Battery supplier SES has released Apollo, a 107 Ah Li-metal battery for EVs.

The company also announced plans for its Shanghai Giga plant, a 300,000-square-foot facility that the company hopes will be capable of producing 1 GWh of batteries annually by 2023.

SES has addressed the dendrite safety problem associated with Li-metal batteries by coating lithium metal with a polymer coating and using a high-concentration electrolyte that suppresses the formation of dendrites. 

Apollo can deliver 107 Ah, weighs 0.982 kg, and has specific energy of 417 Wh/kg and energy density of 935 Wh/L. Apollo demonstrated similarly high capacity and energy density when tested at 10-hour discharge, 3-hour discharge, and 1-hour discharge times at room temperature.

SES also introduced three development tracks. Hermes is a material development platform for developing Li-metal cells with lighter weight and higher energy density. Apollo is focused on developing large automotive cells, and Avatar is the company’s AI-powered safety software designed to monitor battery health.

“Batteries need to be capable of delivering high energy density over a wide range of temperature and power densities,” said Dr. Qichao Hu, CEO of SES. “A car needs to work in hot and cold environments, and perform seamlessly when driven fast or slowly. Solid-state batteries can never achieve this performance at the level of our hybrid Li-metal batteries.”

Source: SES via Green Car Congress