I wouldn't trust anything from Toyota about EV's since they're fighting the change teeth and nails, but what I take away from this is Toyota plans on having hybrids with solid state batteries in only 3 years.
I wonder how much of this is the technology and how much of this is, “don’t hold off your purchase of an EV because you’re waiting for new battery tech”. It makes me think of the latest iPhone announcement. There’s lots of complaints about it being only incremental improvements but making radical improvements has its downsides too. If you think a radical improvement is right around the corner you’re not going to buy and try to time your purchase. With steady improvements you can buy in whenever without worrying about the timing.
Yeah, the previous announcements from Toyota et all seemed to be "don't buy our competitors EVs because new battery tech is coming soon", now that they're pivoting to actually building and selling EVs with the demominant battery tech everyone else uses, they need to dispel the previous lie or it'll hurt them even more than their competitors.
A weird title. The actual statement was that solid state batteries are several years away, not that all electric vehicles must wait for solid state batteries.
I think it comes from the fact that it seems like every month for the last 30 years there is some "battery breakthrough" that is a "game changer" as reported by the popular press. It's refreshing to see a more realistic title
Like most technologies, more change happens incrementally over time than via instant “breakthroughs”.
In the same way that headlines about Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s should have “…in mice” appended, headlines about battery technology should have “…hand-made in my lab” appended.