Hyundai Motor Group To Use CATL's Cell-To-Pack Technology

Are affordable E-GMP-based EVs with CATL's LFP batteries coming?

CATL

Mark Kane

By: Mark Kane

Oct 27, 2021 at 8:30am ET

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Hyundai Motor Group's subsidiary Hyundai Mobis signed a license agreement with CATL to get access to CATL's battery cell-to-pack (CTP) technology for prismatic cells.

According to CnEVPost, the South Korean manufacturer will be able to use the CTP solution globally, which combined with the previous order of battery cells for the E-GMP platform cars, makes us wonder what is coming next.

Hyundai Mobis produces the battery systems for Hyundai Motor Group (you can see the Hyundai Ioniq 5 pack here) using pouch cells and modules.

With the latest deal, the company might want to use CATL's prismatic LFP battery cells and build the packs without modules (the license is required to do it in-house). At this time, we are not sure whether CTP will be used also for cells from other manufacturers.

The Chinese battery supplier says that removing modules simplifies the manufacturing and assembly by 10%, increases space utilization by 5% and gravimetric energy density by 14% to 142 Wh/kg on the pack level.

CTP could be an interesting solution, at least for the standard range cars. We guess that the E-GMP platform will be able to handle both approaches.

Anyway, a lot is happening in the automotive/battery industry and it appears that the Hyundai Motor Group is taking proactive steps to have access to the latest tech.

What do you think?

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A new small electric car from Hyundai and Kia, with LFP batteries, could make a serious splash as the market needs more affordable EVs and the popular Hyundai Kona Electric/Kia Niro EV are aging.

We would not be surprised if in the coming 6-12 months, multiple other manufacturers announce the use of LFP batteries in some of its cars/versions.