BYD says it will have a solid-state car next year, the earliest date anyone has given

BYD executive vice-president Stella Li says the company will have one model with solid-state batteries next year, which is the earliest date any carmaker has given. Toyota says 2027 or 2028, Mercedes and Honda closer to 2030, and LG Energy Solution puts solid-state in electric cars roughly a decade away.

BYD will have one model with solid-state batteries next year, executive vice-president Stella Li told an interviewer, InsideEVs reported. BYD is in the leading position on the technology, she said. She did not name the model or say whether it will be sold or demonstrated.

That is the earliest date anyone has given.

Toyota is aiming at 2027 or 2028. Honda and Mercedes both say closer to 2030. LG Energy Solution’s North America president said in August that solid-state will reach phones about a decade before electric cars, because large formats are where manufacturers struggle.

Nobody has shipped one.

The forecasts now span nine years for a technology that no carmaker currently sells in any market. BYD’s is the earliest and arrives with the least attached to it, with no model named, no volume given and no confirmation that it is a car anyone can buy. Toyota has been working on the technology for at least two decades.

Europe’s carmakers went a third way.

Mercedes and Volkswagen’s PowerCo both hold joint development agreements with the American company Factorial Energy, which is assembling a supplier coalition. Mercedes ran a modified EQS 1,200 km on its cells last September and is an investor as well as a test partner. Factorial’s first commercial shipment is due in a Karma in 2028.

The European plant is Taiwanese.

ProLogium is building at Dunkirk with French subsidy, planned at 0.8 GWh in 2028 and 12 GWh by 2032. Its existing line in Taiwan produces about 6,000 packs a year. It is the only company mass-producing all-solid cells anywhere in Europe’s plans.

The sourcing here is thin.

Li made the remark in a video interview with a car website. CarNewsChina reports the car will be a Yangwang flagship saloon positioned against Rolls-Royce, citing unnamed Chinese sources and a design account on Weibo. BYD has confirmed none of it.

Cost is the part nobody disputes.

Hyundai’s research chief said last week that he does not believe the raw material cost problem can be solved within five years. Every forecast in the industry puts the technology in expensive cars first. A Rolls-Royce rival would fit that pattern exactly.