BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese battery giant CATL on Wednesday launched a fast charging lithium iron phosphate or LFP battery capable of running 400 km (248 miles) on a 10-minute charge.
Mass production of the new battery called Shenxing is expected by the end of the year while electric vehicles equipped with Shenxing batteries will hit the market in the first quarter of 2024，Gao Han, chief technology officer of CATL’s E-Car Business, told an online briefing.
“We hope through continuous efforts to improve technology and reduce costs, Shenxing will become a standard product available for every electric vehicle,” Gao said.
CATL has scrambled to maintain its industry leadership while facing challenges of weakening demand and pressure to cut costs from EV makers amid a price war and a slowdown in auto sales this year.
CATL, which counts Tesla as its biggest client, has been losing market share to BYD, a major automaker that powers all its EVs with its own batteries.
Automakers such as Chongqing Changan Automobile and Guangzhou Automobile Group also sourced more batteries from smaller suppliers to reduce costs.
(Reporting by Zhang Yan, Qiaoyi Li and Brenda Goh; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Tomasz Janowski)
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