16 August 2023

While CATL’s improved LFP battery is an impressive technical achievement that will support increased LFP market share, charging infrastructure remains the primary barrier to mass-market rapid charging.

On 16^th August, CATL (SHE: 300750) announced the world’s first 4C rapid charging battery based on a LFP chemistry. The Shenxing (“Divine Movement”) battery claims rapid-charging performance that can deliver 400km of range in 10 minutes for mass-market BEVs, including at sub-zero temperatures. Mass production is being targeted to begin in Q4’2023, with deliveries and cars on the road in Q1’24.

Lakshya Gupta

Senior Battery Technologies
Market Analyst

SFA’s views:

1. CATL seeks to regain market leadership position amidst strengthening competition.

• • CATL’s global LFP installations in H1’23, for automotive end-uses, were just shy of 30 GWh, equivalent to 35% of the market and representing y-o-y growth of 55% over H1’22.¹

  • However, the company is being outperformed by BYD in the LFP segment, where H1’23 installations are up 95%, to 48 GWh. ¹

  • While CATL have announced further breakthroughs in recent months, such as the ‘Qilin’ battery and the ‘Condensed matter’ battery, these have been primarily aimed at the higher cost, ternary (i.e., NCM) cathode technology. The announced LFP upgrade makes them more competitive in the lower cost, mass market segment.

2. Scaling well-understood technologies is key.

• • CATL’s announcement today cited two important factors that contribute to improved overall kinetics: better electrolyte and an ion conduction highway.

  • Better electrolyte: Lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide (LiFSI) is likely to be one of the technology solutions here. LiFSI has higher ionic conductivity and improved chemical and thermal stability compared to lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6), the dominant electrolyte in the market.

    • CATL has agreements with various producers to secure LiFSI supplies, including Huasheng Lithium, CATL SiCong, and Tianci Materials.

  • Ion conduction “highway”: This is likely to be some sort of structured carbon nanomaterial such as graphene or carbon nanotubes that can form a continuous conductive network within the electrodes, thereby lowering their respective individual internal resistances.

  • Improved lithiation and de-lithiation: There are other strategies that could have been used to improve reaction kinetics, including graphite anode surface structuring and electrode coating/doping.

3. Building out the charging infrastructure is still difficult and expensive.

• • As of May 2023, China had approximately 1.5m public charging stations, with just over 1,700 of those with charging rates of 250 kW. ²

  • Charging infrastructure developers are gradually converging on 800V (or higher) charging, which reduces vehicle wiring requirements compared to a high-current system. This may require better QC at the battery cell level to minimise risks associated with overcharging, making CATL’s claimed part per billion (ppb) defect rate all the more important.

  • While building a fast-charging station is not inherently more difficult than building a standard-speed pile, technical bottlenecks include the availability of high-voltage transformers as well as third generation SiC semiconductors that are better suited to 800V charging architectures.

¹ Source: EV-Volumes Battery Installation Tracker

² Source: EV-Volumes Charging Stations Count

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Devil's Advocate:

• 400km claim likely to be based on China's CLTC standard; equivalent to ~330km WLTP or ~300km EPA.

• While 4C charging equates to a 0-100% charge time of 15 minutes, it is unlikely for any battery to be able to consistently charge at that rate due to thermal constraints.

• Existing cars can already achieve close to peak charging rates of 4C, but not for sustained periods.

• 4C charging rate equates to a 240kW charger for a 60kWh battery pack - these are very expensive to install.

• Fast-charging capable batteries are only as useful as the availability of sufficient high-speed charging stations.

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