 "DeepSeek moment for EVs? China’s battery giant unveils cell that can run 520 km on 5-minute charge")
Months after DeepSeek unveiled its advanced capabilities, the West is now facing the reckoning in the domain of the electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries.
Chinese EV battery-maker CATL on Monday said that its latest battery, Shenxing, offers a range of 520 kilometres from just five minutes of charge.
The announcement by CATL came weeks after Chinese EV- and battery-maker BYD said its latest battery offers a range of 470 km from just five minutes of charge.
Chinese EV-makers outdo Western companies
With such capabilities, BYD and CATL have developed an edge over Western companies, such as Tesla.
In recent years, legacy Western automobile companies as well as newer companies like Tesla have faced stiff competition from Chinese companies like BYD and SAIC.
Such a competition had already turned into a losing battle, particularly in the domain of EVs. Currently, China’s BYD is the world’s leading EV-maker and the second-largest maker of EVs’ batteries. CATL is the world’s largest battery-maker.
While CATL claims its latest battery offers a range of 520 kilometres from just five minutes of charge and BYD claims its latest battery offers a range of 470 km from, Tesla currently only offers a range of 321km in charge of 15 minutes and Mercedes-Benz’s offers range up to 325 km in 10 minutes of charge at a fast charging station.
While announcing the range of the latest battery, CATL Chief Technology Officer Gao Huan said that the company looks forward to “collaborating with more industry leaders to push the limits of supercharging through true innovation” and wants to make these batteries “the standard for electric vehicles”.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsSuch long range of batteries would work towards removing range-related fears of people regarding EVs, according to analysts.
Such long-range batteries are expected to make the transition of petrolium-based vehicles to EVs easier as long range would allow them to make long journeys without the fear of batteries running dry mid-journey.
Geopolitics weighing over trade
Ideally, such batteries should be adopted by companies across the world because of the range but the ongoing trade war between the United States and China complicates the situation.
At the moment, CATL supplies batteries to several car-makers, such as Tesla, BMW, Volkswagen, and Ford, according to CNN.
Currently, CATL has 38 per cent of the world’s batteries’ markets and BYD has a market share of 17.2 per cent.
Since the previous Joe Biden administration, Chinese EVs have been facing US tariffs. As President Donald Trump has slapped 25 per cent tariffs on automobiles on top of 145 per cent tariffs on China, there does not appear to be a way of CATL and BYD’s batteries to be used in US-made cars.
Without such batteries, US-made cars may be at a significant disadvantage in the world where they would face cars with much better batteries — if claims of CATL and BYD are indeed correct.
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