Major Advances in E.V. Batteries Announced by Chinese Company

 

"CATL, the world’s largest maker of batteries for electric vehicles, described breakthroughs that could make E.V.s more competitive with gasoline-powered cars.

The Chinese manufacturing giant CATL, the biggest supplier of batteries for the world’s electric cars, said on Monday that it had made technological advances that would allow it to produce batteries that are cheaper, lighter, faster to recharge and more resistant to cold, while providing greater driving range.

Most of the changes, which are a couple of years away from being widely available in new cars, could make electric cars more competitive in price and performance with gasoline-powered models.

CATL — its full name is the Contemporary Amperex Technology Company Ltd. — produces a third of the world’s electric car batteries and supplies 16 of the world’s biggest carmakers, including General Motors and the Shanghai factory of Tesla. Its main rivals for the global market are BYD in Shenzhen, China, which makes about one-sixth of the world’s E.V. batteries, almost entirely for its own cars, and Korean and Japanese battery manufacturers.

CATL executives spoke at a news conference ahead of the Shanghai auto show, which starts on Wednesday. The choreographed event evoked the launch of a new car model.

Batteries represent at least a third of the cost of an electric car, making CATL a critical player in the E.V. supply chain in China and beyond. Many automakers have been watching nervously whether CATL will someday try to establish its own car brand that could overshadow their own models.

The biggest surprise by CATL was an announcement about auxiliary batteries for electric cars. The batteries would share space in the underbody of cars, where there is currently only one large battery.

The auxiliary battery would be the first commercially available electric vehicle battery that would not use graphite as one of its poles, CATL said.

Removing costly graphite will eventually make the batteries cheaper, after some initial costs, and will allow 60 percent more electricity to be squeezed in each cubic inch of the battery, said Gao Huan, CATL’s chief technology officer for electric cars in China. The extra energy density means that the car’s driving range can be greater, or the overall size of the battery can be reduced, leaving more room for the car’s passenger compartment.

The second battery also would provide backup in case one has trouble. That has become more important as self-driving features, which require uninterrupted electricity, become more common.

Ouyang Chuying, co-president for research and development at CATL, said that auxiliary batteries without graphite would be available in cars in two to three years and possibly sooner. He declined to say which automakers might be the first to use them.

But taking out the graphite has a downside, which is why CATL will only remove it for the auxiliary batteries. Batteries without graphite recharge more slowly, and cannot be recharged as many times as conventional E.V. batteries before they need to be replaced.

The auxiliary batteries are meant to be used less frequently, on longer drives after the main battery is exhausted.

CATL, which is based in Ningde, China, also said it had made more progress in the speed of charging main batteries. The company said its new system would allow an electric vehicle to be charged enough in five minutes to drive 520 kilometers, or 320 miles.

BYD and Huawei, a Chinese electronics giant that plays an ever-larger role in auto parts manufacturing, have also announced five-minute charging systems, known as supercharging.

CATL also said it would start selling sodium-ion batteries, which can retain over 90 percent of their charge even at a temperature of 40 degrees below zero, for use in cars and trucks with internal combustion engines. The sodium batteries could be used by automakers to replace conventional lead-acid batteries, which go dead in very cold weather, and in some electric cars.

Mr. Ouyang said that the electricity of these sodium batteries would be compatible with the electrical systems of existing gasoline-powered cars, but the new batteries might not fit in the same space.

CATL said that its first customer for sodium-ion batteries would be freight trucks from First Auto Works, an automaker in Changchun, in China’s far northeast, where temperatures frequently fall well below zero. Developing sodium-ion batteries has been a priority for the Chinese electric car industry because the country’s northern provinces, bordering Mongolia and Russia’s Siberia, have bitterly cold temperatures in winter.

In interviews last autumn, car owners in Urumqi, in the far northwest of China, drivers said that cold weather was why they would not consider buying electric cars.

Battery makers have been working on sodium-ion batteries for many years, but the United States may have a long-term advantage in the technology. Almost all of the world’s naturally occurring geological deposits of soda ash, the raw material for sodium-ion batteries, are in southwestern Wyoming.

