With its new commercial electric vehicle batteries, CATL is addressing all the worries of heavy-duty vehicle operators like costs, lifespan, and range, in one fell swoop.
The LFP batteries in its freshly released Tectrans series are separated in several categories in terms of capacity and range, but they all offer 15-year of service lifespan without significant degradation.
For CATL, this is usually falling below 85% of the original capacity, unlike current packs in electric vehicles like Teslas whose battery degradation warranty is valid for the below 70% mark.
Since its new batteries for heavy-duty electric vehicles have such a long usable service life despite the ultrafast 4C 15-minute charging rate, CATL claims that the machinery with them will come out cheaper to operate over the longer run than the equipment that now runs on diesel.
It calculated that over a typical 8-year service period scenario, a commercial truck that covers 125,000 miles a year with its Tectrans packs can save the equivalent of over $130,000 in costs compared to its ICE counterpart.
The basic Tectrans packs offer 300-mile range and will remain good for the equivalent of 750,000 miles. It offers fast 4C charging that tops it up to 70% in 15 minutes, too. Next in the range is the long-distance version of said pack that is rated to cover more than 1,800,000 miles. This is the one that CATL claims make running trucks on it cheaper than on diesel.
The top-shelf pack offers extended 500-mile range and has a 220Wh/kg energy density, which is very high as far as commercial vehicle batteries with long lifespan go. In fact, CATL says that this is the highest energy density in the heavy-duty electric vehicle industry.
The Tectrans series is not some pie-in-the-sky announcement that will see the light of day much further down the road, either. In fact, CATL already detailed most of their specs in September. It says that the batteries have now entered the mass production stage and are already used by some 20 of the world's major heavy-duty vehicle companies.
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