Jessica, reporting from ROBO-Car
QbitAI ROBO | Official account AI4ROBO
A single battery has stirred up turmoil across the automotive industry chain.
Li Auto invested 2.65 billion yuan to take a stake in Sunwoda Power, Xiaomi is jointly developing batteries with CALB and other companies... A debate over core power battery technology, costs, and supply chain clout has been intensifying recently.
Even CATL itself stepped in to respond:Knowing how to build cars doesn't mean knowing how to build batteries. Professionals should still do professional work.
Yet amid this storm, IM Motors, owned by SAIC, is going against the trend, announcing that its upcoming LS8 NEO pure electric model willcome equipped with CATL batteries across the entire lineup。
Moreover, IM Motors, together with CATL, invited media to visit the factory in Ningde — including QbitAI ROBO.
Rather interesting.
The automotive world currently seems split into two camps. On one side, carmakers are starting to seek to reduce their dependence on the supply chain; on the other, some are actively pushing their cooperation with CATL into the spotlight.
Why does IM Motors insist on partnering with CATL? How do CATL's cells and battery packs differ from carmakers' self-developed batteries? And how do both sides view current trends?
With these questions in mind, I decided to head to Ningde, Fujian, to take a look in person.
Walking into CATL: so this is how a cell takes shape
Ningde in October is a place of green waters and mountains, with osmanthus fragrance in the air and dragonflies fluttering along the roads. Those unfamiliar with the area might find it hard to imagine that between these mountains and waters sits the world's largest power battery company.
This is CATL headquarters.
Before the visit, I expected security to be fairly strict, but not this strict. The serial numbers of filming equipment had to be reported in advance, and upon arriving at CATL's Technology Building, we first had to register at the visitor center, pick up visitor badges, and then swipe in.
The Technology Building is said to have drawn on the shape of aprismatic cellfor its design, and can accommodate more than 5000 people working inside.
There is also an exhibition hall in the lobby; we spent a whole morning there, running into several groups of visitors coming to tour it.
Right at the entrance of the exhibition hall is a map of the campus layout.
With a lake as the dividing line, CATL's offices, R&D, and production facilities are distributed across different zones. According to our guide, in Ningde alone the company hasmore than 50,000 employees, and over 230,000 employees globally.
Founded in 2011, this company has ranked first globally in power battery installed capacity for consecutive years since 2017, reaching a 39.2% global market share in 2025 — meaning that forevery three electric vehicles sold worldwide, roughly one is equipped with a CATL battery.
Over the past decade or so, CATL's business has also expanded frompower batteriesextending toenergy storage, battery swapping, marine vesselsand other fields.
The exhibition hall displays the various forms of batteries CATL has laid out along the way, from lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium, to sodium-ion and condensed-matter batteries; somehave already entered mass production, while others are still in theR&D and verificationstage.
One low-temperature display device was quite interesting. A sodium-ion battery was installed in a transparent low-temperature device, with the temperature already lowered tomore than 30 degrees below zero Celsius, thick ice had formed beside the battery, and water vapor condensed on the enclosure walls from the cold.
The guide explained that compared with traditional lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries have a more obvious advantage in low-temperature performance, and CATL is also exploring combining sodium-ion with other battery systems to improve vehicle performance in cold regions.
The exhibition hall also displayed a portion of battery cell products for different scenarios; most of them felt fairly weighty when held in the hand.
Even this thinnest and lightest condensed-matter battery (with an energy density of up to 500 Wh/kg) was considerably heavier than it looks.
CATL also showed some tests conducted at its R&D center, including high-pressure water jet, impact, drop, fire, immersion, and vibration tests.
Taking the immersion test as an example, CATL usually places the battery pack in a water pool, soaking it for anywhere from half an hour to 24 hours or 48 hours. After soaking is complete, it is only considered a pass if not a single drop of water has penetrated into the interior of the battery pack.
Of course, model displays are ultimately just talk on paper. To see how a battery cell is actually manufactured, you still have to visit the factory.
So, after leaving the tech building, we headed to the nearbycell manufacturing plant。
Before entering the facility, we had to put on shoe covers, and audio recording and photography were strictly restricted. We followed the designated tour route and observed parts of the production areas through display windows.
The interior of the plant is very spacious, with large production equipment occupying the main areas. We could not see many workers, as much of the work has been completed by automated equipment, with only some steps still involving manual labor.
