The story of battery electric vehicles and the entire supply chain ecosystem surrounding them, from raw materials to dealerships, has been filled with twists and surprises in 2025, but what has become clear is that they are the future hurtling towards the present.

Whilst Porsche recently reigned in their battery production ambitions, their parent company Volkswagen have unveiled an electric motorcycle with a solid state battery alongside a wave of additional developments and commitments to develop higher capacity and more capable batteries.

On the subject of solid state batteries, whilst a Mercedes-Benz EQS also set a new distance record for a solid state car, it only matched the overall record.

To find out why, it is important to explore how each record was set and the rather bold claims that have been made by all of the companies involved.

A New Electric Vision

There have been distance records for electric cars for as long as there have been electric motors, but there have long been controversies and debates surrounding these attempts.

There have been debates regarding whether the journey needs to take place on a track or on the road, as well as issues surrounding the eligibility of particular vehicles.

Up until 2025, there were two main records to consider; there was the Mercedes Vision EQXX concept car’s unofficial record of 1,202 kilometres (746 miles) in 2022 and the Ford Mustang Mach-E record verified by Guinness World Records of 916.74 km (569.64 miles).

Both were impressive, particularly as the average range of EVs on the roads today is around half that, but as they both relied on custom equipment, they remained an aspiration for where EV motoring could go.

This began to change over the summer of 2025, as two production cars vied for the world record.

The Quest For A Thousand Kilometres

During a time when EVs were getting faster, more popular and more practical, a lot of records began to be smashed at roughly the same time. However, one of the most intriguing was the quest to beat the Webfleet-sponsored attempt by the Ford Mustang Mach-E.

The first attempt, as reported by Business Wire, was undertaken at the start of July by a team from the Japanese car magazine Car Graphic and their website webCG.

Car journalist Masamichi Ishii, an economy driving instructor, travelled from Fukuoka Airport and drove a stock Japanese domestic market (JDM), which had a rated maximum range of 749km, and according to webCG’s article (Japanese-only) on the attempt, initially displayed a capacity of 882km.

Mr Ishii reached a record of 1045km (649 miles), noting that, unlike other economy drives he had attempted, it did not require specialist skill to achieve, was achieved on a route that had several traffic jams and steep uphill slopes, and was achieved in real-world conditions without controlling traffic flows or driving excessively slowly.

This opened the floodgates, and by the end of the summer, two official attempts would emerge.

Lucid Dream

Eight days after Mr Ishii’s record-breaking attempt, an official attempt by American EV manufacturer Lucid managed to shatter the world record.

The Lucid Air Grand Touring is a long-range specification model of the Lucid Air saloon car, with a stated Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) of 960 km (596 miles), 53 miles under the world record in a car that outperformed its maximum rating by nearly 300 miles.

Interestingly, the chosen route was neither in the United States nor necessarily designed to minimise wear, traffic or uphill sections, travelling from St Moritz in Switzerland and Munich, Germany.

However, whilst it was not free of uphill sections, it did benefit from gravity and from choosing a cruising route that would allow the car to remain at an optimum speed for hypermiling.

The record was 160km higher than Mr Ishii’s world record, but even with the large gulf, it was not expected to remain alone for long.

The Solid State Difference

Technically, Lucid still holds the record, but it has been tied by an official record attempt in a Mercedes EQS using a solid-state battery on a route from Stuttgart in Germany to Malmo in Sweden.

Unlike the Lucid record, which relied on mountain roads and cruising speeds, the EQS was driving on European highways, which would be far more suitable roads for testing real-world long-distance grand touring conditions.

What makes this achievement somewhat controversial is that Mercedes claimed that the car still had an estimated range of 137km, but stopped at the exact same record as the Lucid.

It is undoubtedly the case that the distance race is far from over for EVs, and the result will lead to electric cars that can travel further than ever before.