"It will take several years to commercialize. The technology is not yet perfected, lacks durability, and there are safety issues."

In an interview with the Financial Times at the end of March, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL (300750.SZ), made such a statement about solid-state batteries.

In July 2023, at the China Automotive Forum, Wu Kai, the chief scientist of CATL, was also cautious: According to CATL's technical level, it is very difficult to achieve mass production of solid-state batteries by 2027.

However, in April of this year, CATL's commercial layout for all-solid-state batteries suddenly became high-profile. The global leader in power batteries announced the research progress of all-solid-state batteries for the first time and plans to achieve small-batch mass production in 2027.

"CATL has always been very strong in the development of cutting-edge technology, and it should not lag behind any domestic or international battery companies in the field of all-solid-state batteries," Wang Yikai, a global partner of the management consulting firm Kearney and head of the automotive and industrial products business in the Greater China region, analyzed to the interface news.

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CATL has a nearly thousand-person R&D team in the development of new system batteries, and has accumulated more than ten years of experience in solid-state battery development.

Several power battery companies have also recently announced the latest progress or plans for solid-state batteries.

On May 17, Guoxuan High-tech (002074.SZ) released for the first time the Jinshi battery using all-solid-state battery technology, with a cell energy density of 350 Wh/kg, and plans to carry out small-batch vehicle experiments in 2027;

Xinwangda (300207.SZ) plans to achieve mass production of all-solid-state batteries in 2026, with even higher energy density. Its plan for the first generation of all-solid-state batteries is to reach an energy density of 400 Wh/kg, and the second generation is 500 Wh/kg.

However, before this year, the first-tier battery companies rarely officially announced solid-state battery plans.Newly-emerged battery companies are showing more enthusiasm and often choose to form alliances with car manufacturers to seize the initiative. For example, the combination of Qingtao Energy and SAIC Group, and the partnership between Weilan New Energy and NIO.

On May 24, SAIC Group announced plans to launch a solid-state battery model in 2027. The supplier of this battery is Qingtao Energy, and SAIC Group is also one of the main investors of the company. The two sides have established a joint venture, SAIC Qingtao, last year, as the main body of the solid-state battery industrialization project.

In the third quarter of this year, the mass production line of SAIC Qingtao's solid-state battery will start construction and is planned to be mass-produced in 2026. The energy density of the first phase of the battery product will be greater than 400 Wh/kg.

In 2022, Weilan New Energy officially announced a cooperation with NIO, planning to mass-produce hybrid solid-liquid batteries at the end of the year. Weilan New Energy's current plan is to achieve small-scale solid-state battery production in 2027.

Founded in 2016, Qingtao Energy is backed by Tsinghua University and was founded by the team of Academician Nancewen from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University. Weilan New Energy is the only industrialization platform for solid-state battery technology of the Clean Energy Laboratory of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and its initiators include Chen Liquan, known as "China's first person in lithium batteries," who is also the doctoral supervisor of Zeng Yuqun. Both of these battery companies have become two unicorns in the field of solid-state batteries.

As a representative of car manufacturers, GAC Group also stated earlier this year that it will set 2026 as the time point for the mass production of solid-state batteries.

With the leading power battery companies coming to the fore, the competition for the mass production of solid-state batteries in China has officially escalated.

On May 29, the news that "China may invest about 6 billion yuan in the development of solid-state batteries" spread rapidly. Six battery and whole vehicle companies, including CATL, BYD, and SAIC Group, are expected to receive basic research and development support from the government. If implemented, this will be the first time the Chinese government has provided large-scale financial subsidies for solid-state battery research and development.

For a while, more Chinese companies began to announce matters related to solid-state batteries.

On May 29, Enjie Shares (002812.SZ) stated on the investor interaction platform that it has cooperated with Beijing Weilan New Energy and Liyang Tianmu Pioneer to establish Jiangsu Sanhe, mainly engaged in the research and development and production of semi-solid projects; Ganfeng Lithium (002460.SZ) said that its first generation of hybrid solid-liquid batteries has initially achieved mass production;On the same day, Foton Motor stated on an interactive platform that its semi-solid-state batteries are currently undergoing technological research and development as well as mounting tests on light trucks, and are also collaborating on the research of solid-state batteries for vehicle applications.

