Chinese automotive battery company called SVOLT officially announced two cobalt-free batteries on 20 May.
Yang Hongxin, president of SVOLT, said, the company’s L6 cobalt-free long cell was being adapted to a high-end model of car by Chinese vehicle OEM Great Wall Motors.
Last year, SVOLT presented a cobalt-free lithium-ion cell (NMx), which it claimed was as powerful as an NCM-811 technology but with up to 15% reduction in material costs and 5% of unit costs.
SVOLT launched in 2012, and became an independent automotive battery supplier after officially spinning off from Great Wall Motors in 2018.
SVOLT is headquartered in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province in China.
Earlier this month, BEST reported how Mercedes-Benz, a subsidiary of Daimler, was researching ways to design cobalt and other “critical” materials like lithium out of lithium-ion batteries.
Cobalt is used as a cathode material in lithium-ion batteries because of its high conductivity and structural stability throughout the cycling process.
However, there has been reports of unethical and human rights concerns over its mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo where half of the world’s reserves of the material is generated.