Historic breakthrough from the world’s largest battery manufacturer: A new era begins

CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, has announced a new 500 Wh/kg “condensed” battery that it says will go into mass production this year, as one of the most important battery breakthroughs in recent years. The launch of the new battery is aimed at revolutionizing sea, land and air transport.

CATL doubled the standards

CATL’s new condensed battery will have nearly twice the energy density of Tesla’s 4680 cell, whose 272-296 Wh/kg values ​​are considered too high by current standards. “The launch of condensed batteries will usher in the era of universal electrification of sea, land and air transport, provide more opportunities for industry development and encourage earlier achievement of global carbon neutral goals,” the company said in its presentation at Auto Shanghai.

The new battery utilizes highly conductive biomimetic condensed-state electrolytes to improve the conductive performance of cells and thus the lithium-ion transport efficiency. In this way, the stability of the microstructure is increased to the highest level as well as the performance and efficiency.

Important not only for automobiles but also for aviation

CATL says the new batteries improve performance, efficiency and stability by using innovations in “ultra-high energy density cathode materials, innovative anode materials, separators and manufacturing processes.” CATL also says they will offer “excellent charge and discharge performance as well as high reliability.”

The firm also says it has already partnered with electric aircraft companies to meet aviation-grade safety and quality standards. CATL plans to start mass production and use the products in a car by the end of the year. The specifications of the version that will go into mass production may be different from the announced product. However, in the last few years we’ve seen a lot of next-generation battery technologies promising high-density batteries, but very few of them hit the market as a product. It is obviously exciting to hear something similar from CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer.