VW is talking to Blue Solutions about bringing its solid-state batteries to cars

Solid-state car batteries are like the Apple Car - constantly around the corner, never actually materializing with their promised longer ranges and shorter charging times. So far, at least. But, that is definitely not stopping car makers from investing in them, and today a new report says VW is in talks with Blue Solutions, a unit of the French conglomerate Bollore, for - you guessed it - some solid-state battery love.

For what it's worth, Blue Solutions apparently already produces solid-state batteries for Daimler electric buses. VW and Blue Solutions are currently in the early stages of talks, it seems, aiming to reach a joint development agreement in the coming months. The idea is to adapt the solid-state tech from buses to cars.

This isn't VW's first move relating to solid-state batteries. It's already invested $300 million in QuantumScape, an American company that's also developing solid-state batteries for cars. The talks with Blue solutions seem to be all about VW widening its options in the field, and hedging its bets.

Blue Solutions was already working on a solid-state battery for cars before it was approached by VW, and it's already signed development deals with BMW and one other unnamed company. This car battery would charge in 20 minutes according to Blue Solutions' spokesperson, who didn't elaborate any further on its capacity or what charge levels that would work with - is it 0 to 100% in 20 minutes, or 10 to 80%, that sort of thing.

Anyway, that's twice the projected charging time of Toyota's much-hyped solid-state battery tech, although at this point both of these numbers are just used for marketing since there are no real world tests.

Of course, all the big EV battery makers have plans of their own to develop solid-state tech, while Nio now has the world's first "semi-solid-state" battery. It does seem like we are slowly getting there, to the promised land, but the voyage is proving to take much longer than anyone initially anticipated.

Via