China’s first factory for solid-state batteries has gone live in the city of Kunshan in the east of China. The start-up Qing Tao (Kunshan) Energy Development invested around 1 billion yuan (€126M) and says it has clients already.

For now the Qing Tao solid-state batteries will be used in special equipment and high end products. However, the company claims to have begun talks with partners from the automotive industry and aim to sell batteries for electric vehicles by 2020.

The production line can produce 0.1 GWh of solid-state batteries per year with an energy density of over 400 Wh/kg to begin with. The annual production capacity is then expected to increase to 0.7 GWh by 2020.

Nan Cewen, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is heading Qing Tao. He founded the solid-state battery company in 2014 together with other PHD graduates from Tsinghua University.

He pointed out that major carmakers like Volkswagen or Toyota and newcomers like Dyson are all banking on solid-state battery technology.

china.org.cn