Supplier Schaeffler Becomes a Toyota Rival for Solid-State Batteries

• At the upcoming CES 2024, supplier Schaeffler Americas will display a “next-generation” all-solid-state EV battery.
  

• Solid-state advantages include 40% better energy density than existing battery technologies, as well as much longer range, and no need for rare materials like cobalt to be mined in China or The Congo.

• A Schaeffler executive says the supplier already has a customer for its solid-state technology, but he declined to name the automaker.

A well-established supplier, little known to most enthusiasts, is in the running to become a pioneer in solid-state battery EV technology. Schaeffler Group, founded in Germany in 1946, is known to the auto industry—which constitutes 60% of its business—primarily for bearings.

It returns to CES in January after a four-year absence to show a new electric beam axle for pickup trucks and a new rear-steering system. The company wants 45% of its manufacturing output in 2030 to be products that did not exist in 2020.

But the prototype Schaeffler Americas will show at CES 2024 that caught our attention is what its chief technology officer, Jeff Hemphill, described as a “next-generation” all-solid-state EV battery.

The OEM that appears to be the most active in solid-state development is Toyota, the hybrid pioneer considered behind the competition in battery-electric vehicles. But others are working on solid-state batteries as well, including Honda, Nissan, Ford, BMW, Volkswagen, and Mercedes-Benz.

For more detail on the Tier 1 supplier’s solid-state work, we spoke with Rashid Farahati, director of engineering for Schaeffler Americas. Schaeffler’s solid-state battery at CES is made with prototype parts encased in a pack built by another company that specializes in making small samples on the lab scale. It’s installed in a show vehicle, Farahati said.

“We have manufacturing skill and we have (parts) coating skill,” Farahati said, so the company will not even dabble in lithium-ion. “Solid-state, electrolyte, is best for Schaeffler.”

Despite speculation that Honda, a close partner of Schaeffler, will have a mainstream model solid-state EV on the market next year, Farahati says Schaeffler’s solid-state battery won’t be production ready until late in this decade.