CATL expects to reach small-batch production of all-solid-state batteries in 2027, the company said on 27 October, responding to an investor question on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange interactive platform about progress at its Hefei sulphide solid-state pilot base.
The company said it continues to invest firmly in all-solid-state technology and that its position is industry leading. The 2027 target is consistent with what it has disclosed previously: small-scale trial production from 2027, and volume manufacturing around 2030.
Where the technical work actually stands
CATL is focused on the sulphide system. It has built a 10Ah-level validation platform, and its sulphide solid-state cells have entered 20Ah sample trial production. The energy density target is approximately 500 Wh per kilogram.
The resourcing is not symbolic. According to its 2025 annual report, research spending that year was RMB 22.147 billion, up 19.02 per cent, and the all-solid-state research team has been expanded to more than 1,000 people.
The chairman’s own scorecard
Zeng Yuqun has been more cautious in public than the production timeline suggests. Speaking at the Summer Davos forum, he said that if technology maturity is graded from one to nine, all-solid-state batteries have reached only level four, and that industrialisation still faces real constraints in engineering and cost.
That gap between a 2027 production date and a level four maturity score is the most useful number in the announcement. A small-batch line and a mass-market product are separated by the same things that always separate them: yield, cycle life consistency, and the cost of turning a sulphide electrolyte into something a factory can run at speed in dry conditions.
2027 is not a CATL date. It is an industry date.
Samsung SDI has set the second half of 2027 as its all-solid-state mass production target. Toyota’s sulphide route preparation points at the same period. BYD has also stated 2027 as its small-batch production target.
When the leading battery makers of China, Japan and Korea converge on the same window for small-batch introduction, the next generation of battery technology has moved from a research question to an engineering race with a published start time.
For European automakers, the strategic reading is uncomfortable but simple. The solid-state transition will be supplied, at least initially, by the same three countries that supplied the current generation. Europe’s cell manufacturing build-out is still scaling conventional lithium-ion chemistry. Its first solid-state volumes will arrive as imports or as licensed production, which means the powertrain cost curve for European EVs in 2028 and 2029 is being set in Asia, again.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original Gasgoo report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://auto.gasgoo.com/news/202610/28I70476109C108.shtml.