How CATL Made Batteries 90% Cheaper (And What Happens Next) [14:19]

YouTube ^ | August 12, 2025 | Undecided with Matt Ferrell

[SunkenCiv]

How CATL Made Batteries 90% Cheaper (And What Happens Next). What if I told you the world's largest battery company just announced batteries that cost as low as $10 per kilowatt hour? Not $100. Ten. And the kicker? They're using salt. Yes, the same stuff sitting on your kitchen table. But CATL makes more lithium batteries than anyone else on the planet. They're literally winning the lithium game. So why are they suddenly pivoting to a technology that's been considered second-rate for decades? No technical papers. No detailed explanations. Just bold claims and two new products ready to hit the market. So is this the real deal that changes everything? Or are we looking at tech hype that’s too salty to swallow? 

How CATL Made Batteries 90% Cheaper (And What Happens Next) | 14:19 
Undecided with Matt Ferrell | 1.67M subscribers | 1,365,149 views | August 12, 2025

 

00:00 - Intro 
02:23 - Sodium Basics 
05:11 - Naxtra 
07:48 - Freevoy 
09:15 - Drawbacks 
11:20 - Outlook

[norwaypinesavage]

A trunk is never big enough to carry an ADEQUATE generator. It takes more horsepower in the generator than the car would need for adequate range and acceleration on its own. It needs even more, because of the losses in generating electricity. You would need to add the weight and gasoline capacity of this powerful motor and generator set in order to become simply adequate.

[noiseman]

Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve invented an electric vehicle with a unique propulsion system. It uses an electric fan and a sail. I call it the ACMEmobile.

[Does so]

But if you’re waiting more than ten minutes at a charging station for a place in line, even a small generator will shorten one’s re-charging time.

[SunkenCiv]

More like, as long as no sociopaths have their trucks parked across all the charging bays in “protest”.

[SunkenCiv]

I've only traded ADRs of foreign companies. My current one (good place for an electric utility joke) paid a dividend quite unexpectedly, via the bank or whatever that sponsors it, and I'll get another one in December. Nice surprise.

[mfish13]

Morton??

[norwaypinesavage]

Sure, it might shorten it 10 or 12 seconds, as long as you have it on for 10 or 12 minutes. Meanwhile you’re carrying along an extra 200 lbs. of motor generator for all the miles you drive. just compare the power from a 10 hp generator to a 200 hp car. The car uses much of the power going 70 mph for 10 hours. The generator would have to run 10x200/10 = 200 hours to produce the same horsepower-hours of energy.

[Yardstick]

Good point, and it prompts this thought. What if recharging stations had big electricity storage on-site. Like big underground batteries or something. They would recharge them overnight when there’s low demand for electricity. Then they would use the stored power to charge people’s cars during the day. No doubt already been thought of and shot down but figured I’d say it out loud FWIW...

[GenXPolymath]

“You would need to add the weight and gasoline capacity of this powerful motor and generator set in order to become simply adequate.”

Flat out no.

Your grasp of physics is not strong. First off the average load of a LDV sized truck of Dodge 1500 size when towing is under 100kw. The Tesla Semi at 82,000lb gross mass averages 1.7 kilowatt hours per mile at 65 mph. That’s 110 kilowatts over an hour period. You are confusing peak rate or draw vs average continuous rate. The hybrid pack is for those peaks and even in the Tesla Semi they are under 500hp torque moves mass horsepower is torque over time and rpm.

Dodge is already making a plug in hybrid truck that can tow 14,000lbs

[2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger (Plug-in Hybrid)
This range-extended electric truck uses a V6 gasoline engine as a generator to charge its battery and can be plugged in to charge.

Horsepower: 663 hp.
Torque: 615 lb-ft.
Maximum Towing Capacity: 14,000 lbs.
Powertrain: Dual electric motors are powered by a 92-kWh battery, which is recharged by a 3.6L Pentastar V6 engine and a 130-kW onboard generator.]

That 3.6L is still overpowered you could power the Tesla Semi with that 130kw again the fully loaded Semi only needs 110kw to move it up and down hills no less. PepsiCo tested it in the hills and mountains of California over a 500 mile run. The test data is out there ask the AI for it pages and pages of data.

You are thinking of 60hz light duty generators or 60hz diesel trailer mounted generators. Those are large not from the engines it’s the archaic 60hz generators that are huge.

