Chinese battery manufacturer CATL recently announced a new cell design, called Freevoy, which aims to increase the range for hybrid vehicles on battery power, meaning longer trips at zero emissions. Thus, for 10 minutes of charging, future plug-in hybrid cars can enjoy up to 280 kilometers of clean-drive range, writes Electrive.

Current-generation plug-in hybrid cars usually come with a few drawbacks. For one, the actual range isn't particularly impressive, at around 100 kilometers or so. Then comes the charging speed, which is usually limited to AC power at 22kW max, meaning that topping the actual batteries takes a long time. Still, plug-in hybrids are the better alternative for the drivers that still want to enjoy as much electric driving as possible, as well as the benefits of a combustion engine.

You can learn more about the difference between all types of hybrid cars from our article here.

By combining sodium-ion and lithium-ion batteries, CATL was able to improve the performance of the cells during low-temperature scenarios by 5%.

With the new cell design, CATL was able to drive state-of-charge (SOC) accuracy by as much as 40%, as well as enabling pure electric utilization by more than 10%, meaning more distance covered in pure electric mode, before the petrol engine kicks in. The temperature range in which the two batteries can operate has also been improved, to around -40 degrees Celsius, while the engineers also focused on addressing the performance mismatch between the two batteries under low-temperature conditions.

Overall, the power performance of hybrid vehicles can be improved by 20% using the company's new battery technologies.

Photo source: CATL