Chery schooling Toyota with 2026 solid-state battery EV that goes 600+ miles on a charge in arctic temps

China’s top car exporter, Chery, will release its first vehicle with solid-state battery in 2026, beating Toyota by a year. Cherry is a solid-state battery development pioneer and recently tipped that it has managed to craft a 600 Wh/kg solid-state battery ready for mass production.

Chery, as well as other companies like WeLion have since announced solid-state batteries with higher energy densities, but these are still in the engineering verification stage, while Chery’s production-ready oxide cells with novel polymer electrolyte still come with energy density that is 20% higher than the previous theoretical maximum. Chery was thus able to fit a much higher capacity in the same footprint as the batteries with liquid electrolyte that it uses in its electric vehicles.

The first 2026 Chery EV with all-solid-state battery will be the powerful Exeed ES8 shooting brake dubbed Liefeng that will be able to cover 1,500 km on a single charge and accelerate in under three seconds thanks to the 800V powertrain and 30,000 rpm motors, teased the automaker. This advertised range is, of course, on the Chinese CLTC cycle, which is about a third less stringent than the EPA estimates in the US, as it consists of predominantly city driving.

What this means is that the shooting brake will cover about 625 miles on a single charge if its solid-state battery in EPA estimate terms, which is more than double the current average EV range in the US. Higher energy density hence EV range, however, is not a solid-state battery’s only virtue. The 600 Wh/kg cells that Chery will use allow ultrafast charging and operation with minimal capacity loss even in extreme arctic temperatures of -30 degrees Celsius.

Companies like Toyota, Samsung, or CATL, have all set 2027 as the deadline for releasing cars with solid-state batteries that boast the heretofore theoretical maximum of 500 Wh/kg. Those would eventually boast a range of 500 miles on a charge with battery packs fitting in the same footprint as the current 300-mile batteries of the Tesla Model Y, for example. Chery’s will go 20% further in a car that would be released as soon as this year, making China’s biggest vehicle exporter one of the first automakers that have managed to commercialize solid-state batteries.

Get the Tesla Universal Wall Connector with 24' Cable on Amazon