EV Advances to Reach Carbuyers in 4-5 Years
By Najla Zaidi with Tom Kagy | 18 May, 2025

Solid-state batteries, induction charging, charging over airwaves, and even hydrogen fuel-cell EVs are in development and expected to be affordable by 2030.

Transcript below:

Tom Kagy (00:00)

Hello, this is Tom Kagy with Unconventional Wisdom. I'm here today with Najla Zaidi, who is our expert on the advances that we can expect in electric vehicles. Hello, Najla.

Najla Zaidi (00:15)

Hi, Tom, it's a pleasure to talk to you today.

Tom Kagy (00:17)

Yes, it's a pleasure to speak with you. So you have done quite a bit of research on the kind of advances that we can expect in EVs.

Najla Zaidi (00:25)

Yes, there are advances that are actually happening in the present time and in the future.

Tom Kagy (00:31)

Okay, so what is the most significant advance that you see affecting the kind of EVs we can expect in the next few years?

Najla Zaidi (00:39)

In the next few years, we're looking at solid state batteries. That seems to be something that's going to be happening by 2027 in lot of EVs.

Tom Kagy (00:50)

Okay, so what does that mean? mean, what does a solid state battery mean in terms of to the end user?

Najla Zaidi (00:57)

So basically a solid state battery is a battery that instead of using liquid or gel electrolytes in the lithium ion, it's a solid electrolyte. And this is going to make the batteries last much longer, be more efficient, and give a lot of mileage, much more mileage than they are now.

Tom Kagy (01:16)

So what are we talking about in terms of the mileage improvement?

Najla Zaidi (01:19)

It's quite an improvement. The mileage improvement they're saying is going to be up to 200 to 500 miles per hour. Like Lucid Motors is already doing a 500 mile per charge.

Tom Kagy (01:33)

So you're saying that the degree of improvement is 200 to 500 miles more, or are you saying that the total mileage will be 200 to 500 miles?

Najla Zaidi (01:42)

The total mileage will be 200 to 500 miles on one charge and safety factors of they are not blowing up, they're not going to catch on fire, things like that.

Tom Kagy (01:52)

Okay, well as I understand it, we already have cars that are getting ranges of 300 to 450 miles. Does that mean these cars already have solid-state batteries?

Najla Zaidi (02:06)

The solid-state batteries, so far the only ones that is actually using it in 2025 is a high-end Mercedes, but Toyota is bringing it in by around 2027.

Tom Kagy (02:17)

What is the use of solid-state batteries due to the cost?

Najla Zaidi (02:21)

The cost is expensive right now. Normally for the lithium ion it's about $137 per kilowatt and for the solid state batteries the cost is approximately $400 per kilowatt but as technology moves forward it's going to go down and it'll be a significant lowering of price.

Tom Kagy (02:43)

Okay, and so when is there a timeframe when we can expect the cost of solid-state batteries to be at the same level as what we're paying for lithium-ion batteries?

Najla Zaidi (02:54)

Yes, they think that this, you know, according to research that I've done, it looks like it's going to be between 2027 and 2030 is when they're expecting for the cost to go down significantly where we'll be able to, you'll be, you know, in most cars.

Tom Kagy (03:11)

Okay, so it sounds like it's an improvement, we're going to have to wait several years before it's something that's going to be accessible to most consumers. Okay. Are there other advances in EVs other than batteries that should make the experience better for consumers?

Najla Zaidi (03:19)

Right. Yes, like there's a lot of different materials that they're researching now in order to do batteries like besides the solid state batteries, they're doing lithium, iron, phosphate, oxygen, ion, and carbon nanotube electrodes.

Tom Kagy (03:43)

Okay, take each one one at a time. Take us through what advantages are offered by each of these battery chemistries.

Najla Zaidi (03:50)

So the lithium iron phosphate, they're called the LFP. These batteries are gaining traction because they're safer, they're lower cost, and they have a much longer lifespan compared to the traditional lithium ion. And then they have like, they already have a significant market share, especially in cattle like Chinese companies. And then there's sodium ion. Sodium ion is what cattle is actually using since 2021.

And they've already got 18.32 million cars equipped with this battery.

