Mercedes EQG will have longer range thanks to Silicon Anode battery

18 May 2022

Don’t expect the Mercedes-Benz EQG to turn up at your local showroom any time soon. Although it was unveiled last year in September, there are no plans for it to be manufactured before 2024. There is a good side to the waiting though, as it will enable the EQG to become the very first Mercedes-Benz car with a battery that uses the silicon anode chemistry.

This technology is gaining mainstream momentum, with Volvo investing in StoreDot and its fast charging high density cells, Mercedes-Benz is pushing development in the same direction.

Battery cells are reaching limits of their physical size, we cannot keep making them bigger and heavier batteries as it makes little financial sense. Manufacturers are working at increasing the density of batteries thus putting more energy in the same size of packaging. The silicon anode is one of those promising technologies, with recent advancements promising as much as 40% increase in energy density with more than 800Wh/l at the cell level - for comparison the EQXX concept that reached 1,000 km range on single charge has energy density of 400Wh/l.

Tesla S Plaid's battery density is 416Wh/l so a smidgen higher than EQXX. StoreDot batteries are currently capable of 680Wh/l and the first generation solid state batteries come at 800Wh/l. It doesn’t mean Mercedes is not making great progress, it only means that it's not alone in this.

The EQG is planned for production in 2024 with the silicon anode battery coming as an option about a year later. That battery will be manufactured by Sila, a California-based company specializing in next generation lithium-ion batteries.

The G-Class of the future will need all the help it can get to have a decent range, after all its shape hasn’t changed for 43 years and it wasn't designed with aerodynamics in mind to begin with. And it probably will be the least aerodynamic EV car in the world when it launches in 2024.

Source