China’s electric-vehicle competition is increasingly being decided beneath the floor of the car. Leapmotor and state-owned FAW Group have deepened their relationship with a battery-technology partnership spanning solid-state batteries, sodium-ion cells, lithium-rich manganese chemistry and ultra-fast-charging lithium iron phosphate batteries.
The agreement matters because neither company is beginning from a blank sheet. FAW has already put experimental solid-state and lithium-rich battery systems into prototype vehicles, while Leapmotor is rapidly expanding production and developing its own integrated battery architecture. Their cooperation therefore brings together an established industrial giant and one of China’s fastest-growing new-energy vehicle manufacturers. It also captures a broader shift in China’s EV industry: companies are no longer betting on one battery chemistry to solve every problem, but pursuing several technologies simultaneously as competition moves from vehicle pricing toward charging speed, energy density, cold-weather performance, manufacturing cost and supply-chain resilience.
The Partnership Moves From Broad Strategy to Specific Battery Work
The newest step was formalized in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, where Leapmotor and FAW subsidiaries signed separate agreements covering powertrains and batteries. Leapmotor plans to participate as a strategic investor in the Series A financing of FAW Qixin Powertrain. The companies said they would explore cooperation and resource sharing involving hybrid engines, electric-drive systems and range extenders. At the same time, FAW’s China Automotive New Energy Battery Technology unit entered a technology cooperation agreement with Leapmotor covering solid-state batteries, lithium-rich manganese-based batteries, sodium-ion technology and ultra-fast-charging LFP cells.
That combination makes the deal broader than a research partnership focused on one experimental battery. It follows an August agreement that expanded FAW and Leapmotor’s relationship across capital cooperation, new-energy vehicles, assisted driving, powertrains, traction batteries, intelligent chassis, lightweight components and other technologies. The companies had originally signed a strategic cooperation memorandum in March 2025. In little more than a year, their relationship has therefore moved from a general framework toward specific vehicle, powertrain and battery-development programs.
FAW Already Has Solid-State Prototypes in Real-Vehicle Testing
FAW brings something particularly valuable to the partnership: next-generation battery programs that have already moved beyond laboratory cells. Its Hongqi luxury brand rolled out a Tiangong 06 prototype equipped with an all-solid-state battery around the turn of 2026, moving the project into full-vehicle testing. Reports based on FAW disclosures have put cell energy density at roughly 380 Wh/kg and described work on sulfide electrolytes, high-voltage packaging and battery-system integration. Those figures remain development-stage specifications rather than proof of commercial performance, but the physical test vehicle is an important step beyond a laboratory demonstration.
FAW’s battery operation has also installed a separate lithium-rich manganese solid-liquid hybrid battery into a prototype. According to the automaker, the experimental cells exceed 500 Wh/kg and the pack holds 142 kWh, giving the test vehicle a claimed CLTC driving range of more than 1,000 kilometres. Such numbers should be treated carefully because vehicle weight, pack-level energy density, real-world efficiency and international test cycles can change the result substantially. Still, they show that the chemistries named in the Leapmotor agreement are connected to active FAW development programs rather than distant concepts.
Sodium-Ion Gives the Partnership a Very Different Kind of Battery Bet
Solid-state technology is largely being pursued for higher energy density and potential safety improvements. Sodium-ion addresses a different set of problems. Sodium is abundant and removes lithium from the cell chemistry, giving manufacturers another way to manage raw-material and price risks. The International Energy Agency says the latest sodium-ion cells can reach around 175 Wh/kg, compared with about 205 Wh/kg for advanced LFP and 265 Wh/kg for NMC. That lower energy density makes sodium-ion less attractive for large, long-range vehicles where every kilogram and litre of battery space matters.
Cold-weather performance, however, can change the calculation. The IEA notes that current sodium-ion technology can retain roughly 90% of nominal capacity at temperatures as low as -40°C. FAW already has experience in this area through its Jiefang commercial-vehicle operation. Working with HiNa Battery, it tested a J6P electric tractor with a 339-kWh sodium-ion battery for more than 15,000 kilometres over nearly seven months. FAW reported more than 90% usable capacity at -40°C and rapid charging in roughly 20 to 25 minutes. A heavy truck is very different from a passenger EV, but the trial demonstrates why sodium-ion remains strategically interesting despite its energy-density disadvantage.
Betting on Several Chemistries Reduces the Risk of Picking the Wrong Winner
The four technologies named in the agreement serve noticeably different purposes. Ultra-fast-charging LFP builds on a chemistry that is already manufactured at enormous scale and is valued for relatively low cost and durability. Sodium-ion could become useful in shorter-range vehicles, commercial fleets, stationary storage and very cold climates. Solid-state cells target substantially greater energy density and potentially improved safety, while lithium-rich manganese cathodes promise unusually high capacity without relying as heavily on expensive materials such as nickel and cobalt.
