It Took Humanity Nearly 200 Years to Finally Drive Electric Cars More Dignifiedly

Just a few days ago, at the "2026 Equipment Power Forum", CATL Chief Scientist and Academician Wu Kai released a major forward-looking announcement: CATL plans to focus on the research and development of "Lithium-Air Batteries" in the long term.

This system, known as the ultimate direction for next-generation battery technology, has a theoretical energy density limit nearly 5 to 10 times that of existing lithium batteries. To put it plainly, once this battery is released, the internal combustion engine will basically be useless.

As soon as the news came out, many car enthusiast groups became lively again. Those who were originally waiting for solid-state batteries to be available before switching cars now had another reason to continue waiting.

But as someone who has observed the automotive industry for a long time, I remained calm after reading this news.

After all, between the concept release and a new energy vehicle you can buy, there are several hurdles such as basic research, engineering scaling, life verification, etc., and more importantly, the long industrial game between suppliers and OEMs.

Furthermore, hidden behind this buzz is a somewhat cruel physics fact — humanity has been fighting for nearly two hundred years on this planet to find a sufficiently perfect "energy container" for electricity.

Today, inside a 4S Dealership, you hear salespeople skillfully promoting Lithium Iron Phosphate, NCM, fast charging power, and battery warranties. These terms sound futuristic, but the act itself of "driving wheels with electricity" is so ancient it might exceed your imagination.

Today, you stand in the showroom struggling with fast charging power and charging station distribution. A century ago, European noblewomen were also struggling with whether the battery swap station was far from home.

A History More Ancient than the Internal Combustion Engine

In the 11th Year of Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty, which is 1831, Faraday discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, laying the theoretical foundation for electric motors driving machinery.

In 1859, French physicist Gaston Planté invented the lead-acid battery. For the first time, humanity possessed a battery capable of repeated charging and discharging. This made electric vehicles truly possible.

In 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé used lead-acid batteries paired with Siemens motors to build the first recognized passenger electric vehicle for public roads. This car predated Karl Benz's internal combustion engine car by a full five years.

So strictly speaking, electric vehicles are not followers of fuel cars; they were the ones to set off first.

Moreover, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, electric vehicles lived quite well — quiet, no exhaust fumes, no hand crank start, and incredibly elegant for short trips in the city.

Electric taxis were once seen everywhere on American streets, postal vehicles also used electricity, and noblewomen preferred electric vehicles for outings. Because lead-acid batteries were too heavy to carry home for charging, many big cities also built many battery swap stations to serve users.

Some brands you are now familiar with also made electric cars during this period, such as this Porsche Lohner-Porsche Mixte, with a top speed of 130km/h.

In the following decades, electric vehicles experienced a golden development period. Sales and market share steadily surpassed fuel cars.

But afterwards, the mass production of the Ford Model T completely drove down car prices. The price of less than $700 was nearly half that of electric vehicles.

At the same time, President Roosevelt's large-scale infrastructure projects to provide relief through work increased the demand for long-distance travel across interstate highways. Coupled with the drop in oil prices, lead-acid electric vehicles retreated step by step, later only having applications in specific occasions such as golf courses.

Of course, lead-acid batteries did not completely leave the automotive industry; they still exist in the vast majority of fuel cars, quietly staying under the hood, responsible for an important but inconspicuous task: starting the ignition.

So in the last ten years, how have electric vehicles re-entered the mainstream view?

Oil prices were the driver, but not the root cause. From the perspective of materials science, humanity finally found a material with higher energy but lighter quality to replace lead.

And taming it took humanity a full decades.

The Birth of Lithium Batteries

Lithium, the element located third in the periodic table compiled by Mendeleev, is currently the most chemically active metal known.

Cut a piece of metallic lithium and throw it into water, and it will scream and spin on the water surface, releasing hydrogen gas, and even burning.

This means it is naturally a swift steed, as long as you can tame it.

1 gram of metallic lithium contains energy of approximately 3800 mAh — almost enough to fully charge an entire iPhone phone.

To store the same 1 kWh of electricity, lithium requires only a few kilograms, while lead-acid requires tens or even hundreds of kilograms. This is an inequality written into the laws of physics from the beginning, a gap that cannot be bridged by process alone.

