EHang invests in solid-state lithium metal battery company Inx

EHang Hold­ings will invest in sol­id-state lithi­um met­al bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Inx Tech­nol­o­gy to coop­er­ate on research, devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion of bat­ter­ies for EHang AAV prod­ucts. The fund­ing round was led by GL Ven­tures, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion from Con­nect­ed Intel­li­gence Fund, Qilu Qian­hai Fund, EHang, and its exist­ing investor Fenghe Cap­i­tal.

Found­ed in 2020, Inx spe­cialis­es in the pro­duc­tion of sol­id-state lithi­um met­al bat­ter­ies with core patents in mate­ri­als, pro­cess­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing and bat­tery designs. The com­pa­ny gath­ers a team with exper­tise on advanced bat­tery tech­nolo­gies, plus an expe­ri­enced engi­neer­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and sales oper­a­tion team. A 200MWh sol­id-state lithi­um met­al bat­tery pro­duc­tion line, key mate­r­i­al prepa­ra­tion line, and sol­id-state bat­tery analy­sis and test­ing plat­form have been estab­lished.

Inx’s sol­id-state lithi­um met­al bat­tery dif­fers from exist­ing tra­di­tion­al lithi­um-ion bat­ter­ies by using lithi­um met­al instead of graphite as the neg­a­tive elec­trode and sol­id-state elec­trolyte instead of liq­uid elec­trolyte sep­a­ra­tors. This struc­tur­al change enables a sig­nif­i­cant leap in ener­gy den­si­ty while ensur­ing extreme­ly high bat­tery safe­ty.

Dr Lin Chen, Chair­man and Head of Research & Devel­op­ment at Inx, stat­ed that after over a decade expe­ri­ence of ded­i­cat­ed research and tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment, Inx’s sol­id-state lithi­um met­al bat­ter­ies have now achieved extra­or­di­nary safe­ty and high ener­gy den­si­ty fea­tures that will dri­ve the indus­try for­ward in clean elec­tri­fi­ca­tion.

He said: “The invest­ment from renowned insti­tu­tions like GL Ven­tures and clients like EHang reflects recog­ni­tion of our tech­nolo­gies, team, and prod­uct. The entire Inx team remains com­mit­ted to the vision of ‘pro­pelling the ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion and improv­ing human life’.”

Leo Sun, pres­i­dent of Inx, added: “Our first-gen­er­a­tion prod­uct with an ener­gy den­si­ty of 450Wh/kg based on 6Ah-50Ah cells has obtained third-par­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion reports and can be pro­duced in mass. Inx will col­lab­o­rate with strate­gic cus­tomers to enhance the bat­tery life and light weight of OEM prod­ucts.”

Huazhi Hu, founder and CEO of EHang, con­tin­ued: “EHang is always com­mit­ted to safer, more effi­cient and sus­tain­able ener­gy solu­tions. The inno­v­a­tive sol­id-state lithi­um met­al bat­ter­ies devel­oped by Inx have sig­nif­i­cant advan­tages over liq­uid bat­ter­ies in terms of safe­ty, ener­gy den­si­ty, ther­mal sta­bil­i­ty, cruis­ing range, charg­ing and dis­charg­ing per­for­mance.”