Tag Archives: EVs

For a company that once made its reputation on long-roof wagons and dignified, low-slung sedans, Volvo’s current showroom looks suspiciously like a luxury crossover dealership. Five of its six model lines are SUVs, and even the one that pretends not to be—the ES90 electric “sedan”—sits so tall it could borrow ground clearance from a Subaru Outback.

But that might finally be about to change.

Volvo’s new SPA3 electric platform, debuting under the upcoming EX60, has been engineered to do something no modern Volvo EV platform could do before: build a genuinely low car. And not “low for an EV,” but low like a proper S60 or V90—roofline, seating position, and all.

In other words, the age of Volvo’s electric baby SUVs might be coming to an end.

The Real Problem with Today’s EVs

The reason so many electric sedans look like lifted hatchbacks isn’t fashion—it’s physics. Most current EV platforms (including Volvo’s SPA2) are adapted from gas-car architectures. That forces the battery pack to live under the entire passenger cabin, which raises the floor, which raises the seats, which raises the roof, which turns everything into a crossover whether you like it or not.

That’s why the ES90 rides roughly eight inches higher than the old S90. The battery is basically a giant slab under the cabin, so everyone has to sit on top of it.

SPA3 fixes that.

Because it was designed as a pure EV platform from day one, Volvo’s engineers were free to move the battery, crash structure, and cabin around like chess pieces. And that changes everything.

Batteries That Don’t Dictate the Car’s Shape

The breakthrough is deceptively simple: SPA3’s battery doesn’t have to live only between the axles.

Volvo moved the front crash structure forward and reshaped it so battery cells can now sit ahead of the firewall, spreading part of the pack under the hood instead of under the rear passengers. That frees up space in the rear footwell, letting the floor drop lower—just like in a gas-powered car.

That’s how cars like the Porsche Taycan and Audi E-tron GT achieve their low seating positions, and now Volvo can do it too.

The result?
Rear passengers no longer sit on a battery pedestal. The roof doesn’t have to be taller. The windows don’t have to be stubby. The car can finally look like a sedan again.

Volvo Can Now Build Anything

According to Volvo CTO Anders Bell, SPA3’s design removes the one thing that has been holding modern EVs hostage: a flat, full-length battery slab.

Instead, battery cells can be added, removed, or repositioned depending on whether the car needs to be tall, low, wide, or sleek. Even the scuttle height—the base of the windshield—can be raised or lowered.

Volvo can build SUVs, wagons, sedans, MPVs, and sleek low-riders on the same bones.

And Bell didn’t hide what that really means.

“We can do low. We can do sleek. We can do high. We can do MPVs… It’s all in the cookbook.”

That’s engineer-speak for: we’re no longer trapped in SUV land.

The Return of the Electric S60 and V90?

Volvo won’t officially confirm an electric S60 or V90 yet, but the implications are obvious. SPA3 could easily support a low-slung sedan sibling to the EX60—effectively an electric S60 in everything but name.

And that matters.

BMW is working on a new i3. Mercedes has a C-Class EV coming. Audi is preparing the A4 E-tron. If Volvo wants to be taken seriously as a premium EV brand, it needs something that isn’t shaped like a refrigerator on stilts.

SPA3 finally gives Volvo the hardware to do it.

The Most Important Volvo Platform in a Generation

For the last decade, Volvo has followed the market into SUVs. SPA3 gives it a way back out.

It’s not just a new EV platform—it’s a reset button for what a Volvo can be. If demand exists, Volvo can now build cars that sit low, look elegant, and drive like real sedans and wagons again.

And for anyone who misses the days of S60s and V90s carving through traffic instead of towering over it, that might be the most exciting thing Volvo has done in years.

Source: Volvo

News

CATL Claims Its New EV Battery Is Good for a Million Miles

February 8, 2026 Francis Mitterrand

For years, the dirtiest secret in electric cars hasn’t been range anxiety—it’s resale anxiety. New EVs roll off the lot with eight-year battery warranties and optimistic promises, but the second or third owner? They’re left staring at a five-figure battery replacement like a ticking time bomb. Fast charging, meanwhile, has been treated like a guilty pleasure: great when you’re in a hurry, bad for long-term battery health.

Now CATL, the world’s largest battery supplier, says it’s ready to blow up that narrative.

The Chinese battery giant claims its latest 5C lithium-ion pack can retain 80 percent of its original capacity after 3,000 full fast-charge cycles—under ideal 20°C (68°F) conditions. Do the math, and that works out to about 1.1 million miles of driving. That’s not a commuter car. That’s a New York taxi that refuses to die.

