A Million-Mile Battery From China Could Power Your Electric Car: Chinese Company Linked To Tesla Says It Is Ready To Start Making ‘Million-Mile’ EV Battery To be clear, CATL’s battery tech doesn’t give drivers a million miles on a single charge (that day is still a ways off). The Chinese behemoth that makes electric-car batteries for Tesla Inc. and Volkswagen AG developed a power pack that lasts more than a million miles -- an industry landmark and a potential boon for automakers trying to sway drivers to their EV models. Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) is ready to produce a battery that lasts 16 years and 2 million kilometers (1.24 million miles). The sources said CATL also plans to supply Tesla in China next year with an improved long-life nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) battery whose cathode is 50% nickel and only 20% cobalt.
Foreign automakers were required to partner with Chinese-owned factories if they wanted to sell cars in China or else face a steep tariff (this is how rich get richer: which other country could afford it?). On Monday, BMW also announced that it would buy €4 billion ($4.7 billion) in battery cells from CATL, which already has factories in China. €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) of BMW's purchases would be made in the EU and €2.5 billion ($2.9 billion) would be made in China. The cost of CATL’s cobalt-free lithium iron phosphate battery packs has fallen below $80 per kilowatt-hour, with the cost of the battery cells dropping below $60/kWh, the sources said. CATL’s low-cobalt NMC battery packs are close to $100/kWh, which is the level at which electric vehicles reach "rough parity" with internal combustion competitors. See also: Chinese firm will build battery factory in Germany to supply BMW, Volkswagen Meanwhile, a Chinese firm hopes to build a large battery factory in Erfurt, a city in the eastern German province of Thuringia, which is scheduled to start producing lithium-ion car batteries in 2021.. Tesla is also considering opening its own "gigafactory" car battery plant in England. Tesla now jointly produces nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NCA) batteries with Panasonic (6752.T) at a “gigafactory” in Nevada, and buys NMC batteries from LG Chem (051910.KS) in China. See video: Tesla and CATL's One-Million-Mile Battery Is Ready for Production