CATL TECTRANS II

The Battery Data Behind IAA Transportation 2026

IAA Transportation 2026 ran in Hannover from 15 to 20 September, and electrification was the theme running through most of the exhibitor announcements: Volvo, DAF, MAN, Scania and SANY all had electric truck news on the stand. The one battery-specific launch worth digging into in detail is CATL’s TECTRANS II, because the press coverage around it was long on marketing language and short on the numbers a pack designer would actually want. This post pulls together what CATL disclosed, flags what it didn’t, and sets it against the pack data other OEMs put out at the same show.

TECTRANS II is a family, not one battery

Coverage that treats “TECTRANS II” as a single product is misreading it. CATL used the name across at least three separate launches through 2026: an 8C ultra-fast-charging light-commercial pack in January [1], a sodium-ion light-commercial pack [2][3], and the heavy-duty truck platform unveiled at IAA in September [4]. They share a name and, loosely, a design philosophy of standardised interfaces and modular packs, but the specs are not interchangeable between them. Treating one variant’s numbers as representative of “TECTRANS II” as a whole, the way a lot of the show coverage did, mixes incompatible parts of the family.

The heavy-duty truck platform (the IAA launch)

This is the variant CATL led with at the show, aimed at long-haul tractor units. The company’s own release describes a gravimetric energy density of “170 Wh/kg, around 13% above the industry average” (CATL’s comparison point, not an independently verified one) and a range of up to 1,000 km in the highest-capacity configuration [4][5].

• Gravimetric energy density: 170 Wh/kg
• Range: up to 1,000 km, highest-capacity configuration
• Charging: megawatt-class DC, 20→80% in 25 minutes
• Round-trip efficiency: 96%, attributed to a “full-tab, low-impedance” cell design
• Service life: 12 years / 1.5 million km at 70% capacity retention
• Corrosion protection: rated 15 years for coastal and cold environments
• Mechanical protection: hot-formed steel upper cover (10,000 load cycles at 180 kg without deformation), armoured base plate (1,000 J impact rating), extruded-aluminium enclosure (250 kN lateral crush strength)
• Payload: CATL claims roughly 0.6 t more payload than a “conventional” pack at the same capacity
• Architecture: standardised external dimensions, electrical interfaces and communications protocol across the pack family; compatible with both e-axle and central-drive layouts; supports plug-in charging and battery swap
• Named partner: DHL Group, via an MOU covering green freight charging corridors across Europe

What’s missing, and why it matters

Nothing in CATL’s own release, or in the dozen-plus outlets that covered the launch, states the cell chemistry, cell format, pack voltage or total kWh capacity for this platform. An issue for anyone trying to sanity-check the 170 Wh/kg figure or work out module count from the range and architecture described above. CATL does call the platform “chemistry-agnostic,” which is a real design choice: a standardised mechanical and electrical envelope that can accept whichever cell generation is current. But it also conveniently sidesteps committing to a chemistry in the same release that quotes corrosion, degradation and payload figures normally associated with a specific cell type. LFP is the reasonable working assumption here: it dominates the commercial-vehicle segment generally, and CATL’s own original TECTRANS platform explicitly named LFP chemistry for its Bus Edition [6]. But for the heavy-duty TECTRANS II specifically, it isn’t confirmed anywhere I could find in public reporting.

The 8C light-commercial variant (launched January 2026)

This variant targets small vans and light trucks and predates the IAA show by several months, but CATL grouped it under the same TECTRANS II name and re-featured it at Hannover [1].

• Peak charge rate: 8C
• 20→80% charge time: 6 minutes 48 seconds
• 0→100% charge time: 8 minutes 56 seconds (add roughly 2.5 minutes at −20°C)
• Service life: 1 million km / 10 years
• Internal resistance: CATL claims 50% below the segment average
• Notable engineering: cell self-heating for cold-start performance, plus what CATL describes as atomic-scale restructuring of the graphite anode surface to reduce lithium plating during fast charge

The graphite-anode detail is more informative than anything CATL states directly about chemistry here: a cell whose anode surface is being restructured is a conventional lithium-ion design, not the sodium-ion pack covered next. Worth keeping straight, since both variants target the same light-commercial segment with opposite trade-offs: one optimised for charge speed, the other for cold-climate operation.

The sodium-ion variant (light commercial)

CATL calls this “the first sodium battery for light commercial vehicles to reach mass production” [2][3], a segment-specific claim rather than a chemistry-wide one, since sodium-ion has already reached mass production in passenger EVs elsewhere.

• Standard capacity: 45 kWh
• Long-range configuration: up to 253 kWh, CATL-claimed 800 km range
• Swap-module sizes: #20 (42 kWh), #25 (56 kWh), #35 (81 kWh)
• Cold-weather charging: usable down to −30°C
• Capacity retention: 90% at −40°C
• Cycle life: 5,000 cycles at 45°C
• Fast charge, cold: 20→80% in 30 minutes at −15°C
• Fast charge, hot: +60% driving range in 18 minutes at 45°C

Sodium-ion’s real selling point in this segment isn’t energy density. The disclosed capacities are modest next to the lithium-ion variants above. It’s the cold-temperature numbers. A pack that still accepts a meaningful charge at −30°C and retains 90% of capacity at −40°C is solving a problem that LFP light-commercial packs generally can’t match at that extreme, which is presumably why CATL is positioning it for vans and micro-trucks rather than long-haul.

This post has been built based on the support of and sponsorship from: illumion, Custom Power, Quarto Technical Services, Eatron Technologies and About:Energy

What other OEMs showed at IAA

Elsewhere on the show floor, the truck OEMs mostly disclosed pack-level numbers rather than cell data, useful for benchmarking against the TECTRANS II figures above even without the underlying cell detail.

DAF is the only one of these OEMs that paired a chemistry with a charging-power figure alongside pack capacity [7]; the rest stop at range and, sometimes, pack size [8][9].

See also: CATL, Daimler eActros LongHaul, Sodium-Ion Battery, Benchmarking Battery Packs, CATL & Quibo Mobile Power Plant Ultra 2.0

Needs review: chemistry, cell format, nominal voltage and total pack kWh for the heavy-duty TECTRANS II are not disclosed in any source found for this draft. The LFP assumption above is reasoned from CATL’s product history, not confirmed. It’s worth checking CATL’s China-language press room or an investor filing before this goes live, in case a fuller spec sheet exists there.

References

• IAA Transportation newsroom, “CATL Tