The battery is expected to be available in production models in 2023, including an SUV and a coupe that will be in production in October next year.

(Image credit: Svolt Energy)

Svolt Energy, which spun off from Great Wall Motor, has showed off its innovations in battery pack construction that it claims will make batteries safer and have a longer range.

The company unveiled its battery technology, dubbed Dragon Armor Battery, at its third Battery Day event on December 15 in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, where it is headquartered.

Like BYD's Blade Battery and CATL's Qilin Battery, Svolt Energy's Dragon Armor Battery is an innovation in battery pack construction that does not involve battery chemistry.

The Dragon Armor battery system with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells has an improved volumetric pack efficiency of 76 percent and can have a range of more than 800 kilometers, the company said.

Dragon Armor batteries with high-manganese iron-nickel cells can achieve a range of more than 900 kilometers, while such batteries with ternary cells can have a range of more than 1,000 kilometers, Svolt Energy said, adding that the batteries with ternary cells support 4C fast charging.

The technology could help car companies further expand the upper limit of the range in a limited space, it said.

Svolt Energy chairman and CEO Yang Hongxin announced at the event that the Dragon Armor Battery is now available for pre-order by customers worldwide.

The battery is expected to be on production models in 2023, including an SUV and a coupe that will be in production in October next year, Yang said.

Systemic risk in battery packs often comes from thermal runaway of individual cells, and conventional packs have cells with blast valves designed at the top, which can easily spread to adjacent cells in the event of thermal runaway, according to Svolt Energy.

The Dragon Armor Battery has the cell blast valve at the bottom of the pack, so if a cell gets out of control, the pressure can be relieved quickly and not spread to neighboring cells, the company said.

The battery features a double-sided cooling design that puts a large area of the cells in contact with the cooling plate, improving heat transfer capacity by 70 percent over conventional designs, it said.

China's national standard requires a battery pack not to catch fire within five minutes in the event of thermal runaway, while Dragon Armor batteries can ensure that thermal runaway in a single cell does not spread to adjacent cells, thus ensuring that the entire pack does not catch fire, the company said.

In addition to being safer, the Dragon Armor Battery reduces structural components by 20 percent, shedding 10-20 kg of weight for the pack, according to Svolt Energy.

The battery technology is compatible with a wide range of chemistry systems and is available to the A00 to C-class models, which can reduce car companies' procurement costs, it said.

In addition to unveiling the battery architecture innovation, Svolt Energy also unveiled technologies at the event that includes high-manganese iron-nickel batteries.

High manganese iron-nickel batteries contain no cobalt, making them more cost-effective, while at the same time having a higher energy density than LFP batteries.

Compared to LFP packs, Svolt Energy's high-manganese iron-nickel pack is capable of a 100-kilometer range increase and a two-fold improvement in low-temperature performance, it said.

Compared to ternary packs of the same bulk density, high manganese ferronickel packs cost 9.5 percent less, the company said.

Svolt Energy expects high manganese iron-nickel packs to have an energy density of 220 Wh/kg by weight and 503 Wh/L by volume, with mass production expected by 2024.

Svolt Energy became independent from Great Wall Motor's power battery division in February 2018 to work on next-generation battery materials, cells, modules, packs, BMS, and energy storage technologies.

In August 2021, the company announced that its first cobalt-free battery rolled off the production line in mass production, and was the first such product in the world to come out of the lab and into mass production.

In November, Svolt Energy's power battery installed base in China was 0.59 GWh, ranking seventh with a 1.73 percent share, according to data released earlier this month by the China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance (CABIA).

Last month, Svolt Energy filed to list on China's Nasdaq-style sci-tech innovation board, also known as the STAR market.

Svolt Energy plans to use its 25 percent equity stake to raise RMB 15 billion ($2.1 billion), according to a prospectus published on November 18. That means it will seek a valuation of RMB 60 billion.