The world’s largest EV battery maker is advancing a new type of battery, promising higher energy density. According to a new local report, CATL is investing heavily while ramping up its workforce to bring all-solid-state EV batteries to market.
With trial production reportedly kicking off, we could see CATL launch all-solid-state EV batteries sooner than expected.
According to a new local report from LatePost (via CnEVPost), CATL has entered the trial production phase of 20 Ah samples. The news comes after the EV battery giant added over 1,000 workers to its R&D team this year.
The report claimed that CATL is now focused on the final Sulfide phase and has already commenced trial production of 20 Ah samples.
The company’s solution has an energy density of up to 500 Wh/kg for lithium ternary batteries, 40% more than current batteries. However, the report said charging speed and cycle life are not quite where they need to be.
At 20 Ah, the battery solution is finalized and ready for its next stage, production tech exploration.
CATL is advancing all-solid-state EV batteries
The report says after that it’s mainly manufacturing hurdles, that can be overcome with a bigger workforce.
In April, CATL’s chief scientist, Wu Kai, announced that the company had developed a verification platform for 10 Ah all-solid-state EV battery cells. Wu also said CATL aimed to produce all-solid-state EV batteries in small volumes in 2027, the first time the news was made public.
Top comment by MJE
Batteries are going to continue getting better on an ongoing basis. The long term tends will be: increased energy density, decreased time to charge, increased lifecycles, reduced cost. It is also likely there will be different types for different purposes eg for flight energy density is critical for floating it is less critical (cars in between).
People often seem to put forward a kind of binary view ie we don’t have solid state now, they will arrive in X years.
Rather solid state is just another technology improvement as was NMC, LFP, etc.
In September, the company’s chairman, Robin Zeng, said CATL’s research into the new battery tech was “second to none.”
Several companies, including Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and others, are betting on solid-state EV batteries as the future.
According to data from CnEVPost, CATL is dominating the global EV battery market with a 36.7% share through September 2024.
China’s BYD is second with a 16.4% share of the market. BYD is also planning to launch solid-state batteries. At the September 2024 World New Energy Congress, BYD’s head scientist and engineer, Lian Yubo, said solid-state EV batteries could be widely used in five years.
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