Robin Zeng Yuqun, the founder and chairman of CATL, the world’s largest EV battery maker, just poured cold water on the solid-state battery hype, saying the much-anticipated technology is only at “level four” of a nine-step readiness scale.
Speaking at “Summer Davos” in China this week, Zeng predicted that an inflection point for the technology won’t arrive until 2030 — and even warned that its commercial viability has yet to be established.
“Level four” out of nine
Zeng made the comments on Tuesday during a panel at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, held in Dalian, in northeast China’s Liaoning province. CATL confirmed his remarks on Thursday.
“Based on a measure of level one to nine, the technology has only reached level four so far,” Zeng said, according to a video clip posted online.
He added that mass production of solid-state batteries — which use a solid electrolyte to conduct ions between electrodes instead of the liquid or gel found in conventional lithium-ion cells — would not begin until 2030.
“Even if the products are delivered, it remains to be seen whether they will be well received and become a commercial success on the market,” Zeng said.
Coming from the boss of the company that controls roughly 40% of the global EV battery market, that’s a notably cautious take on a technology that much of the industry has been hyping as the next great leap for electric vehicles.
But aren’t there already “solid-state” EVs on sale? Not quite
Here’s the nuance that gets lost in the hype: you can already buy EVs in China marketed with “solid-state” batteries — but they’re semi-solid-state, which is a fundamentally different thing from what Zeng is talking about.
Semi-solid cells still contain a liquid or gel electrolyte; they just reduce the amount. China’s draft national solid-state battery standard explicitly classifies semi-solid as a “mixed liquid-solid battery” — not a true solid-state battery. The all-solid-state cells Zeng pegs at “level four” remove the liquid entirely, which is exactly what makes them so hard to manufacture.
The semi-solid stuff is genuinely shipping. Nio began series production of 150 kWh semi-solid packs from partner WeLion back in April 2024 — though it reportedly pulled them after only a few hundred units on weak demand and high cost. IM Motors offers a 130 kWh semi-solid “Lightyear” pack in its L6 sedan, and SAIC’s MG4 became the first truly mass-produced semi-solid EV, hitting 100,000 units in eight months. Semi-solid packs now show up in sub-$15,000 electric SUVs in China.
So the technology that’s actually in customers’ driveways today is the watered-down version. The real leap in energy density and safety — all-solid-state — is the one Zeng says is still six years from mass production.
CATL’s own roadmap still points to 2027 — at small scale
Zeng’s skepticism isn’t a reversal so much as a reality check on timelines that have been creeping into marketing decks across the industry.
CATL is still working toward small-scale, all-solid-state production by 2027, with chief scientist Wu Kai previously outlining a goal of reaching “level seven to eight” by then and a planned capacity of just 5 GWh. The company has also already begun pilot production of solid-state cells with an energy density of 500 Wh/kg, roughly double that of today’s best liquid-electrolyte packs.
The gap between “small-batch” in 2027 and genuine “mass production” in 2030 is the whole point Zeng is making. He has said the odds of solid-state batteries reaching million-vehicle-level installations before 2030 are “very small,” and that getting there depends on three separate paths clearing at once: the technology, the product, and the commercial case.
We covered CATL’s ambitious solid-state patent filings earlier this year, and the company has been one of the most aggressive players in the space, teaming up with rival BYD to push the chemistry forward. But Zeng has consistently been more measured in public than the headlines his company generates.
Everyone else is saying 2027 — Zeng is saying watch the fine print
Zeng’s 2030 framing lands at a moment when nearly every major player is dangling 2027 as the breakthrough year.
Toyota, which holds more solid-state patents than anyone, has reiterated plans to launch EVs with all-solid-state batteries between 2027 and 2028, targeting driving ranges of around 1,200 km. BYD has confirmed it will begin putting all-solid-state batteries in vehicles in 2027, with large-scale mass production slated for 2030. Volkswagen, Nio, and a wave of Chinese startups are clustered around the same window.
The catch is that “2027” almost always means a few hundred high-end vehicles, not a mainstream rollout. Toyota’s early output is expected to be measured in hundreds of tons of material — tens of thousands of vehicles at best, reserved for flagship Lexus models. China, meanwhile, keeps pushing the broader battery envelope on existing chemistry, from solid-state demonstrators hitting 1,000 km of range to CATL’s own LFP pack that recharges in six minutes.
Electrek’s Take
When the chairman of the world’s biggest battery company tells you the technology everyone’s betting on is at “level four of nine,” it’s worth listening — but it’s also worth knowing why he’s saying it.
Zeng has a long history of managing expectations in public while CATL spends billions racing toward the same finish line as everyone else. Some of that is genuine engineering humility: solid-state is brutally hard to manufacture at scale, dendrites and interface stability remain unsolved at volume, and “it works in a lab” is a very different thing from “it survives ten years and 200,000 km in a customer’s car.” On that, Zeng is simply right, and the industry’s 2027 hype deserves the cold water.
But there’s also a strategic angle. CATL has the most to lose if solid-state arrives early and resets the playing field, and the most to gain by keeping customers invested in its current LFP and sodium-ion roadmaps, which are real, shipping, and cheap. Talking down the timeline cools rivals’ marketing while CATL quietly builds its own 5 GWh line for 2027.
The honest read is somewhere in the middle: solid-state is coming, but it’ll trickle in through premium models first and won’t meaningfully move the EV market until the back half of this decade. Anyone promising a mass-market solid-state EV before 2030 is selling a roadmap, not a product. The real question is whether the incremental gains in today’s liquid-electrolyte cells — faster charging, more range, lower cost — close the gap enough that solid-state ends up being a nice-to-have rather than the revolution it’s been billed as.
Battery breakthroughs grab the headlines, but the cheapest energy you can put in an EV is still the sunlight hitting your roof. With electricity rates climbing nearly 10% last year, home solar protects you against future rate increases. And with lease and PPA options, you can go solar with zero upfront cost and start saving immediately. If you want to find the best deal, check out EnergySage. It’s a free service with hundreds of pre-vetted installers competing for your business, so you save 20 to 30% compared to going it alone. No sales calls until you pick an installer. Get your free quotes here.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments