Will they be a conflagration risk?

Eoin Treacy's view

Thank you for this question, which was in reference to the announcement CATL is prototyping a battery capable of powering airplanes. The fire risk from lithium batteries comes from the liquid catalyst. Since solid state batteries do not have a liquid electrolyte they are inherently safer. The new CATL battery is not exactly a solid state battery so it is impossible to know at this stage what the fire risk is.