Fisker says he gave up solid-state batteries after announcing a “breakthrough” that should allow “500 miles of range and a 1-minute charge” on his electric cars.
After relaunching his electric vehicle, Henrik Fisker began making many very ambitious statements about the capabilities of the new company’s future electric cars.
We highlighted some of them in a report called: “A look at Fisker’s unbelievable claims about his next all-electric car with ‘over 400 miles range’ and ‘9-minute charging.”
But one of the biggest complaints was about the batteries that Fisker planned to use.
At the beginning, the company announced that its first car will be powered by a new graphene-based hybrid supercapacitor technology.
That idea didn’t last long, and Fisker announced a “discovery” of a solid-state battery for electric cars with a “500-mile range and a 1-minute charge.”
As with most battery discovery claims, we were skeptical of Fisker’s announcement.
Now, a few years later, Henrik Fisker announced that they really gave up on the supposed breakthrough more than a year ago.
The CEO said in an interview with The Verge:
So we spent a lot of time, several years, doing research on solid state batteries. And it’s a type of technology where when you feel like you’re 90 percent there, you’re almost there, until you realize that the last 10 percent is much more difficult than the first 90. But you don’t really know that until you get there at 90 percent. So when we got to the end of it – or let’s put it, when we got close to fully understanding this technology, we realized that it was much more difficult than we had anticipated and expected at the beginning, as we were very excited about some of the first things we were doing.
But finally we came to the conclusion, I think it was probably at the end of 2019, beginning of 20, I forgot exactly, that solid-state batteries are still very, very far away, they are not there. I think that personally, they have been at least seven years, if not more, in terms of any kind of high volume format. Because you need … after having an innovation in this technology, you will probably need three years to set up high volume manufacturing and then you will need another three years to do durability tests. So even if someone invented it today, it would probably take at least six years.
Therefore, we completely abandon solid-state batteries at this point because we simply do not see them materializing. Would we do anything in the future? If we do, it will be something completely new and, obviously, we have a battery team that is analyzing the current technology that is here. But the solid-state battery we are working on has no future at this point in the near future. And I don’t see us continuing with that particular development. “
In short, Fisker believes that the technology is far from ready for commercialization.
This despite indicating the exact opposite in the “advance” ad.
Fabio Albano, who was vice president of battery systems at Fisker at the time, commented:
“This discovery marks the beginning of a new era in solid-state materials and manufacturing technologies. We are addressing all the obstacles that solid-state batteries encountered on the way to commercialization, such as low temperature performance; the use of scalable and low-cost manufacturing methods; and the ability to form solid-state electrodes in mass with significant thickness and high charges of active material. We are excited to build on this foundation and move the needle into the energy store. “
Interestingly, the story is not as simple as Fisker being too quick to claim a breakthrough.
Not long after his discovery announcement, Fisker was sued by QuantumScape, a solid-state battery startup backed by Volkswagen, for alleged theft of trade secrets.
Fisker later settled for $ 750,000.
Later, in 2019, Albano filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Fisker, claiming that he was fired by the company.
Fisker went public through a reverse merger last year and saw its valuation rise to nearly $ 8 billion after announcements that they are trying to work with Magna and Foxconn to bring their electric vehicle design to Europe. production.
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