One of the key issues to the proliferation of electric vehicles and self-driving cars is the development of longer-lasting, more efficient batteries so these vehicles can drive longer, requiring fewer stops at recharging stations.

These efforts to develop a better battery to replace current ubiquitous lithium-ion batteries have been in development in the academic community for years with recent research into sodium-ion batteries, a fluorine-based battery, aluminum batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries and even better versions of lithium-ion batteries.

Colorado startup Solid Power believes the future of electric cars resides in a solid state battery that provides substantially higher energy than conventional lithium-ion while reducing system cost. Advantages of solid state batteries include two to three times the energy of lithium-ion batteries, higher safety levels because it eliminates the volatile, flammable and corrosive liquid electrolyte used in lithium-ion and high manufacturability due to compatibility with automated roll-to-roll production.

Solid Power also is working on low-cost battery pack designs by minimizing of safety features, eliminating pack cooling and simplifying cell, module and pack designs by getting rid of the liquid containment.

The company has recently raised $20 million in series A funding from investors Hyundai Cradle, Samsung Venture Investment Corp., Sanoh Industrial Co., Solvay Ventures and A123 Systems.

The funding will allow Solid Power to scale-up production via a multi-megawatt hour, roll-to-roll facility that will be constructed and installed by the end of 2018 and operational in 2019. The facility will be used for preliminary qualification of the company’s solid-state cells for multiple markets such as automotive, aerospace and defense. Ultimately, the company said it plans on these batteries eventually replacing mobile device power supplies.

In addition to Hyundai joining the investment into the solid state batteries, last year BMW Group formed a partnership with Solid Power to further advance the technology for its future electric vehicles.

To contact the author of this article, email pbrown@globalspec.com