Tom Kagy (04:20)

So what, is there a drawback to either of these chemistries?

Najla Zaidi (04:25)

Not at this point, there's not. mean, even with oxygen ion batteries, as research is going forward, these batteries are becoming even more potential advantages, like they have life long, excuse me, lifespans. And the use of an abundant material is oxygen. We don't have to depend on rare materials to make it. And it's also incombustible.

Tom Kagy (04:45)

Okay, what about the weight factor? I understand that there's some differences in the weight of these types of different battery chemistries. Are these batteries heavier or lighter than the current lithium ion batteries?

Najla Zaidi (05:00)

These batteries right now the whole problem with with EV batteries are the weight. So various companies are working to make things lighter like for example a company called Grafino is developing graphene battery and it's you know it's going to have a 500 mile range and it can recharge in five minutes. But the nice thing is it's a lighter material and same with I think it's the the University of

I think it's Nawa Company in France. They've developed the ultrafast carbon electrode and this is much lighter and the lifespan is much, you know, it's over five times over a current battery.

Tom Kagy (05:39)

What about the cost factor? mean, that's always important.

Najla Zaidi (05:42)

The cost is still expensive at this point, as time goes on and research goes forward, the cost will certainly go down too.

Tom Kagy (05:49)

What kind of timeframe are we looking at for that?

Najla Zaidi (05:52)

We're thinking about around 2030 is when this is going to be more mainstream.

Tom Kagy (05:57)

Okay, so it sounds like these more exotic, more efficient battery technologies aren't really going to be available to most of us until around 2030.

Najla Zaidi (06:06)

Yes, I think right now the most, the closest one will be the solid electrolyte batteries, the various versions of them.

Tom Kagy (06:13)

Okay, and you said that was 2028 to 2030?

Najla Zaidi (06:15)

2027 to 2030.

Tom Kagy (06:17)

Right, and for the cost to become affordable.

Najla Zaidi (06:21)

Right, for the cost to become affordable. Because right now they're four to eight times more expensive than the current battery.

Tom Kagy (06:26)

Okay, now if cattle, the Chinese companies using lithium iron phosphate, what you call LFP batteries and sodium ion batteries, why aren't other companies using it? In other words, if they have the advantage of being safer and longer lasting, why aren't they being used by companies like GM and Tesla and so forth?

Najla Zaidi (06:48)

Right now, like all these various companies like Mercedes, Hyundai, Volvo, they're working together with various researchers on different ways. Everyone is trying to form their own battery. And Cattle's founder, Robin Zangs, has used sodium ion most because he thinks it's going to replace half of the market. But other companies are doing research on various ways. So everyone's trying to find a solid state material that works better than the next.

Tom Kagy (07:16)

Okay, so you're saying there's a of a division of opinion as to what chemistries will have the best long-term potential.

Najla Zaidi (07:23)

Yes, and everyone's doing their own research.

Tom Kagy (07:26)

Okay, now what about charging times and charging technologies? Can we expect anything to significantly improve that?

Najla Zaidi (07:35)

All the companies are working on charging technologies. According to Dr. Fang at Michigan State University, she's working on a lithium metal battery, and she calls it the holy grail. And she says it's because it can provide the highest possible energy density and double that of the ion batteries. Plus, it gives the most mileage, and the charge lasts a lot longer. But then also research at

The University of California Riverside are working on battery technology that uses sand. And they're saying that this will be three times better performance than the current graphite-based lithium-ion battery. So.

Tom Kagy (08:14)

When you say sand, you're talking about they're using silicon?

Najla Zaidi (08:17)

Yes, pure silicone.

Tom Kagy (08:19)

with no exotic chemicals or metals.

Najla Zaidi (08:22)

No, and even there's another company like I am, I love this, IBM is working with Mercedes-Benz and they've discovered a new battery chemistry that's free of heavy metals and it can outperform the lithium ion and materials are extracted from seawater. So these, they're much cheaper, they charge way faster than anything else and it's easy, it's seawater.

Tom Kagy (08:45)

and they have similar ranges.

Najla Zaidi (08:47)

Yes, they have similar ranges. In fact, they're believing it's going to be even better ranges.

