China’s CATL unveils battery planned to power planes

China’s CATL said Wednesday it was working with partners to develop electric passenger planes as they unveiled a condensed matter battery it said was strong enough to power such an aircraft.

The world’s biggest maker of batteries for electrical vehicles made the announcement at the Shanghai Auto Show and said it would also launch a version for cars that would go into mass production this year.

“The launch of this cutting-edge technology breaks the limits that have long restricted the development of the battery sector and will open up a new scenario of electrification centring on a high level of safety and light weight,” the company said in a news release.

CATL did not specify who its airline partners were but said it was practicing aviation-level standards and testing in accordance with industry requirements.

“We believe that condensed batteries will have a positive and far-reaching impact on achieving carbon neutrality,” CATL’s chief scientist Wu Kai told a media conference.

The company announced on Tuesday that its core operations would be carbon neutral by 2025, with the rest following in 2035.

Its Yibin factory in the southwestern province of Sichuan was certified as the world’s first zero-carbon battery factory last year.

“We think carbon neutrality is a good thing for the whole of human society,” a CATL specialist told AFP.

The specialist said he thought other Chinese companies would soon follow suit and that China itself has pledged to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.

China is by far the largest emitter, responsible for roughly a quarter of all current carbon pollution.

© 2023 AFP