Zeekr said its Golden Battery is the world’s first mass-produced 800 V LFP ultra-fast-charging battery with 83.7 percent volume utilization and a maximum charging power of 500 kW.
(Image credit: Zeekr)
Zeekr has unveiled its first in-house developed battery, making it the first of China’s new car makers to do so.
The company unveiled the battery, called the Golden Battery, at a launch event today, and it’s based on lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry, which is the same chemistry used in BYD‘s iconic Blade Battery.
The Golden Battery is currently in mass production and will be the first to be featured in the Zeekr 007, the company said.
The Zeekr 007 will officially go on sale December 27, with deliveries beginning January 1, according to information it announced earlier this month.
The Golden Battery is the world’s first mass-produced 800 V LFP ultra-fast charging battery, and it has a volume utilization rate of 83.7 percent, the first time the industry has seen that number exceed 80 percent, Zeekr said.
As a comparison, regular LFP batteries have a volume utilization rate of 66 percent, and Li-ion ternary batteries have just surpassed 72 percent, Zeekr noted.
Backed by 800 V technology, the battery has a maximum charge multiplier of 4.5C and a maximum charge power of 500 kW.
Vehicles with the battery can achieve a range increase of more than 500 km in 15 minutes of charging, Zeekr said, adding that this makes the battery the fastest mass-produced LFP battery in the world in terms of charging speed.
Golden Battery’s two key specifications surpass two previously released batteries by Chinese power battery giant CATL.
On June 23, 2022, CATL released the Qilin Battery, which it said surpassed 72 percent volume utilization, the highest in the world at the time.
On August 16 of this year, CATL released the Shenxing Superfast Charging Battery, claiming it was the world’s first LFP battery to support 4C charging.
The Golden Battery also has a high level of safety, with the cells not catching fire or exploding when subjected to extreme crushing and pinpricks in a fully charged state, Zeekr said.
The pack did not catch fire or explode even after 240 seconds of sustained fire in a 700°C fire test, much higher than the Chinese national standard of 130 seconds, according to the company.
While gaining high performance and safety, Golden Battery still has a cost advantage.
By optimizing the structure of the battery packs and production line intelligence, among other things, Golden Battery’s productivity has increased by more than 40 percent, Zeekr said.
Compared to lithium ternary batteries with the same performance, Golden Battery’s combined cost per Wh is 14.8 percent lower, according to the company.
Golden Battery was developed over three years with a team of 1,000 R&D engineers, according to Zeekr.
The batteries are manufactured at a battery plant owned by Zeekr’s parent Geely Holding Group in eastern China’s Zhejiang province.
The plant’s 18 key processes for producing the cells are 100 percent automated, with a single production line taking an average of 2.5 seconds to roll off a cell, Zeekr said.
At today’s event, Zeekr also announced its next plan to build supercharging stations, with the goal of having more than 1,000 supercharging stations by the end of 2024.
By the end of 2026, Zeekr will have over 10,000 supercharging piles, it said.
Zeekr 007 to be officially launched on Dec 27, deliveries to begin on Jan 1