The urgency of Chinese enterprises in developing this technology is also driven by competitive pressure from foreign peers. As a potentially disruptive breakthrough technology, Japan, South Korea, and Europe and the United States all regard all-solid-state batteries as the key to next-generation battery technology competition and have formulated specific plans for this.

In the roadmap released by Japan in 2020, it was clearly stated that by 2030, the all-solid-state battery is planned to achieve a volumetric energy density of 1000 watt-hours/liter, which is a key indicator determining the driving range of electric vehicles.

According to Toyota's plan released last year, as early as 2027, this Japanese car company will put electric vehicles equipped with all-solid-state batteries on the market.

Acad. Ouyang Ming of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reminded this year that Japan and Europe and the United States are increasing their research and development efforts in all-solid-state batteries, with the intention of changing the current situation where they are lagging behind China in liquid lithium batteries.

Compared with traditional liquid lithium batteries, all-solid-state batteries abandon the flammable and explosive liquid electrolyte and use solid-state electrolyte materials, which are regarded as the "game changer" for electric vehicles and are also known as the ultimate lithium battery technology.

According to statistics from the consulting firm SNE, the top ten global power battery companies all come from China, Japan, and South Korea, of which six are Chinese companies, with a total market share of more than 60%.

In the past two years, investment projects in solid-state batteries have rapidly heated up.

According to incomplete statistics from the Interface News, since 2023, the cumulative number of domestic semi-solid-state and all-solid-state battery projects has exceeded 11, with a total investment of 66.43 billion yuan. This does not include the solid-state battery factory that the Chinese Taiwan company Hui Neng Technology plans to build in France, with an estimated investment of more than 40 billion yuan.

However, these planned projects are mainly led by emerging companies, without the presence of leading lithium battery companies.On the premise of solving safety issues, with the combination of higher energy density positive and negative electrode materials, the energy density of all-solid-state batteries is expected to reach more than 500 Wh/kg. In contrast, the energy density limit of liquid lithium batteries is around 350 Wh/kg.

Higher energy density means that electric vehicles equipped with all-solid-state batteries will be able to achieve an ultra-long range. Currently, electric vehicles equipped with liquid lithium batteries can also achieve a range of more than 1,000 kilometers, mainly by increasing the number of batteries installed in the vehicle, rather than significantly improving the battery energy density.

The concept of all-solid-state batteries has been around for more than 30 years, but there has been no substantial breakthrough in their large-scale mass production and installation in vehicles.

Therefore, for companies with ambitious goals to conquer the ultimate battery technology, the primary challenge they face is the selection of solid-state electrolytes.

After the battery is changed to a solid-state electrolyte, due to both the electrode and electrolyte being solid, it will severely affect the efficiency of lithium ion transmission between the two, resulting in the so-called solid-solid interface problem.

The industry has not yet reached a consensus on the choice of solid-state electrolyte technology routes. Oxides, polymers, and sulfides are the current main research directions, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, and battery and vehicle companies have different preferences.

Polymer electrolytes have a higher degree of maturity, good processability, and low cost, but their significant drawback is their poor ionic conductivity, which European companies have previously focused on. Oxide electrolytes have higher ionic conductivity, but the difficulty in large-scale manufacturing has led many Chinese companies to bet on this material.

Many Japanese and Korean companies have chosen the sulfide route, which has high electrolyte ionic conductivity and good processability, but also has the drawbacks of producing toxic gases when exposed to water, complex production preparation processes, and high costs. CATL recently stated that it is more optimistic about all-solid-state batteries with the sulfide route.

However, according to data provided by Sunwoda Power, the cost of sulfide all-solid-state batteries is expected to be several times that of current liquid lithium batteries, and there is still much uncertainty about how much cost reduction space there will be in the next 3-5 years.

