China’s mega battery-maker CATL unveiled its Shenxing PLUS battery at the Auto China 2024 show. We were becoming accustomed to dramatic news in our world of batteries, until a review on eeNews Europe re-emphasized a point. CATL’s latest lithium-ion phosphate offering suggests the silvery metal still has long legs to go.
High Points of CATL’s Shenxing PLUS Battery
The new battery pack boasts a driving range of 625 miles, or 1,000 kilometers. Moreover, it can fast-charge at temperatures as low as 40ºC or 4ºF. This is good news for people in cold climates wanting to drive non-stop from Beijing to Nanjing.
Channel eeNews Europe suggests this achievement follows a series of steps at cell and battery pack level:
- The lithium-ion phosphate battery cathode uses multi-layer ‘granular gradient technology’.
- CATL claims this ‘places every nanometer particle in the optimal position to achieve ultra-high compact density’.
- The Shenxing PLUS battery anode incorporates a proprietary three-dimensional honeycomb-shaped material.
- This boosts energy density, while ‘effectively controlling the volume expansion during charge and discharge.
- The single-piece cell casing, which CATL claims is a first, optimizes the use of internal space.
- This innovation, coupled to the other enhancements, enables the product to ‘reach an unprecedented energy density level.’
How Great Is Unprecedented Energy Density Level?
Channel eeNews Europe adds a teaser that ‘the Shenxing PLUS battery pack has a topological structure, optimized on top of module-free CTP 3.0 technology’, and enhancing the packing efficiency by 7%.
All-in-all, we believe the overall energy density is slightly over the 200 Wh/kg threshold for the first time. This is more than quite an achievement for CATL. Will it encourage others to move away from sodium startups, we wonder, and concentrate on the lithium-ion technology they know well?
More Information
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