China’s battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) is developing a new type of electric vehicle battery that doesn’t contain nickel or cobalt.
Both nickel and cobalt are used in the batteries powering many of the market’s current EVs. Last month, Tesla boss Elon Musk urged miners to produce more nickel to allow the automaker to reduce the costs of its batteries and pass these savings on to customers.
Speaking at an industry conference held by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers in Shanghai over the weekend, CATL senior executive Meng Xiangfeng said the company’s new battery will be different to the nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NCA) batteries that it currently produces. It will also be different to its current lithium-ion-phosphate (LFP) batteries supplied to Tesla and its nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries.
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Meng failed to provide all that many details but confirmed the new battery will not use expensive metals such as nickel and cobalt, Reuters reports. CATL isn’t the only battery manufacturer looking to reduce its reliance on expensive metals. In fact, the likes of Panasonic and LG Chem are also lowering the use of cobalt in their nickel-cobalt-aluminum batteries.
This is far from the only battery development that CATL is making. The company is also developing a technology that integrates battery cells directly into the frame of an electric vehicle to further its range.
In addition, CATL announced back in June that it is ready to start building an electric vehicle battery pack that can last 1.2 million miles (2 million kilometers).
CATL batteries