Unwilling to pay the "CATL tax" any longer, Li Auto, Xiaomi and Leapmotor start to develop and produce batteries on their own.
On October 9, Li Xiang, founder and CEO of Li Auto, warmed up for the 2026 Li Auto i6 on Weibo. Among the six major upgrades, the most notable one is the self-developed ultra-fast charging large battery with 96 kWh capacity and a CLTC range of 780 km.
The battery replacement adjustment targets Li Auto's best-selling model. Li Auto delivered more than 120,000 units of the i6 in the first half of this year, contributing over 50% of its total sales. The latest announcement from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that the manufacturers of the two battery assemblies for the 2026 Li Auto i6 are both Shandong Li Auto Battery Co., Ltd., with cell suppliers being Sunwoda and CALB.
For the 2025 i6, the battery suppliers were CATL and Sunwoda. This shift means CATL has withdrawn from Li Auto's main selling model.
Li Auto is far from the only new energy vehicle enterprise that has replaced CATL's batteries, chosen to cooperate with other manufacturers or develop batteries independently.
On September 4, Xiaomi released its Longjia Battery, announcing strategic cooperation with CALB and Sunwoda Power, which will be equipped on all models of the Pengcheng series. On September 16, Leapmotor announced at its Huzhou Technology Day that it has achieved 100% independent R&D of battery cells. Shortly after, He Xiaopeng, Chairman of Xpeng Motors, stated at the G9L launch event: "Starting from this year, Xpeng will develop and produce all its batteries on its own."
Jointly defining batteries with second-tier battery manufacturers, independently developing and producing battery cells, or only manufacturing battery packs. Despite different paths, leading new car-making forces have collectively written "independent R&D" into their strategies.
In the past, except for BYD which operates a fully self-contained system, almost all automakers' battery budgets flowed to CATL. The phrase "equipped with CATL batteries" used to be a major selling point at press conferences. Today, however, "de-CATL" has become the most consistent collective action taken by automakers this year.
Automakers and CATL: The Competition for Consumers Has Arrived
In mid-September, the official website and App of Li Auto i6 stopped accepting online orders. An offline store salesperson revealed to Tech Planet that the available units that can still be delivered are basically the versions equipped with Sunwoda batteries.
During the National Day holiday, a salesperson of Li Auto i6 said that the CATL battery version is basically unavailable for purchase. However, he also told Tech Planet that the most frequently asked question from customers entering the store during the National Day period is "Is the new version's battery still made by CATL?"
Automakers have chosen to develop batteries independently or replace suppliers, but consumers' perception has not changed for the time being.
In the past few years, the advertising slogan "When buying an EV, choose CATL" has appeared more and more frequently on TV, stadiums, elevators and mobile phone screens. This repeated anchoring of consumer psychology has turned a component brand hidden under the car chassis into the "default option" for Chinese consumers when purchasing electric vehicles.
On September 17, Nielsen IQ released the *2026 Global New Energy Vehicle Consumer Research Report*, pointing out that power batteries have become a key decision-making factor for consumers when selecting and purchasing vehicles.
The most obvious reflection of consumers' trust in CATL is a conclusion that 40% of Chinese respondents said they will not choose a vehicle that is not equipped with CATL batteries. Specifically, 37.1% of Chinese consumers stated directly that they will give up buying their favorite model if it does not use CATL batteries.
The votes cast by consumers are finally reflected in CATL's financial statements. Data from SNE Research shows that in the first seven months of this year, CATL's global power battery usage increased by 26.6% year-on-year, and its share rose from 38% in the same period of the previous year to 39.9%.
In the first half of 2026, its net profit reached 43.284 billion yuan, which is more than the total net profit of 15 mainstream listed domestic vehicle enterprises combined.
When it comes to specific car purchase decisions, this perception is influencing consumers' choices. Many consumers started to look at other brands after learning that Li Auto i6 had a facelift; a consumer who planned to replace his existing vehicle said that the safety of a battery requires long-term verification by the owner, and he "does not want to be a guinea pig".
However, some consumers said that replacing CATL's batteries is not unacceptable, and the key factor is the price. "If Li Auto offers a sincere price, we may consider it."
Consumers' obsession does not come out of nowhere. CATL's total installed capacity in 2025 was 464.7 GWh, with a global market share of about 39%. It has profound accumulation in technology, production capacity and brand, and is the preferred supplier for most high-end models.
As for CALB, the new battery supplier for Li Auto i6, although it is the fastest-growing dark horse in recent years, its global installed capacity in 2025 was about 44.4 GWh, with a market share of about 5.3%, which is far behind CATL.
Automakers' Battery Calculation: From Cost Reduction to Discourse Power Struggle
Although it is difficult to change consumers' perception in the short term, by giving up the CATL brand, automakers aim at two things: reducing costs and gaining greater discourse power.
After all, up to now, the battery is still the largest single cost item of the whole vehicle, a "heart-level" component, and the core variable that defines the differentiation of the whole vehicle at the technical level.
At present, different automakers have different depths of involvement in battery business.
The most thorough one is BYD's FinDreams Battery, which achieves complete independent R&D and manufacturing, covering links such as materials, cells, BMS and recycling.
GAC, Geely and other automakers also adopt the self-construction mode, choosing the full industrial chain layout from scratch. GAC has deployed independent R&D and production through its ENA Battery, while Geely integrated its battery assets to establish Jiyao Passing in 2025, and built multiple production bases.
