5 governments, not 5 versions of the same spending
A solid state battery is a battery design still being developed that replaces the liquid inside a normal lithium battery cell with a solid material. Battery makers say the change could let a battery hold more energy and lower the chance of a fire. 5 governments, Japan, the United States, South Korea, the European Union and China, have each announced public money aimed at solid state batteries. None of the 5 have announced the same kind of spending, and the figures are stated in 4 different currencies, yen, dollars, won and euros, with no government stated rate for converting 1 into another. This article does not invent one. It reports each figure on its own terms and compares only what can honestly be compared.
Japan and the United States each fund research, not a factory
In Japan, the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, a public research agency under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, budgeted 1.85 billion yen for fiscal year 2026 alone to evaluate solid state battery materials and chemistry. The programme runs from fiscal year 2023 to fiscal year 2027, and the agency states no total figure for the full 5 year span, only that 1 year. The money pays for laboratory evaluation of materials, not a factory or a shipped product.
In the United States, the Department of Energy announced 16 million dollars in September 2023 for 5 manufacturing projects. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy states the money addresses barriers in both solid state battery manufacturing and a separate technology called flow batteries, moving lab research toward large factory scale production. The agency does not say how the 16 million dollars splits between the 2 technologies, so how much of it is solid state money alone is not known.
South Korea names a government only number inside a bigger plan
In South Korea, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced a Secondary Battery Industry Innovation Strategy in November 2022. The government commits 1 trillion won to research and development by 2030, and names pilot production lines for all solid state batteries as one of the strategy targets. A much bigger figure often attached to this strategy, more than 50 trillion won, mixes that government commitment with private company spending on facilities and mineral supply, and is not a government only number.
Europe and China are the only 2 figures in the same currency
The European Union has approved 2 continent wide battery research packages, worth up to 3.2 billion euros in 2019 and up to 2.9 billion euros in 2021, according to the European Commission own competition policy record. That record states plainly that neither package is described as being about solid state batteries, unlike every other government in this article. China has named a single solid state battery project worth more than 6 billion yuan in 2024, about 766 million euros by the conversion the outlet Electrive reported, shared by 6 companies including CATL and BYD. Lining up the 2 European figures against the converted Chinese figure is the only money comparison in this article that does not require inventing an exchange rate.
The first 2 bars are European Union general battery research funding, not earmarked to solid state batteries specifically, source 4. The third bar is China solid state specific project funding, converted from yuan into euros by the outlet Electrive, not a euro figure the Chinese government itself stated, source 5.
Show the numbers
| European Union first round, 2019 | 3.2 |
| European Union second round, 2021 | 2.9 |
| China solid state project, 2024 | 0.766 |
The 1 comparison that needs no currency at all
Lined up only by the year each government made its commitment, without converting a single currency, the order is Europe first in 2019, South Korea in 2022, Japan and the United States together in 2023, and China last in 2024. That ordering is the 1 finding in this article that figures from all 5 governments support at once.
The 5 years are stated directly by each source, with no currency involved. Europe is source 4. South Korea is source 3. Japan is source 1. The United States is source 2. China is source 5. The bars sit close in height because the 5 years fall within 6 years of each other on a scale that starts at 0. The year printed above each bar and in the table beneath the chart is the number that matters here, not the bar height. This is disclosed rather than hidden, since no chart form on this site supports a scale that starts above 0.
Show the numbers
| Europe | 2019 |
| South Korea | 2022 |
| Japan | 2023 |
| United States | 2023 |
| China | 2024 |