I Flew to China for a Battery That Could End Gas Stations

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:01]So, they just told us the first one to the flying car gets a free ride to Beijing to go to the auto shows. I got to go, guys.

[00:00:10]Tesla made EVs go mainstream. But China is rewriting the rules. Charging in seconds or not charging at all. Cars that can literally earn you money while they sit. And this is not the future.

[00:00:21]It's happening in China right now. I flew across the world to see this and it might completely change how you think about EVs. I came to China expecting to see better batteries. But what I found is actually something much bigger. And it all leads back to one company, the one that's powered almost half the EVs in the world this last year, CL. And if you watch my videos, CL is probably in the background a lot more than you realize because they supply the batteries to Tesla, BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, and a ton of Chinese EVs.

[00:00:52]They control 40% of the global EV market and have been number one for nine years straight and they also lead in energy storage batteries worldwide. So when CL says they built something new, you pay attention, which is why I'm at their booth today at AutoChina. Ask any EV driver what still worries them and they all basically say the same thing, charging time and road trip. This is an LFP battery that can charge at rates of 10 C with peaks up to 15C. right at the top of the industry. On a 100 kWh battery pack, 10 C equals 1,000 kW peak charging and 15C pushes that to 1500 kW.

[00:01:27]I mean, can you imagine going from 10 to 80% in 3 minutes and 44 seconds? They've measured it and it's happening today.

[00:01:34]And you can go from 10 to 98% in just over 6 and 1/2 minutes. That's literally order a cup of coffee, use the bathroom, and come back to a nearly full battery.

[00:01:43]And this is even an extreme cold at -22.

[00:01:47]You can still go from 20 to 98% in under 9 minutes. So, this isn't just for perfect weather or demo conditions. And the key is doing this without frying the battery pack. So, CL was actually able to re-engineer the chemistry and reduce internal resistance. So, you get ultra fast charging while still keeping over 90% capacity after around 1,000 full super fast charge cycles. So, this is a really big deal for EV drivers because it means that you don't have to plan your entire road trip just around where the superchargers are and you could have more quick stops and then you just get back on the road. But, CL isn't stopping at charge faster. They're actually asking what if you just don't charge.

[00:02:28]So, think about this. You pull into a station and your entire battery pack is swapped in 99 seconds. So, all this happens faster than you can fill up a gas tank. And in this model, it's a really different way of looking at it.

[00:02:41]Your battery actually becomes more like a service. So, it's not a battery that you own for 10 years. You're actually tapping into a network. So, you don't have to think about your battery aging out and possibly killing resale value later for your vehicle. And this is the part that really excites me the most because it's not just about this cool new battery. It's about what's going on, the entire ecosystem behind it. So your car, the ultra fast charging, the swap stations, even the grid are all connected in this ecosystem. CL is equipping the Taco Swap battery swap stations with the Chenqing ultraast charging piles. So at the same station, you can either plug in for 6 minute supercharge or swap the pack in roughly a minute and a half. So home charging, public ultra fast charging, and even swapping aren't competing. They're all tools in the same system that work together. So, this is a really big deal because it means when you're planning your road trip as an EV driver, there's so many more options because everything all works together in the same system and it just opens up the way you travel, the way you get around. And once you have all of these batteries connected, they stop just being fuel tanks. So you're able to fill them up, charge them when the energy is cheap, and then potentially sell it back to the grid when the energy is more expensive. So in some setups, you could actually make money doing this. Now, it's probably not going to be like quit your job and become a battery swapper type money, but it definitely flips the script. Tesla figured this out early. Lighter cars are more efficient, they handle better, and honestly, they just feel more fun to drive. The problem is that batteries are heavy and shaving serious weight off them is a really hard thing to do, but CL is targeting this with their next design. So, a lot of EVs in Europe and in North America use cylindrical cells, including some Teslas. They're super well understood. They're reliable, but they don't pack perfectly. You always end up with wasted space and gaps between the cells. So, CL uses prismatic batteries instead. So, you could think about this kind of like packing a suitcase. So cylindrical cells are sort of like water bottles. If you throw these into your suitcase, there's all kinds of gaps between them and wasted space, but prismatic cells are more like putting bricks into your suitcase. So you actually get more energy in a smaller amount of volume. So you make the structure of the pack actually work harder for you. And that sets us up for what they're doing with their third generation Chilein battery. So this is probably one of the most interesting things here. So, this is for Tesla or anyone who cares about performance EVs.

[00:05:20]This is their premium flagship NCM pack, and this is built for higherend EVs.

