China has presented a goal of bringing all-solid-state batteries to an early stage of scaled application by 2030. However, CATL, the world's largest battery maker, is taking a cautious view, saying cost and mass-production technology issues remain and wider adoption will take more time.

According to InsideEVs and other outlets, seven government bodies including China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the "15th Five-Year Plan for the New Battery Industry". The plan includes a goal of realising early scaled application of all-solid-state batteries by 2030 and making breakthroughs in core technologies such as advanced electrode materials and new electrolytes.

While the government is accelerating efforts to foster the industry, CATL is cautious about the commercialisation timeline. CATL Chairman Robin Zeng (쩡위췬) in June rated the technology maturity of all-solid-state batteries at level 4 out of 9. With level 9 representing mass-producible capability, he said a large technology gap remains.

CATL is aiming for small-scale production and vehicle validation in 2027. However, Zeng forecast that "the possibility of scaling all-solid-state batteries to the point of being applied to millions of vehicles is very low before 2030". That is because manufacturing stability and cost, as well as performance, must be solved at the same time.

LG Energy Solution offered a similar view. Robert Lee (로버트 리), head of LG Energy Solution in North America, said, "There are still difficulties in mass-producing large all-solid-state cells," adding that they are more likely to be commercialised first in smartphones or specialised uses before expanding to electric vehicles.

Market forecasts are also cautious. BloombergNEF projected that "all-solid-state batteries will account for about 10 percent of global demand for electric-vehicle and energy-storage batteries even in 2035." In China, vehicles equipped with semi-solid-state batteries have already appeared, but it is difficult to view this as full-fledged commercialisation of fully all-solid-state batteries.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government plans to foster next-generation technologies simultaneously, including sodium-ion and flow batteries, as well as long-life lithium batteries, in addition to all-solid-state batteries. It also set a goal of increasing the charge-discharge cycle life of long-life lithium batteries to 15,000 cycles by 2030.