Have you ever seen a 777 jet engine turbo generator it’s 400hz and 170 kilowatts, with the constant speed gear box attached the whole unit is about the size of a 5 gallon bucket and you can pick it up with two hands. The actual electrical part is the size of a one gallon paint can at 170kw of output why? Multiple poles at 400hz it’s the frequency of the generator that determines the size of the magnetic core size.

Inverters and battery management systems don’t care about Hz they all need DC current so forget 60hz that was a 19th century compromise. 400volt, 400hz fed into a silicon carbide high voltage rectifier comes out 400v DC which is what the BMS and traction inverters need.

For a LDV truck you should put in a Ecoboost type 3 cyl at 1.5L those can exceed 200kw per liter of displacement with 50psi of boost and direct injection. The peak loads are always handled by that 92kw pack at 5C discharge that’s 460kw and 650+ horsepower...that is why that pack is sized at 92kw 5C is what a pack can do again and again and again without damage. Again the Tesla Semi can pull 40 tonnes up hill and only uses 110kw over an hour span you let the pack follow the peaks and valleys and run the small high speed, high frequency high voltage generator at it’s peak BSFC point which for a turbo DI engine is 75% of its maximum BMEP point at 1.5L would be at peak from 75kw and 1bar boost all the way up to 150kw and 2bar with flat out max at 3bar and 200+ kw the generator size for 200kw at 400hz is 5L Heineken minikeg sized.

Running a small displacement engine at it’s peak BSFC point is 40% tank to electrons efficiency proven data on that the Chinese have a sedan that does 45% tank to BMS independently verified. For comparison the average ICE driving a hydraulic mechanical transmission is 12.5% tank to wheels Google Scholar will give you at least 6 sources for that. This is why a 2024 Camry hybrid gets 51mpg city and the ICE version of the identical car gets 28mpg.

That’s how real world physics works not archaic feelings from the last century. Electric drive is not only more efficient it’s also cheaper to mass produce EDU in a hybrid than a 10 speed hydro mechanical transmission. The EDU also doesn’t care where it gets is 400-800 volt DC from, it can come from a small generator, a small pack, a large pack, a turbine generator, a fuel cell or a combo of those. This is why Toyota moved their flagship product the Camry to EDY drive only they don’t even offer a mechanical drive anymore the profits are higher for them to use the cheaper EDU and a tiny pack under 2kWh to smooth out peaks and valleys in the inverters and capture regen braking doubling the mpg. Welcome to the 21st century.

[nagant]

Make a refill take less t5han 10 minutes. Then I’ll listen.

[norwaypinesavage]

It doesn’t take a “firm grasp of physics” to understand the problem, just a little bit of common sense. When your only source of energy to move a vehicle is gas (or diesel fuel), it takes less fuel to directly drive the vehicle with a single combustion engine than it does to carry along another engine and generator to charge the batteries in a BEV.

[GenXPolymath]

“Good point, and it prompts this thought. What if recharging stations had big electricity storage on-site. Like big underground batteries or something. They would recharge them overnight when there’s low demand for electricity. Then they would use the stored power to charge people’s cars during the day. No doubt already been thought of and shot down but figured I’d say it out loud FWIW...”

Tesla already does this with their Megapacks each 20 foot sized container holds 5 megawatt hours. You can pull down that pack at 5C if you chose to. That’s 25 MW that’s 50 super charger stalls at 500kw each running flat. From a single 28 ft shipping container sized module that’s only slightly larger than the supercharger hardware itself. At ten foot wide parking spaces two megapack sit behind 4 stalls then and would power them at their full rate for 5 hours. That’s not how SC work if you are at 20% they give full rates and as your cross above 60% it’s slows down and by 80% ypu should stop but if you keep going it’s under 100kw by that point.

So the real metric is how many 75
KWh model 3 can a megapack fill. At 8% DC to DC charging losses which is typical for SC not L2 rates. You need 81kWh for a 75kWh usable pack that’s 122 full charges per shipping container pack. More because you actually do 20/80% in that case it’s 204 x 20/80% charges.

CATL is kicking butts and taking names

[As of May 2025, CATL offers a 20-foot containerized energy storage system (ESS) called TENER that holds a capacity of 6.25 MWh. The company later announced an even higher-capacity solution called TENER Stack, which achieves 9 MWh in the footprint of a 20-foot unit by stacking two containers. ]

Two 20 footers fit behind four SC stalls then and at 9MWh or 9000 kWh for a 48kWh 20/80% charge of a model 3 that’s 375 super charges per day off those four stalls at any rate those stalls can put out the grid won’t see any of the peak loads.

