiting for since 2017 when John Goodenough showed off solid-state lithium battery cells [slashdot.org].

  • ...and/or have fire suppression built in. But otherwise good news.
    • The electrolyte is reportedly non-flammable. If this really works it will completely change the game as far as lithium battery fires go.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by smithmc ( 451373 )
        Unless the lithium metal is completely encapsulated... lithium is still quite flammable. (Or inflammable - what a country!)

  • I don't know about the US, but the average distance people drive here in Europe is less than 100Km/day (I presume "greater than 600 miles" is actually 1000Km).

    I am not sufficient of an engineer to decide whether this is feasible or economic, but how about EVs having a small battery for the average day journeys, and space to add a larger battery if you have the occasional need for a longer journey?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by labnet ( 457441 )

      In Australia
      1000km to the in-laws, which we often do in one drive of around 12 hours. Destination house has street parking only.
      Much of the UK has only street parking.
      Most apartment complexes don’t have the ability to charge EVs, or have body Corp insurance issues forbidding it.

  • What's Ford building then? Ford is licensing some battery tech from BYD or some other Chinese entity to build a new battery plant in the US.
    Which you know, good for Ford.

Slashdot Top Deals

If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are real good, you will get out of it.

Close