China’s “Golden Battery” Just Changed Fast Charging Forever

追加: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]If you plug it into one of the latest ultra fast chargers, CL says that this battery can add roughly 400 kilometers of range in 10 minutes. I actually saw them do this in Beijing a week or so ago when I was at the Beijing Auto Show. So, the headline number really is 400 km in 10 minutes, 200 km in 5 minutes. That is good enough for basically everybody in the UK as a really good example. So in the real world using a more conservative WLTP style driving figures that is probably close to 150 km in 5 minutes and that is still a massive jump from what most EVs can do today usually. And uh what you should remember is that most people would probably I think be happy with a quick shove of power into the battery for four or five six minutes so that they can finish off a journey uh which is uh just a bit too long for them. It's not necessarily that people rapid charge when they need 200 mi of range because uh the data does not show that that's what's going on. So they don't usually want a full charge when they're out and about. So if you could say stop for 5 minutes and then carry on, that is all you might need. On the average rapid charge in the UK, people asking for somewhere about 50 miles worth of driving, which is you which is about 3 or 4 minutes if you had the Shening 3 battery. So, this is CL's Shening battery, and it is quickly becoming one of the most important developments, if not the most important development in the EV uh world right now, at least in the last couple of months. Not because it has the biggest range or anything like that, or the highest energy density, but because it tackles the one thing that most people still complain about, which is charging time above all else. Charging time is apparently the the thing, the concern for uh for everybody really in the world. The Shening is based on LFP chemistry. So it's not sodium unfortunately. It's not even a hybrid battery. It is already known for being very very safe. Of course, LFP chemistry very very safe. It's cheaper than nickelbased batteries. Traditionally though, LFP has been slower to charge, has uh some trade-offs in winter as well. CL has basically gone after that problem directly and pushed charging speeds up uh into a completely different category. We haven't seen this before with LFP chemistry. The original Shenshen battery was announced in August 2023 with mass production starting through uh 2024. Since then, CL has been or has continued to refine it. And what you're seeing now in 2020, 2026 is an updated version with better charging curves, improved thermal control. They've even put thermal plates between the cells individually so they can extrapolate the heat and uh more stable performance when you repeatedly fast charge it. What makes this battery stand out though is the charging rate.

[00:02:51]Most batteries on an EV today somewhere between 1 and a half 2C uh something like that in normal use. But some of the better ones basically might touch 3C and under perfect conditions as well.

[00:03:06]The Shening is designed to sustain 4C charging, which is why it can pull in that uh that much energy so quickly without overheating or degrading as fast as you'd expect. Uh CL have obviously done some clever things inside the chemistry here which I'll get into in another video. But CL has already said that the battery can still retain over 90% of its capacity after a thousand high-speed charging cycles which is very important by the way. Fast charging usually where batteries wear out a little bit faster. Uh so if they've genuinely solved that uh that part, it does change how people actually use uh EVs dayto-day. basically not everybody and the UK is a bit of a different case, isn't it? Because it's not the hugest, not the biggest place on earth, but for a lot of people who do long trips up and down the A1, the M1, across Europe, uh maybe down to Sydney, from Brisbane, that sort of stuff, this thing, this will matter really. Another detail that really does matter is temperature performance. One of the weak points of many EV batteries is uh is charging in the cold. CL claims that the Shening uh 3 battery can still charge quickly at temperatures as low as minus 10 degrees, which is a very big deal for places like Northern Europe, parts of China. So, why are people starting to say that that this could be one of the best batteries coming out of China right now? It's it's not just the speed. It's actually the combination of things really. You've got LFP chemistry, which is already proven and relatively low cost. You've got very fast charging. You've also got long uh cycle life. And then you've got a system that is designed to be used at scale, not just in high-end cars. A lot of other battery technologies focus on one area though. Some go for maximum range, others go for being super cheap, for example, and uh some are just chasing solid state battery designs that aren't ready yet. And uh you know what CL has done here, just by the way, they are the biggest battery manufacturer in the world. 20,000 employees, one R&D team with 2,000 people in it has 200 people with a doctorate. So they know what they're doing. You know, it's really hard to This is one of the reasons why people don't really believe uh basically anything that donut labs said. So what CL has done here is take something that is already uh working LFP chemistry and push it much further in terms of usability. And that is why it's being talked about as a potential benchmark really as an industry benchmark. Not necessarily because it beats everything on paper, but because it changes the experience of owning an EV owed to the fact that it charges really, really quickly. If you can genuinely pull in 120, 150, 160 km of range in 5 minutes while you're stopped at a charger, that kind of starts to feel a lot close to how people are used to refueling a petrol car, for example, because maybe it's not 400 miles, 300 miles, but it it does the same sort of thing. The the net effect is is a similar thing. So, if you're driving from London to Edinburgh and you need to stop halfway because you your car was only halfway when you set off, you can just boost it up, carry on, get to Edinburgh. So, in terms of Roert, vehicles using Shening batteries began appearing in China at the end of 2024, I believe, if my memory serves me correctly and into 2025. As of now, May 2026, more manufacturers are starting to adopt it. Actually, some very big contracts have been signed, particularly Chinese brands that are, you know, already work very very closely with CL.

[00:06:36]And to be honest, who doesn't work closely with CL? They have more market share than any other company. you're seeing it filter into mid-range and higher per higher val volume sorry higher volume electric vehicles first rather than just flagship models outside of China it's going to take a little bit longer of course partly because supply chain issues and uh yeah partly because the charging infrastructure needs to support uh those sort of higher power levels to really take advantage of what the battery can do but it is reasonable to expect that over time over the next one or two years this this type of battery or something very very similar will start to show up in global markets in Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, that sort of thing.

[00:07:18]There are still some limitations. Those headline charging numbers rely on uh very highowered chargers, of course.

[00:07:26]Often in the 350, 400 kW range or higher. Not every charger can deliver that yet. Actually, you may have noticed. And uh real world range will always be lower than the official Chinese test because this is just what we we're used to. to this at this point I don't need to say anything else but even when you adjust for that the gains are still significant it is worth it so when people say this could be one of the best batteries currently being produced in China that is really what they mean I think and it's not just about lab results or theoretical performance it's um it's about something that is already in production you you know is reasonably uh viable it's quite cheap it's already going to go into uh cars for the rest of this year it's already in some cars does and actually changing how quickly you can get back on the road after just 3 4 minutes on the on a charger. And uh if CL continue to improve at this pace cuz basically every 3 to 6 months there's something big happening in China from CL specifically, it's not hard to see why other battery makers are going to have to respond because uh in terms of fast charging right now um at scale, this is setting a very high bar. So, what are your thoughts on this? Thank you for these people, these other char um channel members. I really appreciate your your time and um you know, thank you for watching. Been a bit of a tricky month. I've been very very busy. I've just come back from China as well and then I got a I was sick predictably. I was very sick. So, uh yeah, appreciate your time. Thank you to all the channel members for uh supporting the