CATL CTO On The Truth About 3-Minute Charging, Sodium & Solid-State!

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0:41right hello and welcome to the everything electric show podcast today we have a very special guest uh i will be due from catl we're at the beijing motor show 2026 and we've got a really lucky chance to speak to you you're from catl i've got you for about 30 minutes so obviously i'm very interested in CATL. We think the battery technology that goes into the cars in the market is one of the most important innovations in the market. And I think that being able to speak to you is very, very lucky for us and the listeners. So if you could just introduce yourself and what do you do? Hello, everyone.

1:21My name is Lin Bo Su. My current job is double low. First, I'm respond for the technology development for overseas market, except China. Of course we have a good connection also with our domestic team. My second job is to respond for the business in Europe. I joined CTO 14 years ago after my education and work in the US. And since then I responded for the first I responded for the sales development, then project management, then sales, all kind functions. Now I'm CTO for overseas market. So I find that a lot of people who work for CATL are engineers first and then they kind of move into other corporate roles.

2:08So you were an engineer, is that right? And you learned, I think it was physics, was it? I educated a PhD in chemical engineering and also minor in material science. I mean that's very mind-blowing for me. I don't even get close to understanding any of that. But I think for me, CATL is a very kind of engineering driven company. You have a lot of researchers. I loved your presentation the other day at the press conference. Because one of the slides on the screen was a chemical formula. And I've never seen that in a press conference before. I think it's wonderful. It's really good to see kind of that level of detail, even though I don't understand it.

2:50So we've seen some new products launched at the show this year. Do you want to very briefly tell us about what some of those products are? Okay. I think in this tech day, there are several technologies released. Under this kind of product and technology, they will address different areas, different car segments. For example, for the high-end, the city brand name is Killing. So for this key link for next generation and CSO, even for key link also tool technology is a key link third generation. This is featured with very high engine density, like a cell level even at 280 Watt per kg. So this means maybe not easy to understand what's number 280.

3:46Let's say just directly compared to LMP. So engine density increased at least more than 40%. 40 % means the weight is much lower. So this is kind of feature for high-end, especially for the mid to high-end vehicles, like NCM, high power, low weight, and more energy for the E-range. and also this also very featured with very fast charge and even for the killing we also talk about another one killing third generation condensed this feature with much higher energy density so for sale level even more than 350 350 350 one hour per kg and this technology also actually originally from the technology for the aviation like for the e-photo such can't attention because need a very high engine density.

4:43So we want to leverage this technology for the vehicle applications. So this is the background and this also feature that with if you put all together in the battery system not only high density fire charge but safety. Because safety when the engine density gets higher like more than 250 or 300, not mention 350, safety is not easy to control. and also if safety event happened how to prevent we call thermoplication stop so all this has been developed forces like solution package for this so this is a two technology for NCM then we also have a generation three so this is more crazy you know for the file chart you talk about like 10 to 80 percent SOC is like 3 minutes 44 seconds just let's say less than 4 minutes so it means that even like let's have a coffee run you found out i have charged us a battery more than 80 percent so this is to solve some concern about like energy like wind more like for example in long range traveling, you need energy to recharge your vehicle in a short time.

6:05So this technology we used. And the other one we also released is what we call the hybrid. For the hybrid, I think before it was called PHEV, right? PHEV or even in China some is called IEV. But whatever, like CTO really changes this industry. Before, like people like P-Health, usually like 12 years ago, like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, such kind of OEM developed P-Health. The energy content, like battery energy, maybe only like 10 to 15 kWh. 10 to 15. So it means the range is only like 30 km to 100 km. So it's a small battery with a big gas tank. But CTO thinks the future is e-mobility. And the transition from combustion engine drive to e-motor drive.

7:03Maybe some people still want some concern about the e-range, but still want the experience of e-drive. So CTO promotes big battery. So now this is a battery for more than 400km. So basically the idea is that you don't need to charge your battery per day. You just need one week or two weeks, one charge. Then if you want long distance, still you have a combustion engine. So this is kind of a technology to meet some, to fulfill some people still, some concerns like this kind of people. So with high-end killing, and for entry vehicle, even middle vehicle, use sensing. So from Sengxin and Qilin generation 1 to generation 3, you can see CTO keep developing the technology to maximize the e-mobility.

8:01So today why EV is so popular in China? People think this is because of the government encouragement policy. But actually behind, when your e-mobility rate is more than 50 % or 60%, definitely behind is this product really meets people's demands. So this is a technology. Then we also, in the conference, you also see some technology for the sodium. Yeah, that's the very exciting one. So sodium, actually, this is also CTO pioneered and also promoted this technology. So, Sodium actually gets more attention from 4 and 5 years ago, when at that time the lithium price is that high. So, definitely we need some complementary technology.

