Electromobility in China CATL delivers batteries complete with chassis

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When the world's largest battery manufacturer builds increasingly larger car parts, it draws attention. On Christmas Eve, CATL presented the automotive industry with a new gift under the tree in Shanghai with the Bedrock Chassis. Whether car manufacturers are pleased about this or rather fear a new competitor remains a question mark.

The "Skateboard Chassis" shown for the first time at an event in Shanghai integrates battery cells for electric vehicles directly into the frame. CATL has long been working on the Cell-to-Chassis or CTC technology used in it. What is new is that not only integrated battery packs are now being offered, but a complete CATL chassis. According to CATL, the integration architecture sets "new standards in safety." The battery manufacturer confidently calls its Bedrock Chassis "the first ultra-safe skateboard chassis in the world."

Crash test passed

At the event, a video was shown featuring a prototype of the chassis in a frontal crash test against a pillar at a speed of 120 kilometers per hour (74.56 mph). The chassis and the power battery installed inside neither exploded nor caught fire nor experienced a thermal runaway.

According to CATL, the new chassis can absorb 85 percent of the impact energy in such collisions, significantly more than the usual 60 percent in other chassis.

This is made possible by the novel "three-dimensional shell structure" that safely encloses the energy unit. For its construction, in turn, "warm-formed steel of submarine quality with a strength of 2000 MPa and aerospace-grade aluminum alloys with a strength of 600 MPa" were used, according to CATL.

Safety is further ensured by high-voltage central circuits that can shut down within 0.1 seconds after an impact. Within another 0.2 seconds, all residual voltage is discharged from the vehicle, which is a new record value in the industry, according to the battery manufacturer on Christmas Eve in Shanghai.

New business area for CATL

With this product development, CATL continues its strategy of diversification. As it is foreseeable that the battery business will not continue to grow explosively as it has in the past decade, CATL gradually tries to advance further into the domain of automotive suppliers.

The Bedrock Chassis opens up a new business area in a "billion-dollar market," said a CATL spokesperson in Shanghai. With the skateboard design, the automotive industry faces a "shift to modular, personalized, and intelligent vehicle design."

With the technology originally developed by General Motors and later adopted by Tesla, automakers can use the same chassis for multiple car models by decoupling it from the upper vehicle. CATL promises that this could reduce the product development cycle from three years to 12 to 18 months.

CATL was able to present the first customer for its Bedrock Chassis at the launch: the battery manufacturer signed a contract with Avatr Technology, a joint venture with Changan Automobile, in which CATL has also conveniently invested, together with Huawei.

Furthermore, CATL hopes to gain customers among those car manufacturers who "have insufficient financial resources and technological strengths." They could save between 60 and 70 percent of their research and development costs with the help of Bedrock, said Yan Hanbing, a CATL manager in Shanghai.

From niche product to mainstream?

No one in the Chinese automotive industry disputes the potential cost savings. The increasingly fierce price and competition in the e-mobility market in China could certainly benefit CATL.

Skateboard chassis are still more of a niche product, but more and more Chinese automakers like Chery, BAIC New Energy, or FAW Haima Automobile are already developing in this direction. Market research institutes predict that the global market for skateboard chassis will grow to a total value of more than 55 billion US dollars by 2029.

U Power, a Chinese startup specializing in skateboard chassis, is already raising investments worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. CATL is now joining the ranks of companies that are heavily betting on CTC technology and the advancing integration of e-drives.

New competition

If CATL's strategy is successful, the company could grow into a formidable competitor to traditional automotive suppliers. Many observers agree that one of the largest manufacturers of car batteries—the central component of electric vehicles and hybrids—could dominate ever larger parts of the automotive industry in the future, similar to how the inventors of the Otto engine did in Germany in the past.

Skeptics, on the other hand, note that many automakers may be reluctant to place orders with CATL because using fully developed chassis in car manufacturing resembles "pre-cooked ready meals," as a commentator in the Chinese newspaper Pengpai Xinwen recently wrote on the occasion of CATL's product launch. They argue that too much individuality of their own car brand—and, of course, their own value creation—is lost if they no longer develop their own chassis.

It is certain that auto suppliers, especially due to the strong crash test results of the Bedrock Chassis, are now facing a strong new competitor in CATL. And that on Christmas Eve, of all days. A nice surprise. (se)

*Henrik Bork, a long-time China correspondent for the German 'Süddeutsche Zeitung' and the 'Frankfurter Rundschau', is Managing Director at Asia Waypoint, a consulting agency specializing in China, based in Beijing.

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