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

The major Japanese automaker and the US 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 the city of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo.

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.

Meanwhile, many issues need to be cleared for mass production. 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 for a practical use of all-solid-state batteries for hybrid vehicles in the first half of the 2020s. Honda Motor Co. is also working to develop all-solid-state batteries.

JIJI Press