An electric car with a range of 500 metres

Toyota began working closely on solid-state batteries for electric cars in 2017, with the hope of commercialising the technology on mainstream cars in the 2020s. Apparently, the development is already close to the final stage, as the Japanese company's first electric car using a solid-state battery is promised as early as next year.

This follows a Nikkei Asia report cited by the source. With a fully-charged battery, the car will be able to drive 500 km and will take just 10 minutes to charge. But there's a catch: we're still only talking about a prototype. It usually takes about a year or two from the premiere of a prototype to the serial implementation of a development in the automotive industry, but in the case of an electric car equipped with an advanced traction battery, this period could be even longer.

Solid state traction batteries have many advantages over conventional batteries, but they are much more expensive to produce. They are not expected to appear on a mass scale in electric vehicles until around 2025, or even later. If Toyota manages to get such a car into production earlier (e.g. in 2023), the company will have a big trump up its sleeve. But for now, it's too early to tell we have to wait for the announcement of the new car.