Chinese auto giant GAC Group unveiled its latest battery technology at its Tech Day event on Friday, giving it an energy density of more than 280Wh/Kg and a range of more than 1,000 kilometers.
GAC unveiled a strategy it calls "Neutron Star", saying it will carry out in-depth independent research and development and industrialization of power batteries and electric cells to open up the era of "new low-carbon power assembly".
Among them, the use of silicon sponge negative electrode battery technology can reduce the volume of a single cell by 20% and weight by 14% under the same power.
Even at low temperatures, the battery with this technology can have a range of 650 kilometers, the company said.
Next, it aims for an energy density of more than 315Wh/kg, the company said.
The GAC Aion LX, which features cells with the sponge silicon cathode cell technology, will be in mass production this year, GAC said.
GAC plans to achieve the large-scale application of self-developed power battery cells within three years, and gradually move to the forefront of self-research and self-production in the medium to long term.
In addition, in the future, the battery weight and volume can be reduced by more than 50% through the upgrade of sponge silicon negative electrode battery technology.
The industry is currently generally considered the upper limit of the bottleneck of 350Wh/kg energy density of lithium batteries.
Conventional power batteries are considered to have reached the bottleneck of energy density and become the most important factor limiting the range of electric vehicles to improve.
Some carmakers such as Nio are beginning to shift to solid-state batteries for the next model year, but if existing batteries can be made to further increase energy density, then getting a higher range will undoubtedly cost less and take less time.
Chinese firm's next-gen power battery seeks to challenge energy density bottleneck
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