Svolt Energy, a battery supply affiliate of major Chinese light-truck maker Great Wall Motor Co., said it started to take orders for cobalt-free lithium ion battery cells.
The move was announced by Svolt President Yang Hongxin at an event at the battery supplier’s R&D center in the east China city of Wuxi on Wednesday.
Svolt will begin mass production of the battery cells in June 2021. The battery cells will first be used in an EV that Great Wall is due to launch in the domestic market in July, Yang said at the event.
In addition to Great Wall, Svolt has supplied its cobalt-free battery cells for tests at virtually all domestic and foreign automakers operating in China, he noted.
The battery cells are also being tested by automakers in Europe and the U.S., and the feedback is very positive, he added, without identifying the automakers.
Svolt, initially the battery unit of Great Wall, was spun off as a separate company in 2018.
Last month, the company disclosed a plan to spend $2.4 billion to build a battery module and pack factory as well as a cell factory with a 24 gigawatt-hour production capacity in Saarland in western Germany.
The battery module and pack plant will launch output in mid-2022 while the cell factory will start production in late 2023, according to Svolt.
