China and South Korea Tailgating in Commercialization behind Japan’s Subsidy of Over US$660 Million for All-Solid-State Batteries in 2024, Says TrendForce

According to TrendForce’s latest “Development Trends of Solid-State Battery Market (2025)”, the Japanese government aims to achieve commercialization in all-solid-state batteries (ASSB) by about 2030 and has been expanding corresponding R&D funds over recent years. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) announced the “Battery Supply Assurance Program” in 2024 and approved a total of four major R&D projects on ASSB by the end of the year, with a maximum subsidy of roughly US$660 million. Japan has placed high hopes on ASSB, which is superior in performance over traditional liquid lithium batteries and could potentially enter commercialization. 

TrendForce commented that Japan, which first achieved commercialization of liquid lithium batteries in the world and once accounted for more than 90% of the global market share, managed to sit on more than 50% of the market share for automotive batteries by 2015. That being said, Japanese manufacturers have been gradually overtaken by Chinese and South Korean counterparts amidst the expeditious expansions of the automotive and energy storage battery markets in recent years, and now account for less than 6% of the market share for automotive lithium batteries. 

Japan hopes to regain its market dominance through the next-gen battery technology. METI announced the “Battery Supply Assurance Program” in March 2024, which would see a subsidy of US$2.24 billion for the cultivation of the local EV industry chain, as well as ASSB technology. According to statistics, METI approved a total of four R&D projects in 2024, including that of Toyota, Idemitsu, Mitsui Kinzoku, and TK Works, to support R&D on ASSB-related materials and breakthroughs on production technology. 

TrendForce pointed out that Japan possesses the most ASSB-related patents in the world and has been steadily establishing a supply chain over recent years in the hope of realizing mass production. However, China, South Korea, Europe, and the US are also engaged in active development for this new technology, which would gradually intensify the competition of commercialization for ASSB. Japanese manufacturers are likely to first adopt ASSB in EVs attributed to their technical advantages, though observations show that they are merely leading Chinese and South Korean counterparts by a small margin pertaining to commercialization. It will remain quite a challenging task for Japan to stabilize its leading position in the ASSB market in the long term. 

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