8:58This technology may not replace lithium-ion batteries, but this is good benefits like complement, like a supplement, like to the alternative for some special segment. Especially like when, for example, one is for some segment for the energy storage. The other, we also talk about like for the sodium, we have two immediate applications. One is in the very like A0, A0 vehicles. This only need, for example, the energy in the only 10 to 20 kilowatt hour. But this also sodium technology has one feature, it's low temperature performance. It's amazing. So this is due to the characteristics of this sodium.

9:41So all together this is a chemistry. Then in China, you know, for the immobilization of something new, we need like an ecosystem. Ecosystem, one example, is our battery swapping station. Like downstairs you can see our demo of this kind of battery swapping technology but for the new generation we add also the charge so that this like a battery like a 10 battery in this kind of station actually this can be provide also the super charge capability for the charging station so we call it like a charge swapping station combined this kind of station so all this together you can see we want to meet the new demands like a like a high demands of our customers and this is also good because we are basically we have to be business so we as a customer of C2 customer you can see C2 can always always enable our customer to compete in this industry and also to enable our end customer to enjoy the immobility so I think this is background, like technology driven, why it's called the city, it's called technology driven company.

10:51This is a kind of very brief introduction of our products. Yeah, thank you. For me, I think there's two main things that I took away. First is, I think you guys are the first company I've heard of in China talking about weight. Because we've seen at this show today, there's a lot of three row SUVs, they're getting very big, they're getting quite heavy. but at your tech day you were talking about how you can reduce the weight of the battery how that reduces the wear on components there's many many benefits the car is faster, you can get more range I think this is a very welcome change I want to know, do you think weight is the next technological kind of breakthrough that needs to happen?

11:36So weight's gone down a little bit already do you think weight will go down more and more over the next few years? Is there a technical limit at some point that we're going to hit? Yep. So, weight. Actually, even for the... Let's talk about some overseas customer, like Porsche, BMW, like Audi and also Mercedes-Benz. Such a premium segment, weight maybe is more sensitive. Yes. This is related to their driving dynamic. Completely. Yeah, completely. and also not measuring it affect our like braking like a distance yeah and also the if more weight actually the other cost of increase like a tire consumption right and also new brake system development and others so weight definitely is a very important factor but of course people will argue then weight also related to some cost to some cost like a LMP of course you can drive maybe similar e-range a little more energy yeah but more weight maybe car dynamic will be will be affected affected yeah so in this way I would say I would say for CTO especially for some segments weight definitely is the point so this is the reason we have we developed a killing which is actually a killing concept for such kind of very people enjoy this kind of dynamic driving pressure definitely is very important and i would say even like compared to three years ago when the killing just developed actually weight already reduced by more than 100 kilometers then earlier you mentioned where's the weight how much weight further we can go and i would say we will when the killing condensed battery when cell engine density reaches 350 to 380 watt-hour per kg then maybe the weight reduction this kind of drop rate will be slowed down i think this could be others this also we have some space to squeeze out and this is on the cell level but on the system level on the system level There's more work to do.

13:54More work to do. Like the lightweight technology in the housing, housing cover and protection, the bumper. Then we also develop some innovative, not only material, but also structure, special structure. Less weight, but have a similar strength of the material. So this is still ongoing. I think this could be the next generation product. It's the main point. So we see more, but how much, Elliot, I cannot give you exact number yet. But we see definitely for sure, it'll go down. Okay, I mean, I wish I could know that number, but I understand why you can't tell me. But for me, I'm just excited that there's, because driving dynamics is really important in European countries, right?

14:37So one of the complaints about the EVs from China is that they don't focus so much on that. But I've seen here today in the last few days that there's a lot more kind of sporty cars, a lot more cars maybe suitable for Europe. So I'm glad to see CATL focused on that. One more battery question, then we'll get on to business questions. I think I saw your aircraft battery, the 500 watt hours per kilogram battery. I thought, this is great. This is probably a bit of a silly question, but if we have a 500 watt hour per kilogram battery, why can't we put that one in a car? Why can't we put that one in a house?

15:16For the car business, cost is always the topic. And for the five, if we go to about 450 to 500, what hour per kg, then the cost will be dramatically higher. The cost is not only on the chemistry, but also the others. For example, we need a special housing case like a titanium and the sale to sale, if something happened propagation, need a very special design. So today we think cost will be more like a blocking point for this. Yeah. Okay. All right. Good to know. Because lots of people say, oh well I just want that battery in my car and I say it's probably not that easy.

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16:48Everyone at the moment is talking about solid state. So solid state is the next breakthrough I guess and a lot of people have made announcements in the last few months that they've got solid state or they're very close to producing solid state. My feeling is that if CATL have not done solid state yet, then it's unlikely that other people will be able to do it on a mass market scale. What's the problem that still needs to be solved with solid state batteries, bringing it to market? At CATL we have one special division, maybe all the development material scientists, self-design process, internalization, maybe around more than 500 people, just working on solid state.

