Solid-state battery: Nissan aims for double range with new cells

The Japanese newspaper Nikkei reports that Nissan has developed prototypes of solid-state battery cells that meet the company’s performance targets for market launch. The results now need to be stabilised and scaled. Nikkei does not provide exact performance data for the cells. The report only mentions double the energy storage per unit of volume compared with the current generation, resulting in doubled range and higher charging power.

Nissan is generally expected to commercialise solid-state batteries in the 2028 fiscal year (1 April 2028 to 31 March 2029). This aligns with Nissan’s roadmap published in spring 2024, which scheduled the start of series production for 2029. Pre-series units were planned to roll off a pilot line in Yokohama from 2025. That pilot line has been operational since January. The prototypes described by Nikkei are likely part of these first solid-state cells.

The company also officially announced in spring 2024 that, from the 2028 fiscal year, 100 workers per shift would operate in Yokohama to increase production to 100 MWh per year. Nissan also stated at the time that it plans to use solid-state batteries in “a variety of vehicle segments, including pickups, to make its electric vehicles more competitive.”

Research on solid-state batteries is highly significant in Japan. It is seen as a technological leap and a guarantee of future competitiveness in the battery sector, where traditionally strong Japanese players have lost ground in recent years. Alongside Toyota and Honda, Nissan has been working on solid electrolyte cell technology for several years. When the Yokohama pilot line was announced in 2022, it was scheduled to start in 2024, with series production beginning in 2028 – in both cases, the timeline appears to have shifted by about a year.

In August 2025, Nissan introduced production specialist LiCAP as a partner for new dry electrode manufacturing processes, which are intended to enable large-scale production of solid-state batteries. Nikkei cites the US partner’s technology as decisive in allowing Nissan to meet its performance targets with the latest prototype cells. However, significant work remains: “LiCAP has only limited experience with large-scale production lines,” Nikkei reports. Commercialisation will require the ability to produce high-quality electrodes quickly and reliably.

Nikkei also reports that Nissan aims for a price of just $75 per kilowatt hour for its solid-state batteries, around 30 per cent below the global average battery pack price in 2024.

asia.nikkei.com (paywall)

This article was first published by Cora Werwitzke for electrive’s German edition.