Mercedes-Benz CTO Markus Schäfer claimed this week at CES that solid-state battery technology may not even be necessary in developing next-generation electric vehicle (EV) batteries due to unexpected developments in traditional batteries. Schäfer believes that the improvements in the quality and functionality of existing batteries is on track to render solid-state batteries redundant, especially as solid-state batteries seem to be following the roadmap trend of autonomous driving – forever being 5 years away from mass-commercialization. While we understand the pessimism in predicting the mass commercialization of solid-state batteries, particularly with QuantumScape’s recent setback, we are still seeing developments from key players developing working prototypes, which is still pretty good evidence that the industry is finally approaching commercialization. This is especially…