Even when the heat gets brutal, the numbers are still eyebrow-raising. At 60°C (140°F)—which CATL likens to a Dubai summer—the same pack is supposedly good for 1,400 cycles before dropping to 80 percent. That’s roughly 520,000 miles. Plenty of gasoline cars don’t survive that long even with engine rebuilds.

The “5C” label refers to how fast the battery can be charged relative to its capacity. In plain English: this pack could theoretically go from empty to full in about 12 minutes. That kind of charging speed usually murders batteries, but CATL insists it has figured out how to cheat physics—at least a little.

According to the company, the trick lies in smarter chemistry and aggressive thermal control. A more uniform cathode coating reduces microscopic structural damage. A special electrolyte additive helps heal tiny internal cracks before they become real problems. A temperature-responsive layer inside the separator slows ion flow when things start getting too hot. And the battery-management system can target cooling to specific hot spots inside the pack instead of treating it like one big, evenly warm brick.

The goal is simple: make fast charging routine, not something owners nervously avoid to protect their investment. If CATL is even half right, this could be huge for taxis, ride-hailing fleets, and delivery vans—anyone for whom a charging stop is lost revenue.

Of course, these are still lab numbers. CATL hasn’t said when these packs will hit mass production or which vehicles will get them first. And anyone who has followed EV tech long enough knows that the real world is far less polite than a temperature-controlled test cell.

Still, the implication is enormous. If a battery can really go half a million—or even a million—miles without collapsing, the most expensive component in an EV stops being a liability and starts becoming an asset. That means used EVs suddenly look a lot less risky, and a lot more like the bargain hunters have been waiting for.

And that might be the biggest revolution here—not faster charging, not longer range, but the simple idea that your electric car’s battery might actually outlive the car wrapped around it.

Source: CATL

News

This Xiaomi SU7 Just Drove 265,000 Kilometers—and Its Battery Is Still On 94.5 Percent Capacity

February 3, 2026 Francis Mitterrand

If you want to understand the future of electric cars, sometimes it helps to look not at shiny auto-show concepts but at a very tired driver and a very not-tired battery.

Somewhere in China, a Xiaomi SU7 owner known online as Feng has quietly done what most EV skeptics insist can’t be done: he drove his electric sedan 265,000 kilometers in just 18 months—nearly the distance from Earth to the Moon—and the battery still looks like it just finished its break-in period.

According to a diagnostic report issued by Xiaomi’s own service center, the SU7’s 94.3-kWh pack is still holding 94.5 percent of its original capacity. In battery-speak, that’s astonishing. Feng averaged almost 500 kilometers per day, every day, for a year and a half. That’s the kind of usage that normally turns lithium-ion packs into cautionary tales. Instead, this one came back with barely a wrinkle.

To put that number in perspective, most automakers promise that after eight years or roughly 150,000 to 160,000 kilometers, your EV battery won’t degrade more than 20 to 30 percent. Tesla, for example, guarantees its Model 3 and Model Y will retain at least 70 percent capacity over that span. Feng’s SU7 has already blown past those mileage figures—and it’s still sitting north of 94 percent.

A High-Mileage Stress Test

The service report suggests the battery has gone through roughly 506 full charge cycles. That’s not light use. That’s the sort of cycling you’d expect to expose weaknesses in cell chemistry, thermal management, or charging strategy. Instead, the SU7’s pack seems to be taking it in stride.

And it’s not just the battery that’s holding up. Xiaomi’s technicians also noted that Feng hasn’t needed a brake-pad replacement yet, a reminder of how effective regenerative braking can be when used this heavily. Even the cooling system passed with flying colors—the coolant showed no water contamination, a detail that quietly signals good long-term system integrity.

In other words, this SU7 isn’t just surviving. It’s aging gracefully.

Why This Matters

Xiaomi may be new to the car business, but this kind of real-world data is exactly what separates marketing promises from engineering reality. Anyone can quote lab numbers. Feng delivered something far more valuable: a brutal, everyday stress test.

High-mileage EVs are still rare enough that every one of them becomes a rolling experiment. And this experiment suggests that Xiaomi’s battery management and thermal systems are doing something very right. If a pack can keep more than 94 percent of its capacity after 265,000 kilometers of near-constant driving, that’s not a fluke—that’s a design philosophy paying off.

The Road to 600,000

Feng isn’t done. His next target is 600,000 kilometers, which he expects to reach within three years. When he gets there, he plans to publish another full wear-and-tear report, effectively turning his SU7 into one of the world’s most documented long-term EV tests.

If the battery keeps degrading at this rate, that future report might be even more impressive than the first.

And for an industry still fighting doubts about durability, that may be the most important data point of all.

Source: Xiaomi; Photo: EPA-EFE

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