17:39So as a technical company like CTO, maybe we are more serious about this technology. And why we didn't always give very positive, very promising results to the public? I think we always because we are a company for the serious product development means the product not for the paper Not for the like marketing purpose. Yeah, media like getting attention. We are more like for the products in the car so I think in different cases in different occasions and And Robin, our CEO, also mentioned several times. I think this information definitely keeps consistent. The majority level is not high enough yet for mass production.

18:29Like Robin gave the skill like 4 to 5, just means you can demonstrate the sample. Yes. And maybe you can also install this kind of battery for some demo cars in a limited quantity. Yes, we can do this. But for the mass production, you need to solve the cost, efficiency, and also the industrialization of mass production. and also important the cost. The cost to fulfill the economy is very expensive, then it becomes a demo car. So in this way, Alien and I will say we are working on that, but in the next year, we will have, next year or in two years, we have some demo car with solid state for sure, for testing, but for mass production we still see, still a few more years more.

19:24to go i like to hear like the real story is from catl because if i don't hear it from you guys then i don't think it's really going to go to the market when i hear it from you at your next tech day in two or three years time then i know it's real um so you spend a lot of time in europe um as part of your job what do you think is the the biggest problem with electrification in europe So for example in Germany only 3 % of the market like for example takes There's only 3 % of the market has Chinese cars whereas in the UK it's about 11 % I think in Norway it's 14 % What's the what do you think is the biggest issue with electric vehicle hybrid vehicle adoption rates in in in Europe?

20:09Okay Good question. This also I'm thinking But one thing I would say In Europe, in the past two or three years, immobilier rates have accelerated. Like last year, in the whole EU, the average immobilier rate is around 28%. But Q1 this year in Europe is above 30%. Especially in March only, we see a big increase, year to year increase in Europe. It's more than 50 % increase. Of course, this is driven by several factors, by observation and also our battery or cell module, battery supplies to these vehicles. like for example one is Mercedes-Benz GLC and also CLA get very very very good demands even CTO need to use all the resources to find the model lines capacity to meet their demands so unexpected high demands and also BMW i3 also is definitely out expectation even for their OEM itself the sale of estimation.

21:34So why get popular? Of course maybe just a few months maybe the gas price much higher, like about two euro something per liter is one factor. I think this is not the main factor I would say. Maybe the main factor, maybe today this kind of EV to European, some maybe to some a lot of European, it becomes a vehicle. It's not a real vehicle. not like it's kind of toil so to matter why because now you get a very decent e-range like this kind of e-range always can above like depends on different profile yeah let's say 500 kilometer 2 ,000 kilometer and this people will feel comfortable you know not not like before 200 or 300 400 at the least it almost from 50 % to 100 % increase the e-range because 800 volts like energy efficiency is much higher everything so this means technology wise is really in the new generation really advanced and also fire charge rate usually always be like 20 minutes or below yeah so people will accept this of course some like a charging station also not very that good infrastructure but also improve So all these factors together, people will think, oh, this is, I think this is, this EV is really car, it's called car.

23:03It's a car. Now to European standard maybe. This is my kind of guess. Now it's car. And also when they drive, really people will like it. This kind of dynamic, this acceleration. So not every people, but I would say more, significant model, more and more people like it, love it. So I would see, and also another way, I think European people are really concerned about this environment. This really fits their vision. So I think this kind of combined factors we will see to drive, we see this acceleration. Acceleration, transportation to immobility. This is kind of my thinking. Yeah, it's good for everyone.

23:51Yeah. So you were partly responsible for building the new factory in Germany. Yes. Can you tell me a bit about the process of setting up a battery factory in Germany? So I think setting up a battery factory in China is relatively simple because you've done it a few times. But how do you take that kind of technology or learnings into a completely different market and set up a battery factory there?

24:19When we talk about this, maybe we hear more complaints, right? Complaints about how to do the industrialization or localization, especially the sale plants. Maybe for the module plants or the battery plants, it's much easier. but for the cell plants and also earlier you also visit our plant you can see that's right maybe from front to the end maybe more than one kilometer yes yes so you can all the bigger scale machines all together and also related to a lot of chemistry yes chemistry and the moving and moving parts like chemical, electricity, thermo, all together. So this will be like laser, all kinds of laser welding.