[00:05:25]Anyone who cares about range and how the car drives. On paper, it does exactly what you'd want, around 280 W hour per kilogram. And on a cell level, that's about 600 W hours per liter in volumetric energy density. In the right vehicle, this could give you around 620 mi of range. But the real story is how this affects the weight. So compare this to a similar LFP system and the Chilin 3 can cut 560 lbs and cut the pack volume by 4 cubic feet. This entire pack weighs around 1,400 lb. So to put that into driver's turns, you can imagine a mid to large size sedan that weighs around 2 and 1/2 tons that can do a 0 to 60 in around 5 seconds. Now drop 560 lbs out of that pack and you can shave about6 seconds off your 0 to 60 time and cut your braking distance by around 5T in an emergency stop. 5 ft is a big deal handling wise. That weight reduction cuts body roll by about 6.5% and boosts your ability to handle emergencies by up to 25%. And basically what this means is that the car can turn quicker. It can stay flatter and it's easier to control when something happens at high speeds.

[00:06:36]On an efficiency side, CL says the Chilin 3's lighter pack can cut energy use by more than 6% for every 62 miles.

[00:06:44]So compare that to equivalent LFP packs and that's around.78 kwatt hours for every 62 miles. Now scale that over larger fleets and that's hundreds of millions of kilowatt hours and thousands of tons of CO2 per year. Plus, you get longerlasting tire life and longerlasting chassis components. And CL is already a partner of Tesla mainly on their LP batteries that are focused on fast charging. And that is for the Chinese markets. You know, they get all the good batteries. In the US and other markets, we're going to see Panasonic and LG batteries. So, combine that kind of chassis with a high energy density, lightweight Chin 3 pack, and you're combining all the things that EV drivers care about. More range, more performance, better efficiency, and a sharper driving feel. And then there's power. Chilin 3 can deliver up to three megawws of instantaneous power and with peak performance up to 50C. So this really starts to get into hypercar territory, which is exactly what CL plans to support with the potential for future F1 type batteries. To keep that safe, Chilin 3 uses what CL calls thermal electrical decoupling. If a cell goes into thermal runaway, the pack design isolates the hot conductive gases from the electrical parts so the failure doesn't cascade through the whole pack.

[00:08:02]Over 60% of the world's luxury car brands already partner with CL and Chilean 3 is very much aimed at that segment. So lighter, stronger, more premium and how the car feels in the driver's seat. So, the Chilean 3 is really the hero pack. But the Chilean condensed battery pack takes aviation tech and puts it into passenger vehicles. At a car level, this translates to around 930 mi in a sedan, 620 in a big SUV, and that's with a battery that's only around 1,400 lb. It uses condensed state electrolyte instead of a liquid one, so there's nothing to leak or ignite, and it still stays stable even in extreme testing. And on a mass market side, you get Naturra. This is a sodium ion battery that's built for extreme cold. So, we know that sodium is more abundant than lithium and CTL has actually engineered this to be able to survive in harsh environments. So, you get something that is more affordable and safer, but still works in harsh environments. And for people who aren't ready to go full EV, CL has their free voice super hybrid battery. It's built on Shenqing level ultra fast charging and Chilean architecture with pure electric range of up to 370 mi in its NCM version plus standardized 10C super fast charging. So even plug-in hybrids will start to feel more like real EVs.

[00:09:22]You can go farther without needing that gasoline backup. And then you look up and you realize that it's not just about cars. CL's tech is showing up in electric aircraft, EV tolls, and they're already powering electric ships. So, the batteries that make your EV quicker and more efficient are also helping decarbonize planes and boats. At this point, it stops feeling like just another EV battery launch. You've got ultraast LFP charging with Shen Shank swap stations that let you skip charging entirely. Premium longrange packs like Chile 3 for performance EVs, sodium ion with NAR for affordability in cold weather, and freeway hybrids for Marcus that aren't fully there yet. And all of this plugs into the charge swap ecosystem that can also talk to the grid. So for EVs drivers, this means the stuff that we complain about like range anxiety, cold weather temps, all of that really goes away. And if CL stays on this trajectory, a lot of these solutions are going to end up not just on cars in China, but cars in our driveways. So, we mostly think about the gradual changes that we actually see, like 10 more miles of range, slightly faster charging, and it's easy to miss what's actually happening behind the scenes. So, I came to China expecting to see better batteries, and they're definitely already here. And really, the way I think about energy now is completely different. It's an entire ecosystem. And if it continues to scale, it's not just going to be about EVs.

[00:10:47]It's going to be how we think about energy all together. So, let me know what you guys think about all this. If you're excited for this new battery chemistry, make sure you're subscribed and I'll catch you next time.