There's news from Huawei and its electric car battery project. Announced in November, it's based on the brand's desire to develop a solid-state battery capable of making a big impact in the industry, dominated by another Chinese giant: CATL. In addition to understanding its chemistry (a solid electrolyte with doped sulfide), we now know that the brand hopes to achieve an energy density of between 400 and 500 Wh/kg, more than double that of a conventional NMC battery.
But the biggest announcement about this future battery from Huawei concerns the range it will achieve. Rather than seeking to realize the dream of an electric car at 1,000 kilometers, it will be a charge capable of lasting 3,000 kilometers. All this without compromising stability and robustness, so that the battery will last over time and offer real arguments for being developed and marketed on a large scale.
In November 2024, Huawei's first patent for this project was published under the title "Doped sulfur materials and preparation methods, lithium-ion batteries". We already learned how the company intends to push back the existing limits of the technology, and stabilize the ions between the anode and the cathode, by means of a nitrogen-doped face.
Because by betting everything on sulfur chemistry in the form of a semiconductor, Huawei was coming up against major underlying limits, particularly in terms of life cycle, but also volume expansion, and the risk of short circuits (due to the lack of stability of the electrolyte and the lithium anode). Developing tomorrow's automotive batteries doesn't require so much finding new chemistries, but understanding how to ensure that those known to be more competitive don't leave room for their complications.
Five-minute charging via a 1.5 MW supercharger
The new patent updated this June also provides an update on charging. In addition to offering 3,000 km, Huawei also wants to limit the duration of a charge to 5 minutes. This announcement certainly echoes another one last April, when Huawei presented a new generation of supercharged supercharger in Shanghai, capable of charging at a power of 1.5 MW. The day before, its rival CATL unveiled a machine of the same rank, but with a slightly lower peak power of 1.3 MW.
With Huawei now in the race, China is consolidating its dominance in the electric battery market. According to Car News China, 36.7% of patents for electric car cells now come from China, with no fewer than 7,600 new patents filed each year. Japan and South Korea appear to be lagging behind, having covered the vast majority of demand over the past ten years.
Source: Car News China
0 Comments