Qingtao Energy

Qingtao Energy (清陶能源) is a Chinese solid-state lithium battery developer founded in 2016 in Kunshan by a team led by Tsinghua University professor and Chinese Academy of Sciences academician Nan Cewen, evolving from an earlier 2014 entity, Jiangsu Qingtao New Energy Technology . The company positions itself as a global leader in solid-state lithium battery industrialization, having built the first scaled production line for solid-state power batteries in China .

Feng Yuchuan serves as founder and chairman , while Li Zheng, a Tsinghua materials science PhD and former director of the Jiangsu Energy Composite Materials Engineering Technology Research Center, is co-founder, general manager, and CTO . Qingtao's technology roadmap spans three generations: its first-generation semi-solid product, already mass-produced at super-GWh scale with 420Wh/kg energy density; a second-generation battery expected in 2024; and a third-generation all-solid-state battery targeting over 500Wh/kg . The company has built a full industrial ecosystem covering new energy materials, solid-state batteries, automation equipment, battery resource recycling, research incubation, and industrial investment .

FreeS Fund (峰瑞资本) led Qingtao's angel round in 2016 and has subsequently made six follow-on investments . The company has also attracted strategic investments from major automakers: SAIC Motor invested RMB 2.7 billion in a G+ round in 2023, becoming its largest industrial investor, following earlier investments from BAIC and GAC . In 2022, Qingtao and SAIC established a joint solid-state battery laboratory, achieving a system-level zero thermal runaway battery with 368Wh/kg cell energy density and 1,083 km tested range . By 2021, Qingtao batteries had already demonstrated over 360Wh/kg cell density and verified electric range exceeding 1,000 km in passenger vehicles .