- CATL unveiled a new LFP battery called Shenxing Pro.
- It comes in two versions, tuned for long range and fast charging, respectively.
- CATL has not shared which cars the packs will make their way into, but we do know they’re developed for the European market.
CATL, the world’s dominant battery maker, just unveiled a new battery technology for the European market that it’s calling Shenxing Pro. We don’t know which vehicles it’ll end up in yet, but CATL says the tech should allow for super long range and wickedly fast charging, all from a battery that won’t degrade much over time.
We’ll have to see this battery in action before we can say whether these claims are all they’re cracked up to be. Either way, CATL’s big announcement on Sunday at IAA Munich, Europe’s biggest auto expo, shows yet again that Chinese manufacturers are very, very serious about breaking into Europe’s car market.
The country’s fast-moving EV companies are rapidly stealing market share from the likes of Volkswagen and Porsche in both China and Europe. As part of that assault, CATL went so far as to develop two lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery packs aimed at alleviating European buyers’ biggest concerns around going electric.
“Super long life & long range & super-fast charging, solving your key EV concerns. Meet the ultimate solution for EV batteries in Europe,” the firm said in a social media post.
Let’s break down what CATL is claiming here. It announced two Shenxing Pro battery packs tuned for different purposes. On paper, both the “Super Long Life & Long Range Battery” and the “Super-Fast Charging Battery” are impressive, but in different ways. (The branding doesn’t exactly leave much to the imagination.)
The “Super Long Life & Long Range Battery,” CATL says, can deliver a healthy 470 miles of range under the European WLTP testing procedure from a large 122 kilowatt-hour pack. Of course the ultimate range of that pack will depend heavily on what car it’s installed in, so it’s tough to square that claim. LFP batteries are known for their durability over high-nickel cells, but they’re also heavier and less energy-dense, which could deal a blow to range.
It’s easier to make sense of this battery’s fast-charging specs. CATL says it’ll crush a 10%-80% charge in just 15 minutes, faster than just about anything this side of the Atlantic. We can do some simple math to understand what that means in the real world.
In a 122-kWh battery pack (a big ol’ boy), a 10%-80% charge gets you 85 kWh of energy, which is a lot. That’s about the entire battery pack of your typical midsized electric crossover. In a really inefficient EV, that 85 kWh might deliver something like 170 miles of driving range. In a sleeker car that sips electrons instead of gulping them, it could be 250 miles or more. That’s very good for a 15 minute stop.
CATL also says that pack should demonstrate just 9% degradation over 200,000 km (124,000 miles), which would be very good, and retain 70% of its capacity over 1 million kilometers (621,000 miles) and 10,000 charge/discharge cycles.
Now, onto the “Super-Fast Charging Battery,” which juices up even faster than its long-range cousin. CATL says the 110-kWh battery can register a 10%-80% charge in just 10 minutes. Similar back-of-the-napkin math as above indicates that a 10-minute charge could realistically add anywhere from 150 to 250 miles of range, depending on a vehicle’s efficiency.
CATL, for its part, says that a 10-minute charging session should add 478 km (297 miles) of WLTP range, which would be about 230 miles of EPA range here in the States. (The European testing process is a bit more generous.) That would be extraordinary, compared to most cars in the U.S.
CATL says the Shenxing Pro batteries’ shape and how the “Wave” cells fit together allows it to pack lots of active battery material into a given area. Rather than building cells into modules that then make up the pack, the cells go straight into the pack like Lego blocks. In batteries—especially heavy LFP ones—figuring out how to increase energy density (range, effectively) without compromising other aspects of performance is the name of the game. However, CATL didn’t share any density figures for these Shenxing Pro cells or packs.
What CATL did share is that it intends to seriously beef up its presence in Europe. It says it has invested $12.9 billion in the region—including in battery manufacturing facilities in Hungary, Germany and Spain—and that it aims to establish a wider “ecosystem that spans from material production, battery making, remanufacturing and recycling.”
Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com