So how much load is an 8 hour overnight off peak charge for those two packs...allowing for 5% AC\DC BMS loss over 8 hours to put in 18 net megawatt hours you need 2.36MW from the triple phase 7.2-12kv grid and a 2500KVA 3p transformer to do so. Not that large 2.5m x 2.4m x 2.6m.

[2500 kVA transformer can be approximately 79 inches (W) x 120 inches (L) x 89 inches (H) or 2500 mm (W) x 2400 mm (L) x 2630 mm (H) ]

2,362,000(watts)÷12,000(volts)=196.83amps single phase.

Triple phase is 2.77 times less than 1p amps

196.83/2.77= 71.06 amps in delta wired triple phase @12kv

Yeah you are not “taking down” the local grid with a 72 amp draw.

Typical 12,000 volt triple phase power pole distribution line size is 636 kcmil....The average ampacity for a 636 kcmil bare Aluminum Conductor Steel Reinforced (ACSR) line is typically in the range of 750 to 800 amps.

Again it’s FUD nothing but FUD that a load of that size would even dent local grid capacity. I look at my Wal-Mart lines all the time there is two sets of 3 phases running last it with at least 636 size lines of not larger they are thumb sized or bigger. There actually is 7 conductors on those poles one up top then two triple sets running under them. One triple set is tapped and it goes into the Wal-Mart and keeps going past it to the home Depot and Sam’s Club right next to it the other triple set also keeps going. Those poles are carrying at least 700 amps times 6 as each conductor can carry 700 amps loaded down. These are regular wooden poles 30 feet up on a typical two lane road.

Those ordinary neighborhood sized poles are capable of carrying 50 megawatts of single phase loads Y wired or 61.5 delta wired triple phase loads. Again FUD pure and simple.

[GenXPolymath]

“It doesn’t take a “firm grasp of physics” to understand the problem, just a little bit of common sense. When your only source of energy to move a vehicle is gas (or diesel fuel), it takes less fuel to directly drive the vehicle with a single combustion engine than it does to carry along another engine and generator to charge the batteries in a BEV.”

No it’s not common sensew

YOU ARE WRONG and the numbers prove it. That plug in Dodge is going to get 35+ mpg double what the ICE version does.

No ICE car can get 108 mpg. Or 2.2L/100km

https://www.adamasintel.com/1300-mile-range-14000-chinese-ev-you-wont-get-in-us/

^^^^^ this is how it works in the real world not your head. Notice they ran the pack to zero then let the generator take them the rest of the way all 1200+ miles of it the pack only did the first 70 ish miles. This alone proves the point.

This car drives the wheels off the generator there is no mechanical transmission AT ALL. It is more efficient because you only run the small high speed generator at 40+ percent brake thermal eff. Modern electronics are 98% eff in both directions it is now way more eff to make electrons and drive an EDU vs load following with an engine and mechanical transmission. Flat out you are world period full stop.

Again this is why the identical Camry is 51 vs 28 the 51 is electrical driven the other is not.

[Organic Panic]

I keep up with all the battery and solar tech as I have a direct interest living off grid. I noticed the batteries available on Amazon have dropped in price nearly 80%.

Something is coming and soon. I have never seen LiFePo batteries so cheap. My first 100 watt hour batteries were near $900 each. Now, they can be had as low as $110.

[Yardstick]

Okay, got it. Thanks for laying all that out. Sounds like it’s feasible and in fact is already being done by Tesla.

[norwaypinesavage]

If you will recall, your comment was about “putting a generator in the trunk” of a BEV. If you care to have a thoughtful discussion of parallel vs. series hybrids, you should start a clean thread, and not waste any more of my time answering a different question than was posed.

[dagunk]

“Again this is why the identical Camry is 51 vs 28 the 51 is electrical driven the other is not.”

**************************************************

Read your posts - understood most of them. My lane is RF - radios, radars, transmitters, associated equipment. Lotsa time working aircraft - 400Hz power.

All your writing basically boils down to your last line quoted above. Can’t argue with results.
Drove a Camry from Wichita to Marietta GA and back. Got 57MPG and I am not a light-footed driver.
Toyota has the hybrid technology pretty well nailed down.

[SunkenCiv]

I saw an ad on the Roku YouTube app for a sodium battery based power-to-go thing. Maybe it was from Peak Energy (Colo. based company). I’ve got a vid running in a tab from
Two Bit da Vinci ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPCaq-Him0Q ) who of course has a promo link as well.