China’s largest lithium mining company has transformed itself into a battery manufacturer, and is now the very first company to announce mass production of revolutionary solid-state batteries.
Solid-state batteries are sensitive to moisture, so their manufacturers need special equipment to keep humidity away from production lines. While government initiatives should accelerate solid-state battery development, Chinese companies aren’t waiting. Battery makers have already started formulating plans for the next-gen technology.
At a conference held by the China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance late last week, Ouyang Minggao, a renowned battery expert and an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that in China, the closest technical route to industrialization is the sulfide-based all-solid-state batteries.
China has already won the race to mass produce lithium-ion batteries. Across the entire value chain for this technology—mining, material processing, and cell and pack manufacturing—it controls more than 80 percent of the global market.
Hence, many countries consider them a potentially game-changing technology. LiPure Energy, a Beijing-based battery firm, said it has successfully built China's first production line to manufacture all-solid-state lithium batteries and has already launched mass production.
A Chinese local media outlet, Late Post, has reported that the company aims to achieve small-scale volume production of its all-solid-state battery by 2027. The company has reportedly invested heavily in research and development, with a dedicated team of over 1,000 people.