Tom Kagy (08:51)

What about the cost?

Najla Zaidi (08:53)

I was not able to find anything on cost. They're not releasing that. But they're saying that because it's so much cheaper to make, the cost should be much less than the future.

Tom Kagy (09:03)

Okay, so what kind of time frame are we looking at for these types of batteries?

Najla Zaidi (09:07)

These are again probably 2030.

Tom Kagy (09:09)

Okay. In addition to the charging, wait, one thing I forgot to ask you is you mentioned this sort nano-graphene technology that can charge quickly and hold the charge longer and have greater power densities. What is the timeframe for that?

Najla Zaidi (09:22)

Yes. That one is the company working on that is Nawa in France. Now, initially they said that they would be able to have this ready for release in 2023, but now they're saying it's going to be released in 2025. And in fact, they're going to show this technology, I believe this month at the Paris Air Show. So.

Tom Kagy (09:50)

Okay, so I assume that that's kind of at the prototype stage,

Najla Zaidi (09:54)

Yes, it's at the prototype type stage, but they're looking at between 2027 and 2030 to be able to use these, you know, for mass production. Like, well, actually, they're talking about mass production now in 2025 to start it.

Tom Kagy (10:09)

Okay, what about the cost for those?

Najla Zaidi (10:11)

They've not revealed anything on the cost.

Tom Kagy (10:13)

Okay, so that could be a potential complicating factor, I guess. Okay, now in terms of charging the batteries, know, I mean, typically we have to get out of the car, you know, and plug in the charger and go through a bit of a rigmarole each time we want to charge. Are there any technologies that can save us, spare us from that type of inconvenience?

Najla Zaidi (10:18)

Yes. All right.

Well, WiTricity is a company in Massachusetts and they've come up with this basically it's a charging platform that you can just put in your house and it's a wireless platform. It's they are using magnetic resonance works like they create kind of a wireless transfer of energy between the car and the platform. And so this is the first thing coming out. But of course, it's very expensive.

Tom Kagy (11:01)

Okay, and how fast does that type of, sounds like some sort of induction, right? Induction.

Najla Zaidi (11:05)

Right, yes, it's magnetic resonance and it's an induction kind of wireless charger. And it's already in the market now, but it ranges from $1,500 to several thousand dollars because they're still working on it. But other companies like BMW and Toyota are also looking at this kind of thing.

Tom Kagy (11:11)

Okay. What about the charging times with these induction plates? What kind of time frame are we looking at to charge up a typical EV?

Najla Zaidi (11:34)

Right now it's the same as plugging it in like a level two charger. Yes, five to 10 hours. But they are working on trying to make it faster.

Tom Kagy (11:39)

Okay, so five to ten hours depending on your battery.

Okay, so I take it that this will never be practical as a roadside charging station.

Najla Zaidi (11:51)

No, not for long term driving because they may eventually be able to put plates in roads or like at the side of a road. But at this point, we're not there yet. Like it's just we would have to spend so much money in infrastructure, which we just are not there yet. But it would be good for like a home or an office.

Tom Kagy (12:09)

Okay. Now I understand you had discovered some exotic ways of potentially charging EVs in the future.

Najla Zaidi (12:18)

Yes, like there's some really interesting technologies on the horizon. You could be, you know, it's still a ways off. A research have developed a radio wave harvesting antenna where you could, you know, charge your car basically by just radio wave. And then we also have an ultrasound charging. A company called U-Beam is turning its power into sound waves so that you could be, you know, beamed to your your EV and then turn back into power.

And they're already experimenting on this with smartphones and laptops.

Tom Kagy (12:49)

Okay, so are these charging methods something that would require you to have your car be stationary or are these things that are going to be charging your car while you're driving all over the place?

Najla Zaidi (13:01)

While you're driving all over the places, it's like you would have access to wherever you have access to Wi-Fi and, you know, the air bear basically, they're going to transmit their, like, especially for U-beam company, they're transmitting the rechargeable power over the air through ultrasound. So you can go anywhere. And then also, you know, in terms of fast charging, this company called StoreDot, which is, out of, it was a nanotech department at Tel Aviv University.

