THIS week, Toyota entered into a closer partnership with battery maker Panasonic to co-develop a new prismatic battery with higher density for use in electric vehicles (EVs).
According to Reuters, Toyota Motor Corp is pushing battery development to help meet its goal for green cars to comprise half of global sales by 2030.
Earlier, Toyota had already announced that it would add fully electric vehicles to its product line-up by the early 2020s, complementing a green-car strategy consisting of plug-in hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles (FCV), reported Reuters.
But this new strategy would see the need for a leap in battery technology, or at the very least, packaging.
“The auto industry faces many hurdles to developing next-generation batteries, which are difficult for carmakers or battery makers to tackle on their own,” said Toyota president Akio Toyoda at the news conference for the partnership.
He added that it would be difficult to meet the 2030 goals, “given the current pace of battery development”.
“That’s why we’re looking to Panasonic and other companies to help us develop ever-better cars and batteries.”
Prismatic cells are flat and pouch-shaped, as opposed to cylindrical ones like those made by Panasonic for Tesla.
It’s not something that everyone is aware of, but in each Tesla Model S for example, there are thousands of individual 18650 cells - batteries shaped like an AA battery, but much bigger in size.
The 18650 format has already existed for many years. The format has been used in laptops and electric bicycles and scooters, and production costs had been lowered to the point where they could be cheaply produced.
The common cylindrical format is now easy to manufacture, and safe to use. However, due to the cylindrical design, they utilise space inefficiently, causing the battery to be bulkier for a given capacity.
Prismatic cells on the other hand, are thin and light, and utilise space very effectively. However, they are expensive to manufacture. They are susceptible to warping and are more difficult to manage thermally.
Currently, applications where they are commonly used are in cellphones and tablets - where lightness and size are a priority.
For Toyota at least, a new type of battery may be the way to solve the biggest problem with EVs today - battery performance and price.
At the same news conference, Panasonic president Kazuhiro Tsuga said the company’s cylindrical batteries were the most widely used batteries in pure EVs at the moment.
But he added that it was difficult to gauge which format held more demand potential in the future.
He said it needed to be able to develop new battery technologies in a prismatic format.
“This would be difficult on our own.”
With governments around the world getting more stringent with vehicle emissions, manufacturers will need to scramble to push the envelope of battery technology.
Britain, France and Norway all want to phase out petrol and diesel cars between 2025 and 2040.
Meanwhile, at least 10 other countries have set official targets for electric car sales, including China.
With governments around the world clamouring to reduce emissions, manufacturers will need to innovate very soon to deliver the promise of zero emission electric vehicles.