CATL showed a video of its sodium-ion batteries undergoing stress tests, such as being punctured with a nail or power drill or even cut in half with a power saw, without catching fire or exploding. Just five years ago, CATL had argued that nail tests were unrealistic and batteries should not be expected to withstand them." [1]

1. Major Advances in E.V. Batteries Announced by Chinese Company. Bradsher, Keith.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Apr 21, 2025. 

 

Rinkodaros specialistai perduoda prekių ženklus dirbtiniam intelektui

 „Rinkodaros specialistai tampa vis labiau patenkinti leisdami generatyviniam dirbtiniam intelektui (AI) perimti jų prekės ženklų balsus.

 

 Darbe dažnai dalyvauja dirbtinio intelekto agentai, kurie yra daugybė tarpusavyje susijusių AI subjektų, kurie rinkodaros grandinėje atlieka skirtingas užduotis, nes pramonė artėja prie dienos, kai šalininkai teigia, kad dirbtinis intelektas kurs, gamins ir net patvirtins visas kampanijas su mažai žmogaus įsikišimo arba be jo.

 

 "Jūs ketinate atsisakyti kontrolės. Tai labai prasminga", - sakė Noah Brier, į AI orientuotos konsultacinės įmonės "Alephic" įkūrėjas.

 

 Labai svarbu sukurti geresnius AI įrankius, kad būtų galima įvertinti kitų AI įrankių darbą, nes generuojamo rinkodaros turinio kiekis jau yra per didelis, kad žmogus galėtų tinkamai jį peržiūrėti, sakė Brieris.

 

 Tačiau prekės ženklai nelaukia tobulumo.

 

 „Prudential Financial“ neseniai išsprendė iššūkį sukurti didelius asmeninio turinio kiekius, dirbdama su „Adobe“ ir dirbtinio intelekto startuoliu „Gradial“, kad sukurtų virtualų darbuotoją.

 

 „Pirmą kartą įtraukiame skaitmeninį bendradarbį turinio kūrimo erdvėje“, – sakė finansinių paslaugų ir draudimo bendrovės vyriausioji skaitmeninės ir rinkodaros pareigūnė Hema Widhani.

 

 AI „darbuotojui“ buvo pavesta naudoti elgsenos, geografinės padėties ir realaus laiko duomenis, kad sukurtų tinklalapius, pritaikytus kiekvieno iš milijonų klientų ir patarėjų, kurie lankosi „Prudential“ žiniatinklio ypatybėse, interesams, sakė Widhani.

 

 Praėjusių metų „Aspen Ideas“ festivalyje „Prudential“ pristatė dirbtinio intelekto nuotraukų stendą, kuriame aprašomas kiekvieno vartotojo potencialus išėjimas į pensiją, kartu su imituotu žmogaus atvaizdu po 20 metų. Projektas skirtas padėti atpažinti naujus klientus, sakė Widhani.

 

 Kadangi „Prudential“ dirba griežtai reguliuojamoje pramonėje, ji pradėjo testuoti vertinamuosius AI agentus, kurie peržiūri visą dirbtinio intelekto sukurtą turinį, kad nustatytų, ar jis atitinka atitinkamus teisinius reglamentus ir bendrovės prekės ženklo balsą, sakė Widhani. Ji sakė, kad dirbtinio intelekto sukurtas turinys, skelbiamas, riziką ribojančių, vadovų vardu, reikalauja papildomo tikrinimo.

 

 Kiekvienam AI procesui vis dar reikalinga tam tikra galutinė žmogaus peržiūra, tačiau suasmeninti tinklalapiai gali tapti šios taisyklės išimtimi, sakė Widhani.

 

 Keičiasi AI ir jo vertintojų žmonių santykių pobūdis.

 

 Vartotojų sveikatos produktų įmonė „Opella“ valdo dirbtinio intelekto „gamyklą“, kuri gamina išankstinės priežiūros planavimo medžiagą medicinos specialistams kartu su šimtais kasdien generuojamų tinklalapių, vaizdų ir „Instagram“ įrašų, sakė vyriausiasis augimo pareigūnas Alberto Hernandezas.

