CATL President: China’s push for electric vehicles could lead to higher battery failure rates

At the World Power Battery Conference 2026 in China, CATL’s president estimated that over 600 NEVs, electric vehicles, and plug-in hybrids were launched in [the country] in 2026. This amounts to roughly three new launches per day on average. Such a rapid pace of product introduction could have unexpected consequences in the form of higher battery failure rates. And it did: issues were detected in several battery series [from unknown manufacturers].

Where engineers rush, ASO thrives

Contemporary Amperex Technology is today the world’s largest producer of Li-ion cells. It supplies them either as individual cells or as ready-made battery packs. It is the customer who decides what specifications they need (energy density, charging capacity, etc.), and it is also the customer who must ensure compliance with CATL’s recommendations regarding cooling system performance or even the sealing of high-voltage cables. If the car manufacturer fails to meet the requirements and a battery failure occurs, the blame is likely to fall on the cell/pack supplier as well.

Therefore, CATL’s president warns against rushing the validation process as new electric cars are launched. He revealed that he is aware of several batch failures but did not disclose the car brands or battery suppliers. CarNewsChina, which covered this topic, recalls that Geely’s subsidiary Viridi accused Sunwoda of supplying defective lithium-ion batteries between June 2021 and December 2023. Meanwhile, GAC faced issues with CALB batteries in 213,000 of its vehicles, with some of them swelling at one point during operation and causing entire modules to bend (a “banana battery”):

A banana battery, or a module bent due to swelling CALB batteries (c) Shui Shui Xiong Tong Xue / Weibo, courtesy of CarNewsChina

The founder and CEO of CATL believes that the current conventional acceptable failure rate of 1 in a million is insufficient. Assuming conservatively that a battery consists of 100 cells, a defective cell will end up in one in ten thousand electricians’ hands. With production of tens of thousands of cars per month, one or two completely new vehicles will exhibit unpredictable behavior during operation each week. Therefore, CATL uses a three orders of magnitude stricter rate and has optimized its processes so that potential problems occur in only one case per billion.

Example CATL Battery

Editor’s note from Elektrowozu: Meanwhile, European manufacturers are extremely jealous of Chinese brands’ production speed...

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