CATL Executive Says Solid-State Battery Scale-Up at Least Five Years Away

At CATL's Quality Global Open Month event, CATL Chief Manufacturing Officer Ni Jun said that most industry claims about all-solid-state batteries remain at the conceptual level, and that true large-scale deployment is at least five years away. Taking solid-solid contact as an example, he said traditional liquid batteries rely on electrolyte to form conductive pathways and deliver stable performance. All-solid-state batteries require close contact between the positive and negative electrodes and the solid electrolyte. The industry currently relies on external pressure to ensure contact, but volume deformation during charge and discharge can easily disrupt that contact and directly affect battery performance. Ni said this core pain point still has no complete solution.

CATL Chairman Zeng Yuqun has said on multiple occasions that if technology maturity is divided into nine levels, current solid-state battery technology is only at the early stage of level four, a significant gap from the level-nine standard for mass-production maturity. Ni disclosed that compared with all-solid-state batteries, which remain at the small-sample research and development stage, sodium-ion batteries and condensed-matter batteries are compatible with existing lithium battery production lines and do not require large-scale equipment modification. The company's 2027 new production line plans will reserve compatibility space in advance to accommodate the deployment of multiple mature technology routes.

Regarding automakers developing their own batteries and cross-industry battery companies entering the power battery sector, Ni said power battery manufacturing has professional thresholds, and knowing how to build cars does not necessarily mean knowing how to build batteries. He said the core difference between consumer electronics batteries and power batteries lies in consistency standards. Consumer batteries have no strict consistency requirements, while a vehicle carries hundreds or thousands of cells. Differences in capacity, internal resistance, and self-discharge among individual cells create a barrel effect, in which the worst cell determines the lifespan and performance of the entire battery pack.