Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), the world's largest electric vehicle (EV) battery supplier, unveiled major technological breakthroughs. These advancements promise to deliver batteries that are cheaper, lighter, faster-charging, and more cold-resistant, ultimately increasing driving range.
These improvements, expected to be widely available in a couple of years, could significantly enhance the competitiveness of electric vehicles against gasoline-powered cars in terms of both price and performance. CATL supplies batteries to 16 major automakers globally.
CATL's main competitors include BYD (primarily supplying its own vehicles) and several South Korean and Japanese battery manufacturers.
A notable announcement was the development of auxiliary batteries designed to share space in the underbody of cars, currently occupied by a single large battery. This suggests potential for enhanced energy storage and vehicle performance.
As batteries constitute a significant portion (at least one-third) of an EV's cost, CATL plays a crucial role in the global EV supply chain. The company's potential to establish its own car brand remains a point of interest for automakers.
The Chinese manufacturing giant CATL, the biggest supplier of batteries for the world’s electric cars, said on Monday that it had made technological advances that would allow it to produce batteries that are cheaper, lighter, faster to recharge and more resistant to cold, while providing greater driving range.
Most of the changes, which are a couple of years away from being widely available in new cars, could make electric cars more competitive in price and performance with gasoline-powered models.
CATL — its full name is the Contemporary Amperex Technology Company Ltd. — produces a third of the world’s electric car batteries and supplies 16 of the world’s biggest carmakers, including General Motors and the Shanghai factory of Tesla. Its main rivals for the global market are BYD in Shenzhen, China, which makes about one-sixth of the world’s E.V. batteries, almost entirely for its own cars, and South Korean and Japanese battery manufacturers.
CATL executives spoke at a news conference ahead of the Shanghai auto show, which starts on Wednesday. The choreographed event evoked the launch of a new car model.
Batteries represent at least a third of the cost of an electric car, making CATL a critical player in the E.V. supply chain in China and beyond. Many automakers have been watching nervously whether CATL will someday try to establish its own car brand that could overshadow their own models.
The biggest surprise by CATL was an announcement about auxiliary batteries for electric cars. The batteries would share space in the underbody of cars, where there is now only one large battery.
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