Swedish-Chinese Geely daughter Zeekr has presented a newly in-house developed 800 V lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery to be used in its new 007 sedan. This so-called ‘Golden Battery’ can be charged at up to 500 kW from 10-80% in merely 15 minutes. That provides the Zeekr 007 with an extra 500 km range.

Zeekr claims it is the world’s first mass-produced 800 V LFP ultra-fast charging battery, with a volume utilization rate of 83,7 percent, while regular LFP batteries get as far as 66%. CATL’s best-in-class nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) Qilin battery reaches 72%.

Better than CATL’s Qilin battery?

In May of this year, Zeekr started delivering the single-motor WE version of its 001 shooting brake with a 140-kWh CATL battery pack as an option for around €13 000 extra. According to Chinese standards, this Qilin battery promises a range of over 1 000 km.

CLTC tends to be 15 to 25% less strict than European WLTP, but that would still mean an impressive 800 km. Anyway, it’s for the happy few, as the 140 kWh Qilin battery option is limited to only 1 000 units.

Withstanding heat better

So the next option will be this ‘Golden Battery’. And that one would be safer than its competitors and less fire-prone. The company says it withstands a ‘fire test’ exposed to 700°C for 240 seconds, while the Chinese national safety standard requires at least 130 seconds.

Zeekr worked with more than 1.000 engineers over three years on developing it and optimizing production by 40%. They managed to reduce production costs by 14,8% per Wh compared to lithium ternary batteries with the same performance.

Golden Batteries are made today in an ultra-modern Geely battery plant in eastern China’s Zhejiang province. Seen in that light, it’s not unimaginable that Geely will use this type of battery for its own EVs or its subsidiaries like Volvo, Polestar, or Lotus, for instance.

First fully electric sedan

Zeekr showed its first fully electric sedan, the Zeekr 007, at the Guangzhou auto show in November. In less than 30 minutes, over 5 000 preorders were registered for this 4,8 m long sedan that sprints in 5,4 to 2,84 seconds to 100 km/hour, offered at a starting price of 229 900 yuan (€29 323). It’s officially going on sale on December 27th, with deliveries starting in China in January.

The Zeekr 007 is a sizeable D-segment family sedan playing in the league of the ET5, that other Chinese premium brand, Nio, or the German BMW i4 eDrive. It is based on the 800-volt PMA2+ platform derived from Geely’s Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA) platform. That underpins the first Zeekr introduced in Europe, the shooting brake 001, the 009 MPV, the compact Zeekr X and its relatives, the Volvo EX30, and the Smart #1.

The Zeekr 007 is what we call in Europe ‘a large family car’ and in America ‘a midsize sedan’ with 4 865 mm in length, 1 900 mm in width, 1 450 mm in height, and a wheelbase of 2 928 mm. Still, it is slightly shorter than the 4,95 m shooting brake version.

It comes with 310 kW (415 hp) rear-wheel drive or 475 kW (636 hp) all-wheel drive, and at the launch, it was reported to feature batteries delivering ranges between 688 and 870 km according to CLTC standards.

Zeekr now says the car will charge 500 km of range in 15 minutes due to its Golden Battery and the 800 V architecture. Those 800 volts it only shares with the Zeekr 001FR, the brand’s top-performing sports version.