In the 1970s, Exxon scientists created the first lithium metal battery. The energy density was astonishing, but after repeated charging and discharging, lithium would grow dendritic branches on the surface of the negative electrode. Like needles, they would continue to grow, eventually piercing the separator, causing a short circuit and explosion.

In the 1980s, Canadian company Moli Energy attempted to mass-produce lithium metal batteries for mobile phones. The result was a mass recall due to fires, and the company went out of business because of this. Lithium's "volatile" reputation was firmly established.

The real turning point came from Japanese chemist Akira Yoshino's change in thinking.

He thought, since metallic lithium cannot be contained, why not not let lithium appear in metallic form. He used carbon materials for the negative electrode, allowing lithium to intercalate between the graphite layers in ionic form.

If we compare the graphite carbon layers to neatly layered shelves, lithium ions are goods stored in the interlayers in categories; whereas the past metallic lithium negative electrode was equivalent to abandoning the shelves and directly piling raw lithium materials nakedly in the warehouse space. Unconstrained metallic lithium grew freely during charging and discharging, making it difficult to control.

In 1991, Sony mass-produced the first commercial lithium-ion battery. Thus, humanity finally found a way to put lithium into a cage for the first time.

Until now, the design of this "cage" has continued to improve. And the power battery in your car now is the ultimate form of this cage.

From Salt Lake to Cell: How Was the Steed Put Into the Cage?

If we disassemble a newly made lithium battery cell in a factory, you will find that the bottom structure of this cage is as exquisite as a stack of "microscopic sandwiches".

First are the current collectors on both sides.

The positive electrode is a layer of extremely thin aluminum foil, the negative electrode is a layer of copper foil. Connected through a circuit, the operation of the electric motor relies on electrons migrating through this circuit.

Next are the positive and negative electrode materials that form the core of the battery.

The mainstream negative electrode uses artificial graphite made of pure carbon process. It has a very perfect layered structure under the microscope, with a large number of nanometer-scale gaps between the layers.

The positive electrode is a lithium compound. Currently common materials are mainly Lithium Iron Phosphate and Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese Lithium.

Finally, there are the separators and electrolyte sandwiched between the positive and negative electrodes.

Actually, the separator is a plastic product. Not only is it one-tenth the thickness of a human hair, but also due to the properties of plastic, it is insulating. The micro-pores on it only allow lithium ions to pass through, while electrons can only be blocked outside and seek another path.

And the electrolyte made from organic carbonates and lithium salts acts as a "lubricant" for the shuttle of lithium ions.

After understanding the structure of the lithium battery and comparing it with the lead-acid battery from a hundred years ago, we can intuitively feel why lithium battery discharge is more powerful.

The traditional lead-acid battery uses heavy lead plates soaked in highly corrosive dilute sulfuric acid.

The essence of its power generation is the extensive chemical reaction of "dissolution and precipitation" — every time it discharges, the lead plate dissolves and generates large solid lead sulfate.

During charging, one struggles to dissolve these solids back. This is like every time two armies face off, they have to tear down the city wall to use as bricks to hit. After long charge and discharge cycles, the wall naturally collapses, and the discharge ability will also weaken.

And for lithium batteries, the superiority of their structure and materials lies in "not destroying the skeleton".

Whether it is the olivine lattice of the positive electrode or the graphite layer of the negative electrode, it can be understood as an extremely structurally stable luxury hotel. Lithium ions check out today and check in tomorrow, coming and going, while the load-bearing walls and room structure of the hotel itself remain motionless.

This "intercalation" material design allows lithium batteries to directly execute a dimension-reduction strike against lead-acid batteries in terms of lifespan and energy density.

However, to create such an exquisite "cage" also requires considerable effort.

We take CATL's upstream layout as a sample, following lithium for a complete journey from ore to cell.

Lithium in nature almost never exists as a mono-element, so there are mainly two paths for lithium sources.

One is hard rock ore, such as some materials from CATL originating from Australian spodumene mines. The ore is calcined, acidified, leached, and finally purified into white powder of lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide.

The second is salt lake brine, such as the Salar de Atacama in South America and salt lakes in Qinghai, China. The high-concentration brine here is pumped up and concentrated in evaporation pools, and then lithium is extracted through adsorption or membrane separation technology.

Next, these white powders enter the material preparation stage.

Taking Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries as an example, lithium salts and iron phosphate raw materials are uniformly mixed and mixed. They are sintered at ultra-high temperatures to generate positive electrode powder with an olivine crystal structure, then mixed with binder "slurry", and evenly coated on aluminum foil.

