China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Company Limited (or CATL for short), the world’s biggest EV battery manufacturer, has just announced a technology breakthrough that bumps up the energy density of the cells it produces. They call this new battery Qilin, the name of a creature straight out of the Chinese legend books, and it’s not only more energy dense, but it also chargers quicker and they say it’s also safer and longer lasting.
They have now managed to bring its energy density up to 255 Wh/kg. Charging times have dropped too, with CATL noting that with this new tech, charging from 10 to 80 percent will be possible in about 10 minutes, or as low as 5 minutes with a ‘hot start’ which we presume means preconditioning the battery beforehand.
