Gotion High-Tech, a Chinese battery maker backed by Volkswagen, said its new fast-charging battery is ready for commercial production, a product that gives it an edge against rivals like CATL, the world’s top electric-vehicle battery producer.
The fourth-largest EV-battery maker in mainland China and eighth-largest worldwide said the G-Current lithium-ion-phosphate (LFP) battery offers a driving range of nearly 500km in less than 10 minutes of charging.
“It was developed to cater to market demand,” Cao said. “The battery will largely address the [driving range] pain points for consumers.”
Batteries account for nearly 40 per cent of the cost of an EV. China is the world’s largest EV market where four out of every 10 new cars are powered by batteries and the pace of expansion of charging facilities is quickening. Sales of EVs on the mainland account for 60 per cent of the global total.
Gotion’s 75 kilowatt-hour (KWh) G-Current battery gives a range of 480km in 9.8 minutes of charging, while it takes 25 minutes to fully charge the battery, which gives a car 600km range.
Cao said the company envisions large-scale delivery of the battery to EV assemblers from early 2025 when its new production facilities are complete.
Gotion, based in Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui province, supplied 3.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of batteries to EV makers in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 22.1 per cent year on year. It had a 2.1 per cent share of the global market in the three months to March, unchanged from a year earlier.
Technically, 1GWh of batteries can power about 13,000 electric cars, each with a driving range of 500km.