Another detail I noticed was that the workers' attire also differed. According to the guide, cell manufacturing involves different environmental control requirements, requiring management of factors such as humidity, static electricity, and fine dust.
It seems the rigor is the same both externally and internally.
During the tour, there were also display samples of prismatic cells that we could get close to. Square and flat, like an enlarged cassette tape.
This is one of the most basic building blocks of a new energy vehicle's power battery.
A single cell contains positive and negative electrode materials, separators, electrolyte, and more. After material processing, assembly, and testing, it ultimately becomes a unit capable of independent charging and discharging. The battery pack of a battery electric vehicle often requiresdozens or even hundreds of cellsworking together.
Therefore, what a battery plant must consider, beyond the performance of a single cell, is theconsistency。
between different cells. For example, if the cells within a battery pack show significant differences in capacity or internal resistance, during charging and discharging, some cells may reach the voltage limit early, affecting the amount of energy the entire battery pack can deliver. As usage time increases, such differences may also widen further.
In other words, battery manufacturing not only requires producing qualified cells, but alsocontrolling performance differences among large numbers of cells。
. In technical exchanges, CATL introduced that its advanced production lines can achieve as fast asone cell produced per second, with more than7,000 quality control pointsset up during the manufacturing process, and manufacturing defects identified through AI visual inspection and other methods, targeting a defect rate controlled at the PPB level, that is, on the order ofone in a billion. This level corresponds to two requirements in power battery manufacturing: improving production efficiency while controlling quality fluctuations in mass production.
The manufacturing equipment itself is also under continuous development.
According to CATL, in addition to researching battery materials and structures, the company also participates in production equipment design and then completes manufacturing together with equipment suppliers. Battery mass production thus involves multiple stages including materials, equipment, processes, and software algorithms.
After a full tour, one can appreciate the complexity of modern cell production. For a battery technology to move from the laboratory to large-scale mass production, a series of engineering problems such as production efficiency, quality control, and product consistency still need to be solved.
For automakers, stable cell production is only one part of the process. From cell to battery pack, and then to actually being installed in a car, there is still a great deal of development work to be completed.
And on this point, the technical exchanges with IM Motors and CATL provided clearer clues.
Battery development: far more complex division of labor than imagined
One of the organizers of this tour was
IM Motors, a subsidiary of SAIC.。
The reason we got the chance to visit the CATL factory was the upcomingLS8 NEO pure electric versionas the occasion.
This model is positioned as a250,000-yuan-class pure electric SUVand two core configurations have already been announced —CATL batteries across the entire lineupas well as theLingxi full line-controlled chassis across the entire lineup。
. However, once the technical exchange session actually began, I found that the collaboration approach both sides described was actually more complicated than it appeared on the surface.
First, the LS8 NEO pure electric offers two battery options, namely a93 kWh lithium iron phosphate batteryand a103 kWh ternary lithium battery。
. The two batteries have different technical focuses. The 103 kWh ternary lithium version has a maximum CLTC range of 752 kilometers; the 93 kWh lithium iron phosphate version uses CATL's new-generation BMS battery management system, focusing on improving issues such as state-of-charge estimation under low-temperature and low-battery conditions.
For example, the voltage of lithium iron phosphate batteries changes little in certain state-of-charge ranges, making it harder to estimate remaining charge. CATL engineers explained that through algorithm optimization, the new system can control the charge estimation error to around 3%.
Both batteries were custom-developed to IM's requirements. The cells come from CATL's bases in Ningde and Jiangsu, while the battery packs are assembled by CATL and SAIC Times respectively.
In fact, the cooperation between SAIC and CATL has long-standing origins.
In 2017, the two parties establishedTimes SAIC and SAIC Times, two joint ventures respectively covering cell and power battery system businesses.
Therefore, batteries bearing the same CATL label may come from different production entities behind the scenes.
More importantly, after the battery pack is produced, it still needs to undergoadaptation development。
with the complete vehicle. CATL engineers explained that the battery pack must be designed according to the requirements proposed by the vehicle manufacturer, and after installation it must undergo testing in winter, summer, and various road conditions; the BMS also needs to coordinate with the vehicle's three-electric, thermal management, and other systems.
Take battery capacity as an example. Increasing capacity can usually improve a vehicle's driving range, but the battery pack also gains weight and cost accordingly. Changes in body weight, in turn, affect the vehicle's overall energy consumption, chassis design, and handling tuning.
Therefore, determining how large a battery a car should use requires comprehensive consideration of range targets, interior space, body structure, and cost.
