China’s CATL on Tuesday introduced a new skateboard chassis for electric vehicles that integrates the battery directly into the frame of the car, in the hope of not only growing its battery-related business but also tapping the future potential of driverless mobility.
Why it matters: The skateboard chassis is considered key to making EVs more viable for mass markets, allowing them to have more storage, freedom in design, and better crash protection for the front of the vehicle, a former director at General Motors told Automotive News in 2022. The hardware was originally created by General Motors in 2002 for a hydrogen fuel cell concept and first adopted at scale by Tesla for electric vehicles two years later.
- CATL has “natural advantages” in the chassis market segment, as improvement in the energy density of batteries becomes crucial to chassis upgrades, Jefferies analysts wrote in a note on Feb. 10, 2023. Experts also notice a trend of battery cells being integrated directly into the floor frame, or Cell-to-Chassis, which could reduce the usage of structural parts, increase vehicle space, improve battery efficiency, and thus reduce cost.
Details: In a test video broadcasted by CATL, a stationary pole strikes the front of a moving vehicle prototype, as well as another one without an upper body, at a speed of 120 kilometers per hour (75 mph).
- The batteries remained intact and did not catch fire even after standing still for 12 hours in both cases, while the front cabin was completely deformed by the compression of the poles, according to the video.
- “120 km/h is the speed limit according to China’s traffic regulations,” said Yang Hanbing, chief executive of Contemporary Amperex Intelligent Technology (Shanghai) Limited, which is 90% owned by CATL.
- The company said a frontal impact at 120 km/h generates a collision energy 4.6 times that of a collision at 56km/h. Yang added that to CATL’s knowledge, no company in the global industry has achieved such results before.
- The so-called Bedrock chassis could also reduce the development cycle requested for EVs to 12-18 months from at least 36 months, said CATL, which could reduce development costs and car prices, when deployed at scale.
- The architecture could be an ideal solution to develop highly autonomous vehicles, as it enables decoupled development of upper and lower car bodies and is adaptable to various car models from sedans to vans, according to CATL.
- Avatr will be the first automaker to use the chassis. It is a premium EV marque launched by Changan Automobile, Ford’s partner in China, Huawei, and CATL, in 2021. CATL has also partnered with Vinfast, BAIC, and Neta to make chassis.
Context: CATL has moved rapidly in the past few years to extend its reach beyond battery manufacturing into a variety of new markets from energy storage to battery swapping. And yet, the move could be an important step for the world’s biggest battery maker to make the powertrain and chassis businesses a big part of its growth story going forward.
- Jefferies analysts last month said that CATL has the potential to grab more than 50% of the market next year, thanks to strong demand for its Shenxing Plus and Freevoy batteries from automakers. The battery giant accounted for 37% of the global market as of October, according to Korean renewable energy consultancy SNE Research.
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