- SK On says solid-state cells can give industrial robots the 8+ hour runtime of a human shift, but adoption may be another story
- While upcoming solid-state batteries increase productivity through longer run times and lower total operating costs, they are prohibitively more expensive than some of their lithium-ion peers
- Modern Li-on-based batteries are less than 2% of a robot’s manufacturing cost today, and solid-state would push that share to around 8%, a premium that could come with serious compromises for manufacturers
Modern robotics is a field that continues to grow over time, driven by a mix of smarter AI, manufacturing efficiencies and sometimes better materials that change what’s possible on Earth.
However, the robots currently in use in factories and warehouses have an important limitation that has not yet been properly addressed: Lithium-ion batteries often cannot keep up with the power requirements of modern robots.
This is particularly reflected in how often they require a battery change or a recharge: most lithium-ion-powered robots typically run for one to two hours on a charge, far from the industry’s ambitions for machines that can work a full eight-hour shift.
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 provide meaningful value for industrial robots that need extended operating hours.
He also explained that whether manufacturers actually adopt them will come down to total cost of ownership (TCO), weighed against two cheaper rival approaches: battery swapping and ultra-fast charging.
The TCO framework implies that solid-state batteries, the battery industry’s most hyped next-generation technology and inherently expensive to start up, can attract industrial buyers simply because the math works in their favor over conventional Li-ion setups.
This is because one must factor in the cost of keeping spare battery packs, charge and/or swap times, and potentially additional robots to cover the resulting downtime, which can leave solid-state with a lower TCO than the competition despite the higher sticker price.
The framing may also be inevitable given how batteries sit in a robot’s BOM today. A Li-ion battery accounts for less than 2% of the total cost of an industrial robot, according to SK On, 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 jump in total cost.
For context, a widespread teardown of Tesla’s Optimus Gen 2 battery pack puts it at about $300 in a hardware cost structure of about $55,000, about 0.5% of the bill of materials, comfortably below 2%, though devices with larger packs or lower total costs would land higher, and some independent estimates at 5-0% of batteries, including McKinsey estimates of 5-0%. humanoid BOM.
Solid state cells, with their higher energy density, are one of the most promising paths for a robot that works on a human shift without stopping, but given their relatively high cost compared to the competition, one can understand why SK On aims this pitch at robotics and industrial players 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 better economic answer, but for customers willing and able to pay for more sustained power, solid-state appears to be the new game, although still elusive for commercial EVs given their cost.
SK On has skin in this game on a specific timeline. The company completed its all-solid-state pilot plant at its Future Technology Institute in Daejeon last September, built in partnership with American solid-electrolyte company Solid Power.
It is developing two chemistries: a polymer-oxide composite cell targeted for commercialization in 2028 and a sulfide-based cell in 2029, a timeline it has already accelerated by a year. But it has competition ahead: Rival Samsung SDI, working with the same US partner, is aiming for 2027.
Whether this leads to widespread adoption of technology expected to appear only in the most expensive EVs on the market this decade remains to be seen, but the TCO argument Ko may make more easily with industrial customers than with EV consumers, for whom prices and budgets are key factors.
Via ELEC
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