A battery startup has set its sights on becoming the first firm in the world to mass produce batteries for electric vehicles with a range of 1,000 kilometres, which almost twice as much as the best cars currently on the market.
At the company's annual technology conference, Gotion High Tech, which is based in China and is a supplier to Volkswagen, introduced its new L600 LMFP Astroinno battery and claimed that it will begin production in mass quantities in 2024.
According to the business, the lithium-manganese-iron-phosphate (LMFP) battery has already completed all of the necessary safety testing, and it has a life cycle of 4,000 charge-discharge cycles, which makes it ideal for everyday electric vehicles.
Because the battery can travel up to 1,000 km on a single charge, its theoretical lifetime range is 4 million kilometres, which is significantly longer than the typical lifespan of a vehicle.
Its range on a single charge is also close to records set by bespoke electric prototypes, such as the Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX, which last year broke a range record by travelling from Germany to the United Kingdom on a single charge. Its range on a single charge is also comparable to the ranges achieved by range powerhouses such as the Tesla Model S (405 miles), Polestar 2 Long Range (394 miles) and the aforementioned EQXX.
The development could push Volkswagen to the top of the EV market, their current longest ride on electric power is the 322 miles of charge in the Volkswagen ID.4.
It took ten years of in-house research to make the technology commercially feasible. To get around problems that had been encountered in the past with this kind of battery, the researchers used cutting-edge technology and innovative electrolyte additives.
“In recent years, lithium iron phosphate (LFP) technology has regained the recognition of the market with market share continuing to increase,” said Dr Cheng Qian, executive president of the International Business Unit of Gotion High-Tech.
“Meanwhile, the energy density growth of mass-produced LFP batteries has encountered bottlenecks, and further improvement requires an upgrade of the chemical system, so [our system] was developed.”