Aito M6 tipped to launch as EV with next-gen Sodium New Energy battery

The Aito M9 is a car with some of the most state-of-the-art luxuries available in markets such as China or the Philippines, a per-seat entertainment system with its own dedicated screen and voice assistant, and even a 100-inch projector that fires out of the front, included.

Those smart features are driven by a battery that can reach a capacity of 100Wh in its top configurations. Its successor might be even more advanced, however.

CATL has just announced that its latest product for EVs will be based on the emerging, potentially ultra-long-range, sodium-ion type of energy storage.

It is said to be "condensed" rather than truly solid-state, yet is also backed to achieve improved stability with a 'safe' temperature range of -40 to 70 degrees Celsius (°C, or -40 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit (°F)), thanks to new NP2.0 thermoelectric separation technology.

The "Sodium New Energy" (or "Freevoy") battery is also slated to be compatible with the latest 12C charging standard, which is backed to re-fill a 100Wh battery at up to 1.2 megawatts (MW) - or in as little as 10 minutes.

It is now in mass production at CATL, using a "DPPB zero-carbon low-waste" process.

Aito (a brand affiliated with Huawei via that company's Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA) initiative) is thought to integrate the resulting battery into its next SUV, thought to launch as the M6 (or possibly a new version of the existing M7).