World’s largest battery maker CATL announced a major push into standardized EV station packs, aiming to usher in an era of swaps that take as little as filling a gas-powered car.
CATL’s CEO Robin Zeng predicts that EV battery swaps will rise to a third of all charging methods in the near future, along with home and public charging stations. The swappable battery advantages are numerous, as they take only a few minutes to replace instead of waiting on a charger for half an hour or more, but for swap stations to proliferate, the battery packs must be standardized.
That is exactly what CATL will now be doing, announcing its #20 and #25 power packs, whose naming is styled after the octane number of fuel at gas stations, such as #95 or #98. The #20 packs come in 42 kWh LFP and 52 kWh nickel battery versions, while the #25 battery has a 56 kWh LFP and 70 kWh ternary battery capacity models, respectively.
Renting the smallest battery pack will start from the equivalent of $50 a month for up to 3,000 km (1864 miles) monthly, or $60 for unlimited mileage.
CATL aims to have its new packs in 10,000 EV battery swap stations in the near future, and the longer term goal is to have 30,000 such stations to establish its BaaS (battery-as-a-service) model.
NIO is currently a leader in EV battery swaps and its cars can drive themselves to the nearest station, have their battery changed with a fresh one in under three minutes and drive off. It uses CATL packs with 12-year warranty, and NIO is working with to raise EV battery warranty to 15 years and 85% capacity retention to make electric vehicles a viable proposition on the used car market.
CATL has obviously seen the merit in the proposition, and is now pushing for both longer EV warranties, and standardization of swap station battery packs. It also said that the standardized packs are designed in a way that can take advantage of any new battery technology that CATL develops in the future.
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