Economic Observer reporter Wang Yajie

In early July, Zhengli New Energy (03677. HK) completed process adaptation and started trial production of automotive grade battery cells on a production line with aviation airworthiness battery production qualifications in its national green factory located in Changshu, Jiangsu.

Prior to this, on July 1st, the new mandatory national standard "Safety Requirements for Power Batteries for Electric Vehicles" (GB38031-2025) was officially implemented.

The renovation of the Changshu production line mentioned above coincides with this time point.

The production line adjustment of Zhengli New Energy is not an isolated case. Enterprises such as Zhongchuang Aviation (03931. HK), CATL (300750. SZ), and Xinwangda (300207. SZ) have also applied high safety technologies that have been verified by aviation airworthiness to automotive grade battery cells. Some related derivative automotive grade products of these enterprises have completed vehicle testing and verification.

A production person close to Zhengli New Energy told the Economic Observer that the low altitude economy eVTOL orders did not meet expectations, and the utilization rate of high-precision production lines invested and built by the enterprise in the early stage was insufficient. Entering the automotive regulation track is a choice to digest idle capacity and supplement cash flow.

Another interviewed battery company insider revealed that their vehicle grade battery cell samples have been sent to a third-party testing agency and are currently queuing up for a full set of national standard tests.

Transforming the aviation production line

Zhengli New Energy's aviation battery production line was originally dedicated to producing aviation airworthiness batteries, serving manned electric aircraft and industrial grade drones. At present, some of its production tasks have switched from aviation customization to vehicle specification trial production.

This round of aviation battery companies' concentration on cross-border vehicle regulations has clear policy motivations. The new version of the national standard "Safety Requirements for Power Batteries for Electric Vehicles" (GB38031-2025), which will be implemented on July 1, 2026, replaces the old national standard of 2020 and adds multiple rigorous safety tests such as bottom impact and strengthened thermal diffusion control.

The traditional automotive power battery market has formed a highly concentrated competitive pattern, and the market space is tending to narrow.

Aviation battery companies happen to have differentiated safety technology reserves. Public information shows that Zhengli New Energy is one of the few battery companies in China that holds both AS9100D aerospace quality system certification and airworthiness production qualifications for manned electric aircraft. The aviation battery production line adopts micrometer level coating technology, with more than 8000 key process control points set throughout the entire process. The battery cells need to undergo aviation level verification such as X-ray non-destructive testing, thermal runaway triggering, and extreme temperature shock before leaving the factory.

Aviation battery companies represented by Zhengli New Energy are sinking aviation grade technology into vehicle regulations, which is not only an active response to safety standard upgrades, but also a practical choice in the face of lower than expected low altitude economic output.

The failure control standard for the Zhengli New Energy production system is at the ppb level (one billionth), which is three orders of magnitude stricter than the ppm level (one millionth) commonly used in the automotive lithium-ion industry.

The core of the transformation is not to replace equipment, but to adjust parameters. "The production personnel who are close to Zhengli New Energy told the Economic Observer that the chemical system and material formula of aviation batteries are the same as those of high-end automotive batteries, and the accuracy of production line equipment is even higher than that of ordinary automotive production lines. What really needs to be adjusted are some process control thresholds, aviation scenarios require zero defects, and vehicle specification scenarios allow for a certain range of yield fluctuations. Aviation products require full process airworthiness traceability, and the traceability chain for automotive products can be moderately simplified.

He said, 'We are lowering the aviation level control standards to an acceptable range for vehicle regulations.' The cost of this downward compatible transformation is much lower than that of traditional battery companies filling in safety gaps. Traditional enterprises need to upgrade their security against the new national standards by adding configurations. They have lowered some indicators, which can save some costs.

The flexible production line transformation of Zhengli New Energy is not an isolated case in the industry.

Zhongchuang Aviation, formerly part of the AVIC system, has the foundation of supporting military aviation batteries. In March 2026, its Chengdu factory will mass produce the industry's first battery cell that has passed both aviation airworthiness and vehicle regulations certifications, with an energy density of 360Wh/kg. This battery cell adopts a quadruple aviation grade thermal protection architecture, and the production line adopts a co production mode, which can flexibly switch between aviation and automotive orders. Currently, it has been supplied to Xiaopeng Huitian Flying Automobile, and has also introduced aviation safety design solutions to passenger car products of car companies such as GAC, Xiaopeng, and Zero Run.