Li Auto and Xiaomi Auto's Longjia Battery do not participate in the actual production of cells, but have gone deep into and dominated the cell design link. The 5C cell of the new Li Auto i6 is developed by Li Auto and produced by Sunwoda and CALB.
The same is true for Xiaomi, which is responsible for product definition, leading the design of battery packs, and participating in the development of cell materials, formulas and processes, while Sunwoda and CALB provide cell technology and manufacturing capabilities.
Compared with Li Auto and Xiaomi, Leapmotor is relatively more aggressive. On September 16, at the Leapmotor Technology Day, it announced that its cell production line was officially put into operation, which means that Leapmotor's independent battery R&D has extended from CTP (Cell to Pack) to the core cell of power batteries.
However, despite different paths, their goals are similar.
Song Yining, head of Leapmotor's battery product line, calculated an account: according to Leapmotor's calculation model, self-developed cells and batteries have a 10% cost reduction space compared with externally purchased ones; in ideal conditions, the vehicle cost is expected to decrease by 2.8%, and the gross profit margin of the whole vehicle will increase by about 2.4 percentage points.
If cost reduction can be achieved through self-developed batteries, this fund is almost the lifeline for the current automobile industry with low net profit margin. Data from China Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows that in the first half of 2026, the average profit margin of automobile manufacturing enterprises was 1.5%, dropping to the lowest point in nearly ten years.
In addition, an automotive industry practitioner told Tech Planet, "The rising price of battery raw materials in the past year is also one of the reasons why automakers accelerate to choose independent battery R&D."
In his view, battery manufacturers can follow the rise of upstream raw material prices, but automakers dare not raise prices arbitrarily. Automakers have to bear the pressure of vehicle price competition and sales, while a large part of battery procurement cost is determined by the supply chain. When costs rise but selling prices cannot go up, profits are squeezed from both sides.
Automakers want to reduce costs and gain discourse power, while CATL wants to defend its moat of technology and scale. Therefore, independent R&D and cooperation with second-tier battery manufacturers have naturally become the first choice for automakers.
"De-CATL": From Customers to Competitors
The cooperation between automakers and suppliers has always been full of separations and reunions.
A person who previously worked at an automotive intelligent solution supplier told Tech Planet that Li Auto used to be their customer. But since Li Auto decided to carry out full-stack independent R&D, it has gradually taken back all the cooperative businesses.
"The substitution of automakers is carried out step by step," the above industry insider said.
The first links to be replaced are those with relatively low thresholds. For example, in fields such as intelligent cockpit, automakers' independent R&D capabilities have grown from scratch, and suppliers have been reduced from honored guests to alternative options.
Batteries are the most difficult fortress in the new energy industry: material formulas, cell processes, manufacturing yield, and scale effect all rely on ten years of accumulation. But now, automakers have extended their tentacles to this fortress.
Looking at it over a longer time span, the "de-CATL" trend did not start this year.
Since the second half of 2021, many automakers have tried to introduce second battery suppliers. Xpeng included CALB (formerly China Aviation Lithium Battery) and EVE in its official supply system. Tesla and NIO simultaneously launched supply chain diversification, while Geely and GAC began to plan to build their own battery production lines.
In 2022, Zeng Qinghong, then Chairman of GAC Group, calculated an account in public: battery cost has accounted for 40% to 60% of the total vehicle cost, and he left a famous saying: "Aren't we working for CATL?"
So why did this trend fully break out and be realized this year?
The above industry insider analyzed that on the one hand, the production capacity of second-tier battery manufacturers has become stable, and the supply and demand relationship has gradually eased; on the other hand, with the decline of market sales, automakers' core demand has upgraded from "ensuring supply and reducing prices" to independently mastering core technologies, so as to completely get rid of the dual dependence on upstream battery enterprises in technology and production capacity.
Changes are emerging. A DBS Bank report on September 17 estimated that Li Auto's annual battery demand is about 30 to 40 GWh, which is equivalent to about 3% to 4% of CATL's annual shipment target. The share is not large, but it is enough to give Sunwoda and CALB the admission ticket to enter Li Auto's supply chain, and also make CATL lose orders directly on some models.
Li Auto is not an isolated case. In June this year, the pure electric version of AITO M6 was confirmed to be equipped with Gotion High-Tech's LFP battery, and Gotion officially entered the supply chain of the main models of Harmony Intelligent Mobility. The Longjia Battery released by Xiaomi is equipped on the two newly launched Pengcheng models, whose cell suppliers are CALB and Sunwoda Power, achieving decoupling from CATL.
The reaction of the capital market is more direct. Since May, CATL's stock price has fallen from 468.75 yuan to around 300 yuan, and its total market value in A+H shares has evaporated by about 700 billion yuan.
At the same time, against the background that both the passenger vehicle and new energy vehicle markets are declining, by the end of the second quarter of 2026, CATL's total inventory (energy storage batteries + power batteries) balance reached 130.8 billion yuan, an increase of 21.9 billion yuan compared with the end of the first quarter.
For CATL, the real challenge may not be the few lost orders, but that its original customers are becoming competitors in the same track: they are holding self-developed formulas, structures and production line data, leading second-tier battery manufacturers to sit across the negotiation table.
This seesaw battle has just begun.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Tech Planet" (ID: tech618), written by Ren Xueyun, published with authorization from 36Kr.