Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (CATL) unveiled a new vehicle chassis with an integrated battery strong enough to withstand fires or explosions from high-impact collisions.
The world’s largest maker of electric vehicle batteries has signed up with Chinese EV brand Avatr, which it partly owns with Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., to jointly develop cars based on the new chassis.
CATL also reportedly showed the new platform to Porsche and a new EV startup based in the United Arab Emirates.
The new skateboard chassis, called “Panshi” (bedrock in Chinese), is unique in the way it can decouple from the upper body of a vehicle and better absorb energy from frontal collisions of up to 120 km/h. The battery also remained intact even after that collision.
The risk of EV battery fires, which are difficult to extinguish, is a detraction for some would-be buyers. In South Korea, for example, a battery fire this year in a Mercedes-Benz EV that wasn’t even charging sparked a slump in sales and heightened fears about the risk of EVs.
CATL is deepening a push beyond just building batteries for EVs where it holds a 37 percent market share in amid slowing demand for EVs and a resurgence in the popularity of gasoline-electric hybrids.
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