Zeekr and AITO to Adopt CATL’s Kirin Battery

Geely’s premium sub-brand Zeekr and battery giant CATL jointly announced on August 27 that the EV firm is the first to adopt the latter’s Kirin battery in its vehicles.

The pure-electric luxury MPV Zeekr 009 will become the world’s first mass production model with the Kirin battery. Meanwhile, the Zeekr 001, a luxury coupe, will become the world’s first mass production model with a Kirin battery whose pure-electric cruising range exceeds 1,000 km. The Zeekr 009 equipped with the Kirin battery will reportedly be delivered in the first quarter of 2023, and the Zeekr 001 equipped with the Kirin battery will be launched in the second quarter of 2023.

It is worth mentioning that on August 27, CATL also said that its new energy subsidiary and Seres (formerly known as Sokon) announced that the AITO series of new models will adopt the Kirin battery, and that both parties have signed a five-year strategic cooperation agreement. AITO models will be fully equipped with CATL’s power batteries.

CATL officially released its Kirin battery on June 23 of this year. The new battery pack uses third-generation CTP technology. Under the same chemical system and the same battery pack size, the power of the Kirin battery pack can be increased by 13% compared with Tesla’s 4680 batteries, and the cruising range of vehicles equipped with the Kirin battery can exceed 1,000 km. Kirin batteries will be mass-produced in 2023.

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On August 28, Robin Zeng, the chairman and founder of CATL, said in a speech at the 2022 World New Energy Vehicle Conference that in the field of high-end electric vehicles, the company has introduced the Kirin battery, and that the energy density of the new system could reach 255Wh/kg. The latest NP2.0 high safety protection technology, a new generation of safety protection solution developed CATL, was adopted. This solution pioneered the active isolation and decoupling of high pressure and out-of-control smoke in battery pack.