 

 Bendrovė, parduodanti produktus nuo antihistamininio preparato Allegra iki vidurius laisvinančio vaisto Dulcolax, į savo AI rinkodaros komandą įtraukia bent vieną žmogaus reguliavimo patarėją, kad rastų ir atšauktų haliucinacijas arba atvejus, kai algoritmai išskleidžia klaidingą informaciją, sakė Hernandezas.

 

 Siekdama užtikrinti, kad AI pagrįsta rinkodaros medžiaga būtų medicininiu požiūriu tiksli, „Opella“ taip pat moko savo dirbtinio intelekto agentus, naudodamasi sveikatos priežiūros specialistų patirtimi.

 

 „Opella“ yra pakankamai įsitikinusi, kad dirbtinio intelekto agentai buvo išmokyti išgirsti daugelio prekės ženklų balsus, kad tai nekeičia jų atliekamo darbo, išskyrus žmogaus faktų patikrinimą, sakė Hernandezas. „Mes neleidžiame sąveikauti ir keisti, nes [per tą laiką, kurio reikia] pasakyti: „Ne, ar galite padidinti logotipą“, – AI galėjo sukurti dar 100 turinio dalių, sakė Hernandezas.” [1]

 

1. Marketers Hand Brands Over to AI. Coffee, Patrick.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 21 Apr 2025: B4.

Marketers Hand Brands Over to AI

"Marketers are growing more comfortable with letting generative artificial intelligence assume the voices of their brands.

The work often involves AI agents, which are a series of interconnected AI entities, that perform different tasks in the marketing chain, as the industry inches closer to a day when proponents say AI will develop, produce and even approve entire campaigns with little or no human intervention.

"You're going to relinquish control. It makes too much sense," said Noah Brier, co-founder of AI-focused consulting firm Alephic.

Building better AI tools to evaluate the work of other AI tools will be key, since the amount of marketing content being generated is already too great for proper human review, Brier said.

But brands aren't waiting for perfection.

Prudential Financial recently addressed the challenge of producing large volumes of personalized content by working with Adobe and AI startup Gradial to create a virtual employee.

"We are, for the first time, onboarding a digital co-worker in the content authoring space," said Hema Widhani, chief digital and marketing officer at the financial services and insurance company.

The AI "employee" has been tasked with using behavioral, geolocation and real-time data to generate webpages tailored to the interests of each of the millions of customers and advisers who visit Prudential's web properties, Widhani said.

At last year's Aspen Ideas Festival, Prudential debuted an AI photo booth that outlines each user's potential retirement, complete with a simulated image of the person 20 years into the future. The project is designed to help identify new customers, said Widhani.

Since Prudential works in a highly regulated industry, it has begun testing evaluative AI agents that review all AI-generated content to determine whether it complies with relevant legal regulations and adheres to the company's brand voice, Widhani said. AI-generated content that is published under the names of Prudential executives requires an extra layer of scrutiny, she said.

Every AI process still requires some form of final human review, but the personalized webpages may become an exception to that rule, said Widhani.

The nature of the relationship between AI and its human reviewers is changing.

Consumer health products company Opella operates an AI "factory" that produces advance care planning materials for medical professionals alongside the hundreds of webpages, images and Instagram posts that it generates every day, said Chief Growth Officer Alberto Hernandez.

The company, which sells products from the antihistamine Allegra to the laxative Dulcolax, embeds at least one human regulatory adviser within its AI marketing team to catch and undo hallucinations, or instances when the algorithms spit out false information, Hernandez said.

To ensure that its AI-powered marketing materials are medically accurate, Opella also trains its AI agents using the expertise of healthcare professionals.

Opella is confident enough in the AI agents that have been trained on the voices of its many brands that it doesn't alter the work they produce beyond human fact-checking, Hernandez said. "We don't allow for interactions and changes, because [in the time it takes to] say, 'No, can you make the logo bigger,'" the AI could have produced another 100 pieces of content, Hernandez said.” [1]

1. Marketers Hand Brands Over to AI. Coffee, Patrick.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 21 Apr 2025: B4.