25:20So all that means, actually this is also related to a lot of regulations in Europe. Like even for example, during the mixing step, we have NMP. So there will be all kinds of regulations to see if the spit out of NMP on the floor, for example, then what kind of measure we need to do? Whether we use steel floor or whatever is ventilation and also the collection, circulation, cannot let the entity out of the space. How to recycle. So all this, even this step, and called review. So make things really complicated. So when the Chinese battery supply, sell supplies, want to do localizing in Europe, for our first plan, it's really challenging because we need to understand all kinds of regulations.

26:19And also we need to understand that they are construction, building construction and also the another one is a machine requirement machine requirement they need like a certification like to prevent like operators all kinds of protection of course in China also for sure protections but different regulations requirements so I would say all this together I would say we can never underestimate the complexity to build a cell plant in Europe. Not imagine our first plant in Germany. This will be more... Of course, very challenging. Yeah, yeah. So I would say, but for CTO, I would say this will be a very good learning curve.

27:11Yes. Learning curve. So this reason you can see why we can set have a second plant in Hungary, the speed is much faster experience. Yeah, you definitely went into the hardest market first. Yeah, yeah. With most regulations. Yeah, so I would say this also is good, like CTO can become maybe an international company, so we can operate overseas and in a very regulation-driven environment. Environment. So I think it's very interesting because, you know, in the 80s and 90s, a lot of Western companies were going into China to set up their factories for the first time. But now it's the other way around.

27:53All the Chinese factories are now setting up overseas. I think one more question is around recycling. So battery recycling. So we have had a number of programs on YouTube about battery recycling. it's still on quite a small scale there doesn't seem to be much regulation or standardisation of battery recycling at the moment how much of a part will that play for CATL in the future? Will it become a significant part of the business or what's going to happen? Okay in China recycle business is a given part One reason is that first is the material recycled from batteries from electrical parts like computer, iPhone, recycled lithium, cobalt, like this, because this is also a big amount.

28:59And also in China some first generation of batteries also get recycled. So even CTL itself, we have recycled this skill in dozens of thousands of tons. More than this. It should be hundreds of thousands of tons of skills. and also this kind of material like lithium nickel has been go back to our battery today and even for lithium some part is more than 10 % is from recycled lithium so in China this becomes a necessary part in this circular economy this really do in China it's happened and also we see this very very beneficial not only to make us less dependent on the raw material itself but also to contribute to the co2 saving because for the mining definitely to the recyclers the co2 much less lithium nickel especially nickel such kind of cobalt and also like this environmental but you mentioned to the Europe.

30:14Why we didn't see such kind of skill yet as mentioned, Elliot? I would say not ready yet because the used and alive battery are not enough yet. And this kind of feedstock is not enough. And the second point we see is we don't have, I think we were built, not like a big recycle company yet. You can see the small one. Yes. Small one. Small scale. Because small scale means we need to pay your recycler to collect my battery. I need to pay you money. But in China, it's the opposite. But I would see in Europe, it will come when the scale reaches some points. Because this is also required by the European battery regulations.

31:11Like for some like 2008, 2030, you need a different amount of recycled metal in the battery. So this will be also the regulation required. So CTO is preparing all that because we have a subsidiary company, Trump, to do this. and also we are open to work with other partners on the recycle. Because we also in Europe, we also want to build this closed loop. This is not only for a lot, like CO2, also save money. Because definitely for the N-CM, lithium, nickel, cobalt, the cost can be really much lower by this kind of recycle process. So I would say in Europe, definitely it will come. It will come.

31:56Just needs a bit of time. I think one more question and we can wrap up. Just around, what was I going to say? Oh, the future. So what does the next 10 years look like for the battery industry? Not just in China, but around the world. What are going to be some of the big breakthroughs? What are going to be some of the big innovations? What's the world going to look, well, no one knows what the world will look like, but what's going to happen with batteries in the next 10 years? I think for CTO, now the main two business, one is the battery for EVs, the other is the battery for engine storage. I think in 10 years, we will see more electrification for the other industrial, whether you vote aviation and also the others.

32:43So I would say, I think in the world, carbon neutral is kind of, this is a very common understanding. So I think in 10 years, I would say, whether it's a lithium battery or sodium battery, the volume will get big and the electrician will be more expanded to the different areas. So this is the thing we can imagine. The other thing in terms of technology, in terms of technology, I would say the battery technology, whether you can imagine solid state or also like condensed batteries, this technology's maturity will be much higher, much higher, cost will be down. So we see everything just like, because this is kind of a building block.

33:36So building can get more efficient, cost effective. So I see that whether in mobility or electrician of different different segments will be more become common. So my big image like electrification will be will be everywhere. And I mean that's very good for here and I think our audience have found it very interesting to kind of get a behind-the-scenes view of CATL the battery business expansion in Europe. So thank you very much for your time. Sure. And I hope everyone who's watching on YouTube or listening at home has enjoyed this interview. So thank you. Thank you much. Leaders aren't born, they're made.

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