On the other hand, purified artificial graphite is also coated on copper foil.

And for Ternary Lithium batteries, nickel, cobalt, and manganese elements from places like Indonesia need to be burned into powder according to a certain ratio to form the positive electrode material.

Finally, according to needs, the cell factory, the positive and negative electrode sheets are either wound like sushi rolls into cylindrical or prismatic aluminum shell cells, or layered like stacking books into pouch or prismatic aluminum shell cells, then filled with organic electrolyte and sealed.

Thus, the steed lithium was formally tamed by a nanometer "cage" constructed by relying on chemistry and precision craftsmanship.

Working Principle of Lithium Batteries: How to Make the Steed Run?

The cage is built, but putting a steed in a cage is just the first step.

To truly make it work, it needs to run, and it needs to run back and forth in an orderly manner along the route you designed.

And the reason lithium ions can run back and forth orderly is related to what they carry themselves — Electric Potential Energy.

This concept of electric potential energy is not hard to understand; the pattern is exactly the same as gravity flowing water.

A fully charged negative electrode is like a reservoir at a high place. Discharging is like opening the floodgate to release water, releasing energy work in the direction of the current; Charging is like a water pump pumping water up a mountain, consuming electrical energy, and transporting the lithium ion representing "water" back to the high-level storage of the negative electrode.

When fully charged, lithium ions are stored in the negative electrode graphite interlayers. The negative electrode potential is high, and the positive electrode potential is low.

Connecting the external circuit, lithium ions pass through the separator moving towards the positive electrode. Electrons form a current along the external circuit, driving the motor to operate. This is discharge.

Charging is the reverse process. The external power source applies pressure, forcibly drawing lithium ions back from the positive electrode to the negative electrode graphite gaps, converting electrical energy into electric potential energy to store.

To expand a bit, fast charging is equivalent to the water pump working at full capacity.

If drawn too fiercely, lithium ions don't have time to drill deep into the graphite layers. They will deposit on the surface of the negative electrode in metallic form — "Lithium Plating". The deposited lithium will grow into needle-like dendrites. Piercing the separator leads to short circuit thermal runaway.

Therefore, one of the core tasks of the Battery Management System is to manage the temperature and speed of the water flow.

Battery degradation is that this water pumping energy storage system is used for a long time, some corners of the reservoir are permanently silted up, less and less water can be stored, and the range also drops.

LFP vs NCM: How to Choose

Having said so much, let's get back to life. I believe you have likely experienced this moment when choosing a new energy vehicle.

The salesperson says this car is LFP, that car is NCM. One is safer, one has longer range.

But when you open the spec sheet, some LFP cars also have not short range, and not much different from the NCM version.

This is strange. LFP naturally has low energy density. How did the range catch up?

Actually the answer has two layers: the first layer looks at materials, the second layer looks at packaging.

First, let's talk about materials.

Lithium Iron Phosphate is an olivine structure, like a row of densely packed fixed shelves.

Each shelf has reserved slots. Lithium ions take their seats by number. Entering and exiting can only pass through a one-dimensional channel.

The benefit is the shelves are extremely strong — thermal decomposition temperature above 270°C, not easy to catch fire, long cycle life, still usable after thousands of charge/discharge cycles.

The disadvantage is the channel is narrow, lithium ions moving in and out are slow, and the total power stored per same weight is not as good as NCM.

NCM is a layered structure, like a row of open bookshelves. There are no fixed slots. Lithium ions move in and out in two dimensions between layers. The channel is spacious, the speed is faster.

But bookshelves are not as stable as fixed shelves. Thermal decomposition temperature is in the 180 to 220°C range. The higher the nickel content, the greater the energy, and the greater the stability challenge.

Here, the talent gap is clear: NCM naturally holds more electricity, LFP is naturally more stable.

But the question returns to the beginning — why does LFP range catch up? One answer lies in packaging.

The "talent" of cell materials only determines the upper limit. The energy density of the battery pack looks more at "craftsmanship".

For example, the current CTP (Cell to Pack) technology can directly integrate cells into the battery pack, saving the weight and space of this intermediate level during module splicing.

CATL's Shenxing Battery and BYD's Blade Battery belong to this category.

