Could Production Delays be an Opportunity for Solid-State Batteries?

[OlyScout]

As excited as I am about Scout, I think the production delays may actually create an opportunity.

If Scout is now targeting a 2028 launch timeframe, I hope leadership seriously evaluates whether a solid-state battery option could be incorporated into the platform, even if it’s initially offered on higher trims or later model years.

The EV landscape is moving incredibly fast. By 2028, buyers won’t just be comparing Scout to today’s EVs, they’ll be comparing it to whatever Rivian, Tesla, GM, Ford, Toyota, and others are offering at that time. Longer range, faster charging, lower weight, and improved cold weather performance could become expected rather than premium features.

One of the biggest advantages Scout has right now is that it’s not rushing to market. While competitors are locked into current generation battery architectures, Scout still has time to position itself for the next generation of EV technology.

I’m not suggesting Scout delay further just to chase new technology. But if timelines are already shifting, it seems worth asking whether solid-state batteries could help ensure the vehicle feels cutting edge when it finally arrives rather than simply competitive with what is available today.

Scout is building a brand around durability, adventure, and innovation. A thoughtful strategy around next generation battery technology could help make sure the vehicles stand out in 2028 and beyond.

What do others think? Would you wait a little longer or pay a premium for a Scout with solid-state battery technology if it delivered meaningful improvements in range, charging speed, and reliability?

 

[joewilk45]

Yes I would but I think you just monitor VW's battery investment in its battery partners VW is the mother ship of Scout and Scout is dependent on it's guidance and funding so I am sure VW will be keeping battery technology in house. I think sodium or solid state of some kind. MG has a hybrid version semi solid state battery in mass production and in use in Europe. BMW IX is 450 now so by 2028 Scout should be seeing advance battery packs and hopefully they engineer battery packs to a industry standard size allowing manufacturers to integrate standardized battery compartments within frames and allow easier access and upgrades

 

[Roger 123]

If only Scout would give us any information..........

Last email I got said that they were running some cars on the line to validate processes. Seems like the horse may have left the barn to incorporate anything earth shattering.

 

[Roger 123]

Yes I would but I think you just monitor VW's battery investment in its battery partners VW is the mother ship of Scout and Scout is dependent on it's guidance and funding so I am sure VW will be keeping battery technology in house. I think sodium or solid state of some kind. MG has a hybrid version semi solid state battery in mass production and in use in Europe. BMW IX is 450 now so by 2028 Scout should be seeing advance battery packs and hopefully they engineer battery packs to a industry standard size allowing manufacturers to integrate standardized battery compartments within frames and allow easier access and upgrades

Is there an industry standard for automotive battery packs? If there isn't a current standard it seems hopeful that one will be developed and implemented in the next 2 years.

Heck, we've had 12v batteries in cars for a hundred years and pretty much every vehicle uses a different darn group size battery.

 

[CurtNorth]

I'm not trying to be jaded but I've been hearing about solid state batteries for over a decade now, and in the real world they've made it as far as phone power banks I think.

Tesla, GM, Kia/Hyundai, plus the Chinese have all shown that you can sell a lot of EVs using exisiting battery tech and some even make money doing it. Plus Rivian's R2 might very well put them into a different sales category as well, again using exisiting battery tech.

But you're right, the battery landscape is changing fast, it'll be really interesting to see what the next few years bring.

 

[rpatena]

As excited as I am about Scout, I think the production delays may actually create an opportunity.

If Scout is now targeting a 2028 launch timeframe, I hope leadership seriously evaluates whether a solid-state battery option could be incorporated into the platform, even if it’s initially offered on higher trims or later model years.

The EV landscape is moving incredibly fast. By 2028, buyers won’t just be comparing Scout to today’s EVs, they’ll be comparing it to whatever Rivian, Tesla, GM, Ford, Toyota, and others are offering at that time. Longer range, faster charging, lower weight, and improved cold weather performance could become expected rather than premium features.

One of the biggest advantages Scout has right now is that it’s not rushing to market. While competitors are locked into current generation battery architectures, Scout still has time to position itself for the next generation of EV technology.

I’m not suggesting Scout delay further just to chase new technology. But if timelines are already shifting, it seems worth asking whether solid-state batteries could help ensure the vehicle feels cutting edge when it finally arrives rather than simply competitive with what is available today.

Scout is building a brand around durability, adventure, and innovation. A thoughtful strategy around next generation battery technology could help make sure the vehicles stand out in 2028 and beyond.

What do others think? Would you wait a little longer or pay a premium for a Scout with solid-state battery technology if it delivered meaningful improvements in range, charging speed, and reliability?

