A former top executive of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) enters the market of truck start-stop batteries, turning commercial vehicles into "mild hybrids"

Lead-acid batteries are currently the mainstream type in the field of truck start-stop batteries. Their advantages lie in low cost and high stability. However, they also have pain points such as short lifespan and low energy density. Thus, the trend of replacing lead-acid batteries with lithium-ion batteries in truck start-stop batteries has gradually emerged.

This has allowed some lithium-ion battery companies to see market opportunities, including Chuyiqing New Energy.

Chuyiqing New Energy was founded in September 2024. Its founder, Zou Hai, is one of the first batch of entrepreneurial team members of CATL.

Zou Hai told 36Kr that his bet on the truck start-stop battery track is based on the following considerations - power batteries and large-scale energy storage are capital-intensive and labor-intensive industries. Engaging in innovative applications in niche markets can avoid direct competition with industry giants such as CATL. By the end of 2023, the number of trucks in China had exceeded 12 million, with over 5 million trucks involved in inter-provincial transportation. The price of a single truck start-stop battery is about several thousand yuan. Calculated in this way, the truck start-stop battery market is a market worth tens of billions of yuan, with an attractive market prospect.

As of now, Chuyiqing has a total of 4 products, and 3 of them have been mass-produced and installed in vehicles.

One of them is a standard product that has been shipped. Its function is to replace the original lead-acid battery on the truck. One set of batteries can be used for both starting and stopping and parking. Zou Hai said, "It corresponds to the current largest market and is also the mainstream application."

"The other two products are customized for Kway Express Group. The other party expects that the lead-acid batteries on more than 9,000 vehicles will be replaced with our lithium-ion batteries in the future."

Currently, these products are not targeted at the front end of the automotive industry but at the aftermarket and logistics companies. Zou Hai explained the company's strategic logic in this way: "Cooperating directly with automobile manufacturers poses a great test to the stability of the company's basic business. Currently, Chuyiqing's shipment volume is still relatively small, so it hopes to polish the product maturity through the aftermarket. By then, when cooperating with automobile manufacturers, Chuyiqing will have more say."

In addition to improving product maturity, Chuyiqing is also working hard to build its own brand at this stage. Zou Hai said, "All the battery cells currently used by the company are from CATL."

There are only a few companies in the industry that only use CATL's products. Many companies mostly pursue controllable supply chains, low costs, or just "good enough." However, Chuyiqing believes that a start-stop battery should be used for at least 5 years. It is necessary to make the product solid, thereby precipitating the company's brand. In the future, it will provide customized products for more customers. Even in the future, the company will combine energy storage with more things to create a derivative ecosystem around batteries, forming an ecological chain similar to "Mi Home."

Chuyiqing's fourth product has just completed pre-research and has not been mass-produced yet, but it is the most differentiated product of Chuyiqing. Zou Hai told 36Kr, "There are currently no competing products on the market for this product."

Chuyiqing named this product Start-Stop Pro. Its biggest difference is that it supports ultra-fast charging. According to Chuyiqing, this battery can be charged to 80% in one hour, while the existing standardized products on the market can only be charged to 10%-15% in one hour.

As for why Chuyiqing wants to develop such a product, Zou Hai said that because 99% of the products on the market are standardized solutions, the pain points of some customers have not been solved for a long time. As a new player in the start-stop battery track, Chuyiqing is mostly at a disadvantage in terms of scale and cost. Therefore, the company tries to create a differentiated selling point of ultra-fast charging through a completely different system architecture.

In addition, the battery cells of this battery are also completely different from the existing standardized solutions. 36Kr learned that this battery cell can use energy storage cells and can even be compatible with future 587 energy storage cells, which can solve the problems of high cost and low capacity of power cells.

The original intention of Chuyiqing to develop this battery is to transform commercial vehicles into "mild hybrids."

When introducing the performance of this product, Zou Hai said, "Vehicles that are willing to use this product will ultimately save fuel. When a truck is climbing a slope, if the battery has sufficient energy, it can drive the corresponding equipment on the vehicle, which can reduce the fuel consumption of the truck by about 15%. When the truck is parked, the energy of the battery can provide a deep push for the truck, which can also reduce fuel consumption."

In addition, it can also reduce the fuel consumption of the parking air conditioner. Originally, the fuel cost of the parking air conditioner was more than ten yuan per hour. So, with the lead-acid battery powering the air conditioner and also used for starting and stopping, the energy consumption cost of the air conditioner is almost zero.

The existing standardized lithium-ion battery products only aim to replace the original lead-acid batteries, but Chuyiqing's product is like a portable power bank for trucks, recycling as much energy on the vehicle as possible."

However, to ensure product reliability, Chuyiqing has not let this product be overly involved in power.

Zou Hai explained, "If our product is to meet both the explosive demand during startup and the continuous demand after startup, quality will become a big problem. So we choose the second half, so that the company can use lower-cost energy storage cells to increase the battery capacity."

"The design of this product is basically completed, and there are no problems with the bench test." The next step for Chuyiqing is to clarify the product's business logic and then launch it into the corresponding market.

"Making CATL's products accessible" is Zou Hai's original intention for entering the truck start-stop battery market, but his business ideal does not stop there. In the future, Chuyiqing also plans to expand its business map to other small and medium-sized energy storage fields, allowing more users to experience CATL's products.