Qingtao Energy

Qingtao Energy (formally QingTao (Kunshan) Energy Development Co., founded 2016) is a solid-state lithium battery company spun out of the team led by Nan Cewen, a Chinese Academy of Sciences academician and Tsinghua professor, with founder-chairman Feng Yuchuan and co-founder/GM/CTO Li Zheng . It was among the first to put a solid-state battery pilot and mass-production line into operation, and by 2023 had built a full chain spanning new-energy materials, cells, automation equipment, and recycling, with 500+ patent applications . Its first-generation cells reached 368Wh/kg with "zero thermal runaway at system level" and powered a test vehicle to 1,083km of range, per a 2023 FreeS Fund update . On the capital side, FreeS Fund led its 2016 angel round and added on six more times, while SAIC — after participating in the E+ and F++ rounds — injected another RMB 2.7 billion in the 2023 G+ round to become its largest industrial investor; BAIC and GAC have also invested . As of that 2023 reporting, SAIC and Qingtao were running a joint solid-state battery lab targeting 400Wh/kg+ second-generation cells at 100,000-vehicle production scale .