 

[rpatena]

I agree with this perspective and understand SCOUT's pending decision on this Tactic (if employed). However from a Customer Centric Perspective this will undoubtedly cause Pending Customer Orders to be abandoned die to individual Cystomer "need to Buy" timeframes (e.g. can no longer experience further Production Delays).
It lies in Product Management/Marketing's influence to "go or no go" Release Timeframes. Anybody's guess as of this writing.

 

[theonetruestripes]

I hope leadership seriously evaluates whether a solid-state battery option could be incorporated into the platform, even if it’s initially offered on higher trims or later model years.

Solid state batteries currently only exist in small quantities, nobody has developed a process to make them at large scale or inexpensively. Honda has been talking about how they will have them “in two years” for at least 5 years. They have been a hot research topic for 3 decades. We are closer now than we were 3 decades ago. As in we can now reliably make them at extreme costs (think 1000x the cost of LiIon), 30 years ago we made them mostly “by accident”, now we can at least make them on purpose.

From a very high level it is easy to put a solid state battery in an EV. You yank out LiIon or LFP and jam in solid state. Done. Doing all the work to validate the design, test for weaknesses, pick a cooling system, decide what temperature and voltage ranges to adjust charing speeds at takes time. As does “in the real world while the truck is driving over rough terrain how does the flex in the battery compartment exert forces on the batteries and do they rub against the cooling system too much”? That stuff all takes time.

Deciding that production designs that have you a year late make it a good idea to look into replacing the entire battery system with a new one is a easy way to turn a year delay into 2 or 3 years of delay.

On the other hand making it a stretch goal for the top trim line is a lot less likely to delay the whole product launch (the other trim lines have a large chance of not getting delayed if they have to rework things for the solid battery trim line). Making it a high priority for later years of production is an obvious choice as well...except that nobody has any production sample solid stat battries to do the work with. So all the little details that you have to get right are pretty much impossible to get right without the actual thing you are putting in.

You can do a little work ahead of time, make sure the whole system doesn’t have too many assumptions about the battery baked in, and keep the cooling system a little flexible (to get top charge rates from solid state batteries you still have to cool them!).

The good news here is when/if solid state batteries become an affordable (enough) mass market part that can go into EVs most manufactorors will all face very similar prices, and design challenges.

 

[theonetruestripes]

Is there an industry standard for automotive battery packs? If there isn't a current standard it seems hopeful that one will be developed and implemented in the next 2 years.

There is not. Battery packs have a large number of tradeoffs. Cost, weigh, physical size, cooling requirements, maximum charge speed, and longevity for example, plus multiple ways to manage individual cells with lower maximum voltages or other borderline issues.

You can make a battery pack where individual cells can be bypassed at specific voltage levels which will dramatically increase the maximum lifetime of a battery pack without impacting the usable power levels by a noticeable amount. However that requires running additional wires to every battery and adding some capacitors and other per cell logic and maybe a bunch of relays. Which is a significant cost impact. Air cooled v liquid cooled v cooling plates all have a significant impact (and they all have an impact on how fast you can precondition the battery pack when it needs to be warmer to fast charge, or even charge at all!)

All of these choices don’t have a clear single best choice. Maybe one brand wants to have a 14 year battery warranty even if it makes the battery pack cost 20% more for “better” cooling and/or disconnecting cells at specific voltage levels. Maybe another wants the cheapest 35kWh it can get inside a mid sized truck frame, even if that means dealing with a very flat voltage curve. Maybe another brand wants super fast charge times so they can do long trips with ease. Maybe another wants to enable week long off road trailer trips and they want the ultimate in storage density even if that impacts price and durability and charge times.

It is hard to serve all that with a “one size fits all” part.

Plus when you taller battery packs to individual vehicles you can use the batterie pack as part of the structure of the vehicle which reduces cost (the batteries don’t change price, but some of the structure of the vehicle is now free...or you can view it as cheaper batteries, but at the end of the day it is a reduction ion the total cost of the vehicle).

Getting to a “standard EV battery pack” is about as likely as internal combustion vehicles standardizing on an engine. Which _has_ sort of happened in that individual manufacturers produce “a few” engines and use them amongst a lot of models, but they rarely sell them to other automotive makers for use in their products. Rarely isn’t never though, it did happen in earlier eras of the internal combustion car. Sometimes you would find Chevy engines in a non-Chevy. Generally only from niche automakers, or sometimes automakers who were tottering close to bankruptcy.

You can also see it with diesel engines in the HGV market, and some of the larger diesel consumer trucks. It is far more the exception then the norm.

With EVs having a unified battery platform for a companies EVs is pretty common, so we are seeing that part of automotive history repeat. I’m sure some EV makers would license a common platform if GM or Tesla or Rivian sold it, but I’m less sure it would be enough volume to make it worth it to do all the work of changing an internal pile of parts and rough specs into what you need for an external product!