There are trade-offs in every direction. Academic research has repeatedly shown that lithium-rich manganese cathodes can deliver impressive capacity but suffer from challenges including structural degradation and voltage fade during repeated cycling. Solid-state batteries must overcome difficult electrode-electrolyte interfaces and manufacturing problems. Sodium-ion still trails lithium-ion in energy density. That helps explain why diversification is becoming an industry strategy in its own right. Rather than assuming one chemistry will replace everything else, automakers can match batteries to specific vehicles. A small urban EV, cold-region delivery truck, premium long-range sedan and high-volume family crossover may ultimately need very different compromises between cost, range, charging and durability.
Leapmotor Brings Rapidly Growing Scale and Battery-System Expertise
Leapmotor is arriving at the partnership during an extraordinary expansion of its manufacturing footprint. The company reported global deliveries of 103,129 vehicles in August 2026, up roughly 81% from a year earlier and its second consecutive month above 100,000. Deliveries for the first eight months reached 560,883 vehicles, about 71% higher than in the comparable 2025 period. That scale increasingly gives Leapmotor the ability to spread engineering and development costs across a much larger vehicle base than it could only a few years ago.
The company is also working on how batteries are physically incorporated into vehicles rather than concentrating exclusively on cell chemistry. At its September technology event, Leapmotor unveiled its CTC 3.0 High-Low Fusion Battery architecture. The company says the system integrates conventional low-voltage electrical functions into the main battery architecture, eliminating the need for a separate traditional 12-volt battery in vehicles that adopt it. Leapmotor says the technology will support its next generation of products from 2027. That type of vehicle-level integration is significant for FAW cooperation because improvements in cell chemistry deliver their full benefit only when packaging, thermal management, power electronics and vehicle structure evolve with them.
The Relationship Already Extends Into Actual Vehicle Development
The battery partnership is easier to understand in the context of the vehicle program that first brought the companies together. In 2025, Leapmotor agreed to supply an EV platform for a vehicle under FAW’s premium Hongqi brand. Executives told Reuters at the time that the jointly developed vehicle was intended for overseas markets, with series production targeted for the second half of 2026. The arrangement was notable because it reversed the traditional relationship between a large state-owned manufacturer and a much younger EV company: Leapmotor was supplying core electric architecture rather than simply buying manufacturing capacity from the established automaker.
The relationship has since expanded considerably. FAW’s August 2026 announcement described cooperation not only in complete vehicles but in batteries, powertrains, intelligent driving, chassis technology, manufacturing equipment and capital. The September agreements narrow several of those ambitions into more concrete programs. For engineers, that can matter because technologies can be validated across actual vehicle projects rather than remaining isolated research exercises. For both companies, shared components and development work could also spread the cost of increasingly expensive EV engineering across larger volumes, provided the partners can coordinate standards, product timing and supply chains effectively.
China’s Battery Race Is Becoming an Industrial Scale-Up Contest
The larger backdrop is China’s overwhelming position in the global battery industry. The IEA estimates that China produced more than 80% of the world’s battery cells in 2025, while Chinese manufacturers accounted for almost three-quarters of batteries deployed in electric cars globally. Their share of the European EV battery market also rose above half in 2025. That manufacturing concentration gives Chinese companies a powerful advantage: new chemistries can be developed alongside huge existing supply chains for cathodes, anodes, equipment and conventional lithium-ion cells.
Yet experimental technology is still tiny compared with mainstream production. Sodium-ion manufacturing capacity remains only a small fraction of lithium-ion capacity, while solid-state batteries have not demonstrated their promised advantages consistently at mass-production scale. At the same time, China’s auto sector is dealing with fierce competition, excess capacity and pressure on profitability. That environment encourages companies to cooperate even while competing in showrooms. The FAW-Leapmotor arrangement fits a pattern in which intellectual property, platforms, batteries and manufacturing assets are increasingly shared or licensed because developing every technology independently can be slower and considerably more expensive.
The Biggest Question Is How Quickly Research Can Become Affordable Production
The September agreement does not provide a commercial launch date for a Leapmotor or FAW passenger vehicle using one of the newly named battery technologies. That omission matters. Prototype energy density, charging performance or laboratory cycle life can look spectacular, but automotive batteries must also survive years of vibration, temperature swings, repeated fast charging and occasional abuse while being manufactured at automotive scale for an acceptable cost. Solid-state technology in particular continues to face difficult challenges around interfaces, manufacturability and consistent large-cell production.
Sodium-ion faces a different hurdle: it already works, but its lower energy density can limit vehicle range unless the pack becomes larger or the vehicle becomes more efficient. Lithium-rich manganese materials still require improvements in long-term stability. LFP, meanwhile, continues improving from a much more mature manufacturing base. That makes the Leapmotor-FAW partnership important without making an imminent battery revolution inevitable. Its significance lies in combining multiple technology paths, capital, vehicle programs and manufacturing knowledge under one cooperation framework. In China’s increasingly compressed EV development cycle, the advantage may belong not to whoever announces the most exotic battery first, but to whoever can turn a promising chemistry into millions of affordable, reliable packs.