The production personnel close to Zhengli New Energy mentioned above admitted to the Economic Observer that from the overall perspective of the industry, aviation battery orders show characteristics of small batches, multiple batches, and customization, and the production line cannot form economies of scale.

He said, "The high-precision coating equipment and full process testing line invested by the company in the early stage have high fixed costs, relying only on aviation orders, and the capacity utilization rate is less than 50%." The large order volume and stable payment cycle in the automotive market can make the production line run, covering depreciation and research and development expenses.

The person in charge of China Innovation Airlines expressed a similar judgment in an interview with the Economic Observer. In his opinion, the scaling up of the aviation sector still requires time.

After the battery cell is sent for testing

The production line renovation has been completed, and the vehicle grade battery cells have been taken offline. This is just the first step in cross-border operations.

After the battery cell samples come out of the factory, they need to be sent to a third-party testing agency for a full set of national standard tests. This process is where aviation battery companies truly feel the difference between the two systems.

A person from an aviation battery company revealed to the Economic Observer that their vehicle grade battery cell samples were sent to a national testing institution in June 2026 and are still waiting in line for the testing schedule of some projects. The complete set of national standard tests includes dozens of items such as electrical performance, mechanical safety, environmental adaptability, and thermal diffusion, and it takes several months to complete them all. The person said that aviation battery companies have sufficient technical reserves in extreme safety, and the testing itself is not a problem, the problem is queuing. The testing agency's schedule is very full, and it cannot be tested just by sending it over.

What are institutional barriers?

According to the analysis of the aviation battery company mentioned above, the aviation battery company has previously completed DO160 aviation environment testing and AS9100 system audit, which are effective within the aviation airworthiness system but cannot directly replace the testing items of GB38031 vehicle regulations. The two systems have different definitions of failure. The aviation system focuses on single reliability under extreme operating conditions, while the vehicle regulations system focuses on batch consistency and full lifecycle attenuation. The testing methods, judgment criteria, and sampling rules are all different.

He added that the inspection reports previously issued by aviation companies do not have any legal effect in vehicle certification. Even if similar projects have been tested in aviation, vehicle certification still requires a redo, and there are no shortcuts in the process.

The cycle from sending a battery cell for testing to receiving a complete national standard testing report is usually 6 to 12 months. During this period, dozens of tests such as needle punching, squeezing, overcharging, overdischarging, short circuit, thermal runaway, bottom impact, salt spray, wet heat cycle, mechanical impact, etc. need to be completed. If any of these tests fail to meet the standards, the formula or structure needs to be adjusted and sent back for testing. The person said, "Aviation companies have a good technical foundation, and most projects can be completed in one go, but time costs cannot be saved

The production personnel close to Zhengli New Energy confirmed this time period to the Economic Observer reporter. The company's automotive battery cell samples have completed some testing projects and are still waiting for the scheduling of thermal diffusion and bottom impact.

Aviation and vehicle regulations are two independent systems, and technology can be reused, but processes cannot be skipped.

A private drone logistics company uses aviation batteries from multiple suppliers. The market manager of the company, Zhou Songlin, said, "When we are selecting batteries, if the supplier says that a certain product is undergoing automotive certification, we will ask a question: when can we obtain a full report? If we cannot obtain a full report, we dare not use it. Automotive certification itself is a quality endorsement

In his opinion, the extreme safety requirements for batteries in the low altitude logistics field are also very high, but vehicle certification is still a new standard system, and the purchaser needs a clear timetable.

A hard carbon material company supplies negative electrode materials to both aviation battery and automotive battery customers. The technical director of the company, Zhou Ming, stated that the material side can cooperate to accelerate production expansion after certification is passed, but the waiting time during the certification stage cannot be helped by material suppliers, which is a time cost at the institutional level.

Observation from the Procurement Department of Automobile Enterprises

The battery cells have passed the certification and obtained the report, but the road to cross the border is still one kilometer away. Whether car companies are willing to purchase them, whether they can be designated, and whether they will install them on a large scale.

A spokesperson from the procurement department of a car company told the Economic Observer that the company recognizes the safety performance of aviation batteries, but has concerns about procurement premiums, consistency in mass production of aviation battery companies, and after-sales quality assurance systems.