SAIC Qingtao has chosen a solid-state electrolyte material composed of polymers and inorganic materials. "Compared to the sulfide and oxide systems, composite electrolyte materials reduce the difficulty of manufacturing processes, making it more likely to be mass-produced first. The disadvantage lies in the fast-charging performance, which is not as good as the sulfide technology route, but similar to the level of existing liquid lithium batteries," said Li Zheng, General Manager of SAIC Qingtao, to the Interface News.The technology roadmap and cost reduction potential of solid-state batteries are still unclear. Newcomers such as SAIC Qingtao and Weilan New Energy have taken the lead in starting with semi-solid-state batteries.

"The development of all-solid-state batteries is not as beautiful as imagined. From products to commodities, and then to cost advantages, it will be a long process," said Yu Huigen, chairman of Weilan New Energy, to the reporter of Interface News.

"The biggest risk point of mass production of all-solid-state batteries lies in the stability of equipment and processes, which will affect the qualification rate and production efficiency of battery products, and thus determine the economic nature of the mass production project," said Li Zheng, who sees semi-solid-state batteries as an inevitable stage in the industrialization process of all-solid-state batteries.

Moke, the founder and president of True Lithium Research, believes that the current mass production of semi-solid-state batteries is mainly led by new battery companies, while mainstream battery companies are mostly in a wait-and-see state - there are many uncertainties in the process of adjusting the liquid battery production line to the semi-solid-state battery production line, and then climbing the capacity and improving the yield, while new battery companies do not have similar historical burdens.

Compared with all-solid-state batteries, semi-solid-state batteries still retain some liquid electrolyte to solve the solid-solid interface problem, and the current addition ratio is about 10%. In the case of improved safety, semi-solid-state batteries can also improve energy density by using high-nickel cathode materials and silicon-carbon anodes.

According to the plan of Qingtao Energy, in the process of mass production of semi-solid-state batteries, the maturity of all-solid-state battery processes, the stable operation of equipment, and the mass production of key materials can be achieved.

On the production line of the first generation of semi-solid-state batteries of Qingtao Energy, there are many all-solid-state-related equipment and technologies put into operation in advance for verification, with the aim of increasing the success rate of mass production of all-solid-state batteries.

In April this year, the Zhiji L6 model released by SAIC Group will be equipped with the aforementioned semi-solid-state battery product light-year battery supplied by Qingtao Energy, with a power of 133 degrees of electricity and a range of more than 1000 kilometers.

The light-year battery uses 10% liquid wetting agent to help improve the lithium ion conductivity of solid-state electrolytes. The model equipped with this semi-solid-state battery is undergoing the final stage of development testing and is expected to be officially launched in the second half of this year.

Weilan New Energy completed the mass production of semi-solid-state batteries last year. The NIO ET7 model is equipped with its semi-solid-state battery cells with an energy density of 360 Wh/kg, and the battery pack capacity is 150 degrees of electricity.Yu Huigen stated that NIO played a pivotal role in the company's "from 0 to 1" process in the field of semi-solid-state batteries.

In 2021, the two companies reached a development cooperation for semi-solid-state batteries, jointly developing a power battery that can achieve a range of 1000 kilometers. At the same time, NIO also became one of the investors of Weilan New Energy. In Huzhou, Zhejiang, the production line of semi-solid-state batteries supplied by Weilan New Energy to NIO has an investment of hundreds of millions of yuan.

At the end of last year, NIO founder and CEO Li Bin also held a semi-solid-state battery endurance challenge, and the NIO pure electric sedan ET7 equipped with this battery ultimately traveled 1044 kilometers.

Previously, Fudan Technology's semi-solid-state batteries have also been installed in a small batch on passenger car models such as Lan Tu Pursuit.

Fudan Technology told the interface news that the market has an urgent demand for high safety and high energy density batteries, and semi-solid-state batteries have these performance characteristics. At the same time, the production process and equipment of semi-solid-state batteries are basically similar to the existing liquid batteries, which can use the existing mature industry chain to quickly industrialize.