They've already built a battery that uses biological semiconductors and they're building it now for EVs and they would be able to charge in five minutes. You would have an estimate range of 300 miles and be done in five minutes. And right now they can charge a cell phone in 60 seconds.

Tom Kagy (13:48)

Okay, wait, I'm not sure I understand. these batteries contain some sort of biological material.

Najla Zaidi (13:54)

Yes, what they're doing is they're using an organic peptide compound, which are basically the building blocks of proteins. So this results in a charger that can recharge your smartphone in 60 seconds. And now, of course, they're working on EV batteries where you'll be able to charge in five minutes and have a range of about 300 miles. And it's completely organic. It's non-flammable, and it's absolutely safe.

Tom Kagy (14:17)

So essentially, are they refueling this biological material into your battery? it kind of like putting gasoline into your car?

Najla Zaidi (14:27)

They've not specified that, but I believe that's how the technology would work.

Tom Kagy (14:31)

Okay, now just getting back to the ultrasound charging, which sounds almost fantastic. Now, how would, would they have to build sort of charging towers along roadways in order to, for that to work?

Najla Zaidi (14:45)

Well, the way that they're there, it's still a ways off right now, but the researchers have developed a radio wave that it's basically harvesting in a tunnel that's it's only several atoms thick and it can be used to recharge future EVs over electromagnetic waves. So that's what they're basically focusing on is electromagnetic waves.

Tom Kagy (15:04)

So you're saying that the cars would be coated with this thin charging surface that would receive these waves.

Najla Zaidi (15:09)

Right. You would have basically an antenna that would be searching for the electromagnetic waves. And that would be down like an AC power would be downloaded from Wi-Fi and converted to DC power to recharge your battery.

Tom Kagy (15:25)

Okay, so you would have to, I assume you would have to coat a fairly large surface area on your car.

Najla Zaidi (15:31)

Right, I think that that's the way that it would work.

Tom Kagy (15:34)

Okay. Now, one of the alternative EV technologies that, you know, back a decade ago was considered maybe even the front runner was the hydrogen fuel cell. And in fact, I recall that Toyota was kind of turning its nose up at the whole idea of lithium ion batteries because it was focused more on the fuel cell. And I know that GM also

Najla Zaidi (15:45)

Right.

Tom Kagy (15:58)

had developed a fuel cell vehicle. What's happened? Suddenly we're not hearing much about these hydrogen fuel cell cars.

Najla Zaidi (16:05)

They're not a dead end. They're definitely a viable option, but they're just off in the future. Like according to Argonne National Laboratory, we're going to be, you know, they'll be on par with the solid state batteries by around 2030. But there's just so much right now that we need to do in terms of production is a lot slower due to cost. The cost barrier is really high of hydrogen production. And then there's also the

There's just not availability. There's not that many fuel cell cars right now, and there's no availability to be able to charge them as you're driving down the road. There's not that many charging stations.

Tom Kagy (16:43)

Okay, so, but there is no, there has not been a final determination that they're not gonna be up to par with solid state batteries.

Najla Zaidi (16:51)

No,

not yet. Like they're just saying that right now it's the cost is higher and it's inefficient. So car makers are thinking of it at this point is a bad investment because there's no refueling stations. It's really expensive. And efficiency wise, EV batteries are at 90 percent at this point, but the hydrogen cells are only around 35 percent. So we still need to do a lot of research on it, but they should be on par around 2030.

Tom Kagy (17:18)

Okay, sounds like basically EV owners can look forward to some exciting breakthroughs in the four to five year time frame then.

Najla Zaidi (17:26)

Yes, absolutely. And with the breakthroughs, it's great for the environment. this is going to create jobs. It's good for the environment. And I think that once we have these new breakthroughs, it's going to be more people who actually want to buy these cars.

Tom Kagy (17:41)

Right. Okay, well, this has been very informative for EV owners and prospective EV owners. Thank you very much, Najla.

Najla Zaidi (17:49)

Thank you, Tom. It was so great to talk to you about EV cars, and let's look to the future.

Tom Kagy (17:54)

Yes, thank you. It's my pleasure.