Moreover, the addition of chassis technologies such as steer-by-wire and rear-wheel steering also means that the battery pack, electric drive system, and chassis components need to be laid out during the vehicle development stage.
From this point of view,battery companies and vehicle companies actually have a great deal of overlap in their R&D work, and battery pack design also needs to be coordinated from the early stages of vehicle architecture development.
Battery suppliers need to develop corresponding products according to model requirements, while vehicle companies need to integrate the battery with systems such as the electric drive, thermal management, and chassis.
Another core technology introduced by Zhiji this time — the fully steer-by-wire Lingshee (Lingxi) chassis — is also an important part of vehicle development.
This system combines steer-by-wire with rear-wheel steering. According to data disclosed by the engineers, the LS8 NEO pure electric model's rear-wheel steering angle can reach up to plus or minus 24 degrees, with a minimum turning radius of about 4.85 meters, mainly used to improve the handling experience of large SUVs in low-speed U-turns, parking, and similar scenarios.
Beyond the steer-by-wire chassis, Zhiji also needs to complete the matching of systems such as the battery, electric drive, and vehicle energy consumption management.
That is to say, using CATL's batteries does not mean that all battery-related work is handed over to the supplier.
Meanwhile, CATL's R&D and manufacturing capabilities also need to be translated, through specific vehicle projects, into battery products that can actually be installed in vehicles.
This is precisely the unavoidable question in the outside discussion about "de-CATL-ization":
exactly how much battery technology does an automaker need to master in order to meet its own product development needs?
For self-developed batteries, how far do automakers need to go?
Looking back, in the most recent round of power battery supply chain adjustments, the approaches taken by various automakers have not been the same.
Li Auto's investment in Sunwoda Power strengthens its capital and technology ties with battery suppliers; Xiaomi, for its part, jointly develops batteries with companies such as CALB; other automakers are also introducing new suppliers or expanding their own in-house development scope…
These moves involve different layers of the supply chain.
Adding a second suppliercan reduce dependence on a single supplier;independently developing battery packs, BMS, and other technologiescan increase the automaker's degree of control over product performance and cost; going further into cell material R&D and even manufacturing requires investing more funds, equipment, and R&D resources.
What is equally called self-developed batteries may in practice involve a vastly different range of technologies.
This difference is mainly related tocost.
Power batteries are among the highest-cost components of new energy vehicles, affecting not only a vehicle's range and performance but also the vehicle company's procurement costs, product development cycles, and capacity arrangements.
As other battery manufacturers' technology and manufacturing capabilities continue to improve, automakers have more choices and have begun to strive for more initiative inkey component R&D and supply chain management.
However, as can be seen from the cooperation between Zhiji and CATL, an automaker's deep participation in battery R&D does not necessarily mean independently manufacturing cells.
In fact, SAIC Motor, on the one hand, maintains a long-term cooperation with CATL, and on the other hand is also investing in QingTao Energy, advancing solid-state battery R&D, and continuously developing its own battery management and vehicle integration technologies.
These layouts cover different technological routes, and also involve different levels of independent R&D and supplier cooperation.
As for CATL, as automakers add suppliers and more companies participate in battery development, the content of its cooperation with vehicle manufacturers also needs to be continuously adjusted according to customer needs.
This trip to Ningde showed me that from cell manufacturing to IM's customized development and vehicle integration, several different technological divisions of labor in the power battery industry chain were precisely presented.
For CATL, the core work focuses on battery technology and large-scale manufacturing; for IM, it needs to propose requirements based on model positioning, and jointly develop and validate the battery with other vehicle systems.
As more and more automakers go deeper into battery R&D, the technological division of labor in the automotive industry chain may still undergo changes, and automakers' pursuit of product definition rights and supply chain initiative may also continue to influence the way both parties cooperate.
Returning to the original question: to what extent do automakers need to go?
Power batteries involve multiple technical aspects such as materials, cells, and system integration; the capabilities automakers need to master must also be considered in the context of the entire R&D and manufacturing chain.
What automakers must master is product definition rights, as well as the ability to integrate and validate batteries with the vehicle; as for who manufactures the cells, they can choose among independent development, joint development, and outsourcing based on model positioning, scale, and cost.
But no matter how the supply chain changes, automotive competition ultimately comes back to the product. Independent development, outsourcing, or joint development are all different paths for automakers to achieve their product goals.
Components may each have their own strengths, but a car's competitiveness is always the result of all its technologies working together.