However, while industrialization is accelerating, the market prospects of semi-solid-state batteries are not without controversy. The focus of the question is that due to the presence of liquid electrolyte components, semi-solid-state batteries have not completely solved the safety issues of batteries, nor have they fundamentally improved the energy density like all-solid-state batteries.

In addition, cost is also an important challenge. It is said that the price of the 150-degree semi-solid-state battery pack equipped by NIO reaches 300,000 yuan, equivalent to the price of an electric car.

Yu Huigen clarified to the interface news that due to the limited capacity and yield at the time, the price of the battery sample package produced by Weilan New Energy was relatively high, and the current mass-produced semi-solid-state battery price has been greatly reduced. Weilan New Energy revealed that with the increase of production capacity, the current price of its semi-solid-state batteries is gradually approaching the price of conventional liquid ternary batteries.

Li Zheng said that the cost of Qingtao Energy's semi-solid-state batteries is not high, but he did not disclose specific price information. According to the report of 36 Ke, the current cost of semi-solid-state batteries shipped by Qingtao Energy is about 0.65 yuan/Wh, which is nearly 20% higher than the ternary batteries with high nickel cathode.

The data provided by Fudan Technology shows that compared with liquid ternary batteries, the cost of semi-solid-state batteries will be about 5-10% higher. In application scenarios with relatively low cost sensitivity, such as high-end passenger cars, it has a certain market competitiveness.Mo Ke believes that at the beginning of the birth of any new technology, there will definitely be a stage of high cost, but this is not the fundamental problem. As the material supply chain matures, the cost of semi-solid-state batteries will gradually decrease.

Weilan New Energy's recent key plan is to continue to reduce costs through the large-scale industrialization of semi-solid-state batteries. Yu Huigen revealed that in addition to NIO, Lan Tu, Geely, and JAC have all clearly stated that they will choose Weilan New Energy's semi-solid-state batteries for mass production and vehicle assembly next year, and several other car companies are discussing similar plans.

To this end, Weilan New Energy is expanding its power battery factory in Huzhou. After the completion of the second phase of the project in the middle of next year, the production capacity will increase from 2 GWh to 10 GWh, which will be used to deliver semi-solid-state battery orders to new customers.

If the scale of semi-solid-state batteries further increases next year, Weilan New Energy also plans to start the third phase of the Huzhou project. At the same time, the power battery factory in Beijing is also preparing to start construction this year.

Qingtao Energy is also planning to continue to increase the production capacity of semi-solid-state batteries. Currently, its existing production capacity is around 5 GWh, and there is at least 27 GWh of production capacity under construction. Next year, the second-generation semi-solid-state batteries developed by Qingtao Energy will be equipped on several new models, achieving a mass production of over 100,000 vehicles.

Xu Zhongling, Dean of the Central Research Institute of Sunwoda Power, believes that the large-scale application of semi-solid-state batteries still needs to be comprehensively considered from aspects such as safety, life reliability, and cost. The company's first-generation semi-solid-state battery has been developed, and subsequent mass production or vehicle verification can be carried out according to customer needs.

Traditional liquid batteries, semi-solid-state batteries, and all-solid-state batteries will still coexist for a period of time in the future.

According to the forecast of the consulting institution EVTank, by 2030, in the global lithium battery market, about 90% of the market share will still be traditional liquid batteries, with the remaining about 10% being solid-state batteries. In the market share occupied by solid-state batteries, most of it will belong to semi-solid-state batteries.

Wang Yikai commented that semi-solid-state batteries are not an iterative technology from 1.0 to 2.0, but the market needs products with different prices and performance to meet the needs of various market segments.

"As long as all-solid-state batteries are not fully commercialized, or they cannot reduce costs on a large scale after commercialization, then semi-solid-state batteries, as a 1.5 generation product, will still have their value in the high-end market." He told the reporter of Jiemian News.