Topic
Progress toward solid- and semi-solid-state cells, including energy density, fire risk, dendrite suppression, and the manufacturability bottleneck.
Oak Ridge's STAR Lab tests sulfide solid-state and sulfur chemistries as complete cells, because the particle gaps, interface reactions and swelling that kill them do not appear in a materials test. Its results are scored against USABC metrics.
Reality
Electrochemical strain microscopy can read probe contact as ion movement, so a KAIST team etched trenches into ion-blocking silicon to prove it. Their fix is an argon-beam polishing step, not a new microscope.
Reality
Compression let the needles keep growing sideways inside the ceramic instead of into the electrodes. That hands a large part of the solid-state failure problem to whoever specifies stack pressure in the module.
Reality
Robert Lee puts solid-state in phones about ten years before cars. A 12 GWh plant at Dunkirk and Chinese pilot lines due in 2027 are built on the opposite reading.
Reality
The pack figure is 500 Wh/kg, the brands are named, and four battery makers are aiming at the same year. What a pilot actually proves is the open question.
Reality
Anthro Energy broke ground in Louisville on a 25 GWh electrolyte plant backed by roughly $45.6 million in public money. It does not produce until 2028, a year after Chinese rivals plan trial runs.
Reality