CATL steps up tech offensive as BYD rivalry intensifies

by GAO Jing

Minutes after the doors opened at the BeijIng auto show on April 24, ZENG Yuqun, chairman of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. (CATL), was already deep inside the exhibition hall, surrounded by reporters and industry executives.

He moved quickly from one meeting to another — sitting down with LI Xiang of Li Auto, LI Bin of Nio, and José Muñoz, CEO of Hyundai Motor — a reminder that for the world's largest battery maker, technology only matters if carmakers choose to adopt it.

ZENG Yuqun, chairman of CATL, surrounded by reporters at the Beijing Auto Show 2026. Photo by Gao Jing/Jiemian News.

Three days earlier, CATL had delivered its answer.

In a tightly packed, nearly two-hour launch in Beijing, the company unveiled five new batteries and a new integrated fast-charging and battery-swapping network. Almost every metric — from charging speed to energy density and low-temperature performance — was framed as a new benchmark.

The message was hard to miss: CATL is still setting the pace.

Its third-generation Shenxing superfast charging battery can reach up to 15C peak charging, delivering 98% charge in 6 minutes 27 seconds while retaining more than 90% capacity after 1,000 cycles, according to the company.

The upgraded Qilin battery offers 280 Wh/kg energy density and a 1,000 km range, while cutting weight by roughly 255 kg. A condensed-state battery, a semi-solid-state variant pushes that further to 350 Wh/kg and 1,500 km range, marking what CATL describes as the first mass-production use of aviation-grade condensed-state technology in passenger vehicles.

A sodium-ion battery, meanwhile, is scheduled for mass production by end-2026, as CATL looks to diversify beyond lithium-based chemistries.

But the timing of the launch was just as important as the technology itself.

Only a month earlier, BYD had held its own high-profile event, unveiling a new generation of the the Blade battery and ultra-fast charging technology. Chairman WANG Chuanfu said vehicles could charge from 10% to 70% in five minutes, and from 10% to 97% in nine minutes, In temperatures as low as -30°C, charging from 20% to 97% takes about 12 minutes.

With the release of the new Shenxing battery, CATL has regained the lead in charging speed.

Yet the competition between the two companies runs deeper than specifications.

As the world's largest and second-largest power battery makers, CATL and BYD represent two sharply different models. CATL operates an open supply system, selling batteries to multiple automakers. BYD, by contrast, is vertically integrated, developing, producing and deploying its own batteries within its vehicles.

Their rivalry has been building for years. A turning point came around 2020, when BYD's widely publicized needle penetration test showed its lithium iron phosphate battery produced no fire or smoke, while ternary batteries ignited — a moment widely seen as a watershed for the industry.

Since then, lithium iron phosphate has become dominant, accounting for more than 80% of China's battery installations by 2025.

CATL still leads the market, with 333.57 GWh of installed capacity and a 43.42% share as of 2025. But that share has fallen by 17.66 percentage points year on year. BYD's share has climbed to 21.58%, with 165.77 GWh, and it has expanded beyond internal use, adding customers such as Xiaomi, Xpeng and Mercedes-Benz.

The gap remains significant, but the trend is shifting.

At the latest launch, CATL sought to reassert the case for ternary lithium batteries, emphasizing lighter weight and higher energy density. Company executives argued that using lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries in electric vehicles priced above 250,000 yuan amounts to a downgrade — a direct challenge to BYD, which has built much of its lineup around LFP technology.

More fundamentally, BYD's vertically integrated structure allows it to move faster from technological breakthrough to mass production.

This gap was underscored again the morning after CATL's latest launch. LI Hui, general manager of DENZA, BYD's premium EV brand, wrote on social media that the company does not release "PPT products", adding that its latest technologies are available for immediate mass production.

Of CATL's five newly announced batteries, only the sodium-ion product has a confirmed production timeline. Earlier fast-charging batteries unveiled last year have yet to disclose clear commercialization progress.

For CATL, this reflects its position in the value chain. Any new technology must pass automaker validation, integration and production scheduling — and ultimately depends on whether customers adopt it.

BYD faces no such constraint.

"Once BYD has a new technology, it can put it into vehicles immediately — whether consumers buy it is another question," one industry source told Jiemian News.

The competition is also expanding beyond batteries into energy infrastructure.

BYD is pushing ultra-fast charging, including 1,500 kW chargers under its "Flash Charging China" strategy, supported by integrated energy storage systems.

CATL continues to bet on battery swapping. It argues that its charge-swap integrated stations can reduce energy loss by more than 13 percentage points compared with storage-based charging solutions.

Despite these efforts, the broader pressure on CATL is not its current scale or profitability, but the shifting balance of power downstream.

In 2025, CATL reported net profit of 72.201 billion yuan, exceeding the combined profits of several major Chinese automakers, including BYD, SAIC Motor and Geely.

Its market value has surpassed 2 trillion yuan, more than double that of BYD.

Yet automakers are increasingly investing in in-house battery development.

Companies such as GAC, Dongfeng, Geely and Li Auto have accelerated internal efforts, with Li Auto planning to adopt a dual-supply strategy combining self-developed batteries with CATL products from 2026.

As batteries account for roughly 40% of an electric vehicle's cost, carmakers are seeking greater control over a critical component.

The risk for CATL is no longer whether its technology remains competitive, but whether automakers will continue to rely on external suppliers at the same level.

If BYD succeeds in extending its vertically integrated model outward — combining battery supply with charging infrastructure — the competition could shift from product performance to ecosystem-level competition.

"If BYD spins off its battery business and runs it independently, pressure on CATL would increase," one industry expert said.

From any conventional metric, CATL remains firmly in the lead.

But BYD's faster commercialization cycle and integrated model are reshaping expectations around how quickly technology translates into market advantage.

That helps explain why CATL's latest launch felt less like a celebration and more like a signal.

The company is not just showcasing technology — it is defending its position in a market where the rules are already changing.