Nissan to cooperate with NASA on next-generation batteries

Jiji Press

17:56 JST, April 11, 2022

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Nissan Motor Co. has announced a tie-up with NASA on the development of all-solid-state batteries for electric vehicles.

The major automaker and the U.S. space agency will work on joint research on materials that will help improve the performance of the next-generation batteries. Nissan hopes to put the batteries into practical use in fiscal 2028.

On Friday, the company showed to the media online a prototype production line set up at the Nissan Research Center in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

All-solid-state batteries have an energy density about twice that of conventional lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and could be smaller, according to Nissan.

Even an electric vehicle equipped with a small all-solid-state battery would be able to travel a distance twice that of a vehicle with a conventional battery, while the battery charging time could be reduced to a third. Many issues need to be cleared for mass production of the envisaged batteries.

The joint research by Nissan and NASA will cover, among other things, the selection of materials for electrodes, which determine the performance of batteries.

Among other Japanese automakers, Toyota Motor Corp. is aiming to put all-solid-state batteries for hybrid vehicles into practical use in the first half of the 2020s. Honda Motor Co. is also working to develop all-solid-state batteries.