 

[Roger 123]

There is not. Battery packs have a large number of tradeoffs. Cost, weigh, physical size, cooling requirements, maximum charge speed, and longevity for example, plus multiple ways to manage individual cells with lower maximum voltages or other borderline issues.

You can make a battery pack where individual cells can be bypassed at specific voltage levels which will dramatically increase the maximum lifetime of a battery pack without impacting the usable power levels by a noticeable amount. However that requires running additional wires to every battery and adding some capacitors and other per cell logic and maybe a bunch of relays. Which is a significant cost impact. Air cooled v liquid cooled v cooling plates all have a significant impact (and they all have an impact on how fast you can precondition the battery pack when it needs to be warmer to fast charge, or even charge at all!)

All of these choices don’t have a clear single best choice. Maybe one brand wants to have a 14 year battery warranty even if it makes the battery pack cost 20% more for “better” cooling and/or disconnecting cells at specific voltage levels. Maybe another wants the cheapest 35kWh it can get inside a mid sized truck frame, even if that means dealing with a very flat voltage curve. Maybe another brand wants super fast charge times so they can do long trips with ease. Maybe another wants to enable week long off road trailer trips and they want the ultimate in storage density even if that impacts price and durability and charge times.

It is hard to serve all that with a “one size fits all” part.

Plus when you taller battery packs to individual vehicles you can use the batterie pack as part of the structure of the vehicle which reduces cost (the batteries don’t change price, but some of the structure of the vehicle is now free...or you can view it as cheaper batteries, but at the end of the day it is a reduction ion the total cost of the vehicle).

Getting to a “standard EV battery pack” is about as likely as internal combustion vehicles standardizing on an engine. Which _has_ sort of happened in that individual manufacturers produce “a few” engines and use them amongst a lot of models, but they rarely sell them to other automotive makers for use in their products. Rarely isn’t never though, it did happen in earlier eras of the internal combustion car. Sometimes you would find Chevy engines in a non-Chevy. Generally only from niche automakers, or sometimes automakers who were tottering close to bankruptcy.

You can also see it with diesel engines in the HGV market, and some of the larger diesel consumer trucks. It is far more the exception then the norm.

With EVs having a unified battery platform for a companies EVs is pretty common, so we are seeing that part of automotive history repeat. I’m sure some EV makers would license a common platform if GM or Tesla or Rivian sold it, but I’m less sure it would be enough volume to make it worth it to do all the work of changing an internal pile of parts and rough specs into what you need for an external product!

My thoughts exactly. Those thinking we're going to have some universal, easily "hot swappable" battery are not understanding the American car market.

 

[theonetruestripes]

My thoughts exactly. Those thinking we're going to have some universal, easily "hot swappable" battery are not understanding the American car market.

I think some day we might have half a dozen for some common sets of tradeoffs, but not anytime soon.

 

[joewilk45]

I think GM does it now with ultima platform. I think each manufacturer can within their models Volvo I think is as well and Chinese brands so within each manufacturer's offering they can have unified platforms

 

[theonetruestripes]

I think GM does it now with ultima platform. I think each manufacturer can within their models Volvo I think is as well and Chinese brands so within each manufacturer's offering they can have unified platforms

Yep, each manufacturer makes at least one battery platform, and customizes it as much as the need for their vehicles.

Rivian used one “platform” for the R1T and R1S, but made changes for the gen2 R1 (the gen2 large pack is a lot smaller then gen1, and gen2 adds a almost entirely different LFP pack...which they discontinued about a year later!)...and the R2 uses a different battery platform, although it is similar to the R1’s platform design wise and the actual batteries are I think the same the cooling may be different and they are a physically smaller pack so it has some real differences.

(then again the regular/large/max packs in the R1 are physically vastly different sizes, they are mostly the same, but some have more batteries and more feet of cooling)

...amd I think GM’s new Bolt is not an Ultimum design, or if it is it has a different battery chemistry from all the other Ultimum designs, it is a LFP.

 

[joewilk45]

It just make sense for manufacturers to have a company standard once they devise their preferred battery chemistry. Making platforms universally compatible among models allowing larger packs if customers desires longer range. And maintance and upgrades become less labor intensive. It won't be national but each manufacturer can have its own battery configuration. Nio shows how easy it can be with their battery swap centers

 

[Mr._Bill]

It just make sense for manufacturers to have a company standard once they devise their preferred battery chemistry. Making platforms universally compatible among models allowing larger packs if customers desires longer range. And maintance and upgrades become less labor intensive. It won't be national but each manufacturer can have its own battery configuration. Nio shows how easy it can be with their battery swap centers

You're not going to see this with US manufacturers. While under warranty, they want to know the history of the battery (and the other components). There won't be any battery swapping offered by the manufacturer.