- Chinese battery giant CATL wants to make charging easy and fast for light commercial vehicles.
- It’s doing that with a new battery that can charge faster than most passenger EVs in the West.
- It has a warranty of over 600,000 miles.
Most commercial electric vehicles have subpar specs compared to mainstream passenger EVs. Slower charging speeds and less range are more workable for commercial vehicle operators focused on productivity and cost than they are for families. But Chinese battery giant CATL wants drivers of box trucks and vans to enjoy blistering charging speeds too, and it has developed a dedicated battery for small rigs.
CATL said this week that its new “Tectrans II” battery will charge from 20-80% in under seven minutes and take just two additional minutes to reach a full charge, per CNEVPost. The company also reportedly achieved several breakthroughs in durability, including reducing internal cell resistance by half versus the industry average. That allows ions to move faster during charging and discharging. There’s also a low-temperature sodium-ion version of this battery that can retain 90% capacity at -40 degrees Fahrenheit.
CATL is also backing the battery with a warranty of 1 million kilometers—over 600,000 miles—or 10 years.
The battery maker has been on a tear this year. It introduced its third-generation Shenxing LFP pack for passenger vehicles, which can charge from 10-80% in under five minutes, expanded its battery swapping network in China, and began mass production of sodium-ion batteries. The latest commercial vehicle battery suggests the company isn’t hitting the brakes just yet.
The commercial battery is in a totally different league compared to electric vans in the U.S. The now-discontinued Chevy BrightDrop vans take an hour to add 160 miles of range—the automaker hasn’t released its official public fast-charging time. Rivian says its EDV’s 100 kilowatt-hour battery can peak at a charging rate of just 100 kilowatts. The Ford E-Transit is the fastest-charging in this group, taking 28 minutes to charge from 10-80%. Heck, even the Mercedes-AMG GT takes 11 minutes for a 10-80% charge—and that’s the fastest-charging EV from a non-Chinese automaker.
One could argue that commercial vans don’t need blistering charging speeds. If they run set schedules and fixed daily distances, they can just charge at Level 2 stations at a dedicated depot. But that also makes them one-trick ponies, unable to cover longer distances or quickly top up if circumstances call for it. So having that kind of ultra-fast charging on tap certainly won’t hurt.
CATL is now planning to deploy 4,000 battery swapping stations that will also be compatible with these commercial batteries. In other words, it’s making sure the technology and charging infrastructure available to passenger vehicles doesn’t stay limited to them. It’s coming for the workhorses that deliver your parcels and haul goods across the country too. Sadly, this tech is mainly for China and won’t be available stateside anytime soon.
Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com