CATL basically announced the death of the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) powertrains.
In its recent presentation of the Qilin battery CATL promised the ability to charge from 10 to 80 % in just 10 minutes, this represents a 4 C-rate charge. However, in its official website, CATL is now promising a much better charging rate.
What do you think about charging 80 % of an electric car’s battery in just 5 minutes? This is what CATL is now announcing.
With this battery technology who really needs or wants ICE, PHEV or FCEV?
This is roughly a 10 C-rate and definitely aimed for 800-volt systems. The best we have seen until now was the impressive 6 C-rate charging capability of the GAC Aion.
The main problem with CATL is that - unlike BYD -, it doesn’t produce its own electric cars. Therefore, it needs to wait for external automakers to analyse and then decide whether to adopt a new battery tech or not.
I really think that all big battery makers should have their own automakers to speed up the process of implementing new battery technologies.
For example, a revolutionary, yet simple battery tech such as CTP (cell to pack) is taking forever to be embraced by legacy automakers…
Anyway, I think that Huawei and Changan will be the first customers of this super-fast charging technology from CATL, with the introduction of the CHN platform.
More info:
https://www.catl.com/en/solution/passengerEV/