There is also CTB (Cell to Body) technology. Chassis integration design makes the battery pack itself become a body structure part, further compressing the volume.

For example, Xiaomi's SU7, YU7, Tesla's Model 3, Y, BYD's Dolphin, etc.

In short, by taking packaging and structural optimization to the extreme, many LFP battery packs, such as CATL's Shenxing Battery, the energy density can also approach the level of NCM. The actual range can already meet the daily use of most vehicle models.

And the third-generation Shenxing Supercharge Battery can already achieve charging from 10% to 98% in 6 minutes 27 seconds. It can already achieve equivalent 10C, peak 15C charging power. It can be said that the problem of charging efficiency on new energy vehicles has been solved under the premise of safety.

But if pursuing extreme long-range, power burst, and whole vehicle lightweighting, using LFP batteries under the same conditions is too heavy. At this time, it is still necessary for NCM batteries with higher energy density to take the field. For example, CATL's Qilin Battery, basically all high-performance electric vehicles you can name are using. CATL

CATL also happened to launch the third-generation Qilin Battery a while ago, achieving an ultra-long range of 1000km while reducing weight.

Of course, currently there are still many consumers who are watching, wanting both stability for daily commuting and long-distance travel, and powerful performance. But there is simply no battery on the market that meets their needs.

In response, CATL is building the Xiaoyao Dual-Core Battery, integrating two types of cells into the same battery pack, allowing different cells to exert their own advantages, perfectly matching diverse usage scenarios.

Moreover, the two cells in this battery pack can be matched according to needs, and the naming logic is also very intuitive.

"Iron" is Lithium Iron Phosphate, "Ternary" is NCM, "Sodium" is Sodium-ion battery.

Several combinations have their own advantages — "Ternary + LFP", Main Zone Ternary is responsible for burst, Range Extension Zone LFP provides safety baseline and long-lasting charge/discharge.

And "Sodium + Iron" Dual-Core puts the Sodium-ion battery into the Main Zone, -40°C capacity retention rate over 90%, specializing in curing the halved range of Northern Winter.

Regarding the "Sodium" inside the Dual-Core, I have to mention it for the friends in the North here, because I think this is the last piece of the puzzle to solve the pain point of Northern friends buying new energy vehicles.

Sodium and Lithium belong to the same family of metal elements. Their chemical properties are similar, but Sodium is much gentler, easier to extract than Lithium, low cost, good low-temperature performance, and batteries made with Sodium have small discounts on winter range.

And with the mass production of Sodium-ion batteries and their application in energy storage and commercial vehicle fields, more and more passenger car brands provide the choice of Sodium-ion batteries.

Northern friends who were previously concerned about new energy vehicles can also consider it recently.

However, Sodium-ion batteries have a disadvantage. Sodium ions are bigger than Lithium ions by a circle. Stuffing them into graphite layers is harder. So energy density temporarily cannot catch up with Lithium.

However, this is a balancing problem between low-temperature environment and range efficiency. I believe with the progress of materials and packaging, this difficulty will also be gradually solved.

However, for most consumers, if you have the energy to read to here, next time the salesperson mentions these battery terms again, you will have the confidence armed with professional knowledge.

You only need to know one thing: Every question you struggled with today in the showroom — Safety, Range, Charging, Durability — People who sat in the first electric vehicle 160 years ago were also struggling with the same.

The only thing they could choose back then was a dead heavy lead-acid battery.

And what you can choose in front of you is the latest answer handed to you by humanity using nearly two hundred years, picking Lithium from the periodic table, building shelves for it using nanotechnology, and pushing energy density up kilometer by kilometer using engineering optimization.

Car Talk:

Over a hundred years ago, lead-acid batteries couldn't run through a whole city. Today, one battery can nearly run through a whole province.

In the future, Lithium-Air might be able to complete a long-distance trip without mileage anxiety.

By then, people might still stand in the car showroom hesitating.

Every electric car you drive is not just an industrial product.

It is a reply letter written by physicists, chemists, engineers, and miners, taking a relay of two hundred years.

The recipient is you who don't want to be trapped on the road. The signature is that promise made since the Lead-Acid era.

References:

A general introduction to lithium-ion batteries: From the first concept to the top six commercials and beyond

Comprehensive review of lithium-ion battery materials and development challenges

SMM 2023-2027 China Lithium Battery New Energy Industry Chain Report