- SK It is claimed that solid-state cells can give industrial robots the autonomy of more than 8 hours of human labor, but their adoption could be another story.
- Although future solid-state batteries improve productivity through longer run times and lower overall operating costs, they are much more expensive than some of their lithium-ion counterparts.
- Modern lithium-ion batteries now account for less than 2% of the cost of manufacturing a robot, and solid-state batteries would increase that share to around 8%, a premium that could lead to serious compromises for manufacturers.
Modern robotics is a field that continues to grow over time, fueled by a mix of smarter AI, manufacturing efficiencies, and sometimes better materials that change what’s possible in the field.
Robots currently used in factories and warehouses, however, have a key limitation that has yet to be properly addressed: lithium-ion batteries often cannot meet the power demands of modern robots.
This is particularly reflected in how often they require a battery change or recharge: most lithium-ion-powered robots typically run for one to two hours on a charge, a far cry from the industry’s ambitions for machines capable of working for a full eight hours.
An expensive solution to a robot’s current battery limits
Speaking at the 2nd Battery Foundry Forum in Seoul on July 15, 2026, Ko Young-seok, executive vice president and head of product planning at Korean battery maker SK On, argued that solid-state cells can bring significant value to industrial robots that need extended battery life.
He also explained that whether manufacturers would actually adopt them would depend on total cost of ownership (TCO), compared to two cheaper competing approaches: battery swapping and ultra-fast charging.
The TCO framing implies that solid-state batteries, the battery industry’s hottest next-generation technology and inherently expensive to start, could attract industrial buyers simply because the math works in their favor over conventional Li-ion configurations.
Indeed, one must factor in the cost of maintaining spare batteries, charging and/or swap times, and potentially additional robots to cover the resulting downtime, which could leave a semiconductor with a lower TCO than the competition despite the higher sticker price.
Framing may also be inevitable given how batteries figure in a robot’s nomenclature today. According to SK On, a Li-ion battery represents less than 2% of the total cost of an industrial robot, which is essentially a rounding error in the grand scheme of things, but switching to a solid-state battery could push that share to around 8%, a significant increase in overall costs.
For context, a widely publicized teardown of Tesla’s Optimus Gen 2 puts the battery at around $300 in a hardware cost structure of around $55,000, or about 0.5% of the BOM, comfortably below 2%, although units with larger packs or lower overall costs would land higher, and some independent estimates, including those from McKinsey, place the battery modules at 5 to 10% off. the nomenclature of a humanoid.
Solid-state cells, with their higher energy density, represent one of the most promising paths to a robot capable of performing human work without stopping, but given their relatively high cost compared to the competition, it’s understandable why SK On is targeting players in robotics and industry who need the technology and can afford to pay for it.
For applications with short duty cycles, swapping out a cheap lithium-ion pack or fast charging between tasks may simply remain the best economical solution, but for customers willing and able to pay for more sustained power, solid-state appears to be the new solution, even if it remains elusive for commercial electric vehicles given its cost.
SK We have a skin in this game on a specific timeline. The company completed its all-solid state pilot plant at the Future Technology Institute in Daejeon last September, built in partnership with U.S. solid electrolyte company Solid Power.
It is developing two chemical products: a polymer-oxide composite cell scheduled for commercialization in 2028 and a sulfide-based cell in 2029, a timeline it has already accelerated by a year. But competition awaits: its rival Samsung SDI, which works with the same American partner, is targeting 2027.
It remains to be seen whether this will lead to widespread adoption of a technology expected to appear only in the most expensive electric vehicles on the market this decade, but the total cost of ownership argument Ko makes could stick more easily with industrial customers than with mainstream EV buyers, for whom prices and budgets are key factors.
Via The LEC
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