The person further stated that at this stage, they are still mainly focused on technical exchanges and sample evaluations, and there is still a distance to go before bulk procurement. Car companies have a complete admission audit system for battery suppliers, from qualification review, sample testing, small batch trial assembly to bulk supply, usually taking 1 to 2 years. The technical capabilities of aviation battery companies are attractive, but the procurement side needs to consider many more things than the test results in the laboratory.

Price is another unavoidable issue.

The procurement personnel of the above-mentioned car companies told the Economic Observer that the unit cost of aviation grade battery cells is about 15% to 25% higher than that of ordinary car grade ternary battery cells due to the use of special insulation materials, full process non-destructive testing, and high-precision manufacturing processes. Based on the current industry average price, this means that the cost of battery packs for each vehicle will increase by thousands of yuan.

The high-end models priced above 300000 yuan can absorb this cost, while the household models priced below 200000 yuan cannot afford it. We acknowledge the safety premium, but we are only willing to pay within a limited range

This cost structure is directly related to the material system of aviation batteries.

Zhou Ming dismantled the cost structure of aviation batteries, and the material premium accounted for more than 60% of the cost difference between aviation batteries and ordinary automotive grade batteries. "The special hard carbon negative electrode, composite aerogel insulation layer and high pressure resistant diaphragm used in the aviation battery cell are all customized in small quantities, with low yield and high unit price. All the ordinary car gauge batteries use large quantities of standardized materials, and the purchase cost is not an order of magnitude." Zhou Ming said that if the car gauge order is released, the upstream material enterprises can open special production lines and optimize the yield of the formula, and the unit cost is expected to decline significantly. But the current industry bottleneck is that car companies have not yet finalized long-term suppliers in large quantities, so upstream material companies dare not expand production rashly. The high cost of materials, in turn, makes car companies unwilling to finalize supporting cooperation, forming a two-way constraint.

Zhou Ming said, "This is a cycle of whether the chicken or the egg came first

Consistency in mass production is another repeatedly mentioned concern on the procurement side.

The procurement personnel of the above-mentioned car companies said that aviation batteries are produced in small batch precision mode, and a production line may only produce tens of thousands of battery cells per year. Vehicle specifications are produced in large quantities of millions, with different requirements for batch stability, delivery pace, and quality control system. No matter how well the sample is made, it does not mean that there will be no problems in mass production. Aviation companies excel at creating extreme safety products in the laboratory, but vehicle regulations test the stability of every one of every 100000 battery cells. This capability gap cannot be solved by production line renovation.

The person also stated that mature lithium battery companies have over ten years of vehicle matching data and quality traceability systems as endorsements, while aviation battery companies have accumulated almost zero experience in vehicle matching, after-sales quality assurance, and bulk compensation. He said, "Our biggest concern is not the safety of the battery cells themselves, but whether the company's quality assurance system can withstand any problems

In the face of cross-border competition among aviation battery companies, traditional automotive battery leaders have their own strategies to respond. CATL publicly disclosed that its condensed matter battery with a single energy density of 500Wh/kg, developed for manned aviation scenarios, has completed the complete test flight verification of a 4-ton commercial electric aircraft.

In addition, several second tier power battery companies have chosen to jointly develop and introduce aviation battery related process technologies with eVTOL whole machine enterprises, in order to seize the development opportunities in the dual markets of high-end vehicle mounted and low altitude travel.

Zhou Ming provided another perspective from the upstream material end. He believes that relying solely on scale to reduce costs has its upper limit, and material system reconstruction is the ultimate way out. Scale can solve the cost sharing in the mass production process, but it cannot solve the raw material cost of special substrates themselves. In the future, in order to bring aviation grade batteries closer to mainstream automotive standards, either universal composite substrates can be developed to bridge the gap between aviation and automotive standards, or some non core aviation material formulas can be simplified, retaining only the thermal safety core system.

The procurement personnel of the above-mentioned car companies stated that their attitude towards aviation battery companies is still "keeping a wait-and-see".

He said, "It's not that they are not optimistic, it's that they need time to verify. When they accumulate two to three years of delivery data on the mass production end, when material costs are reduced for a batch, and when the certification process runs through several complete project cycles, that may be the real time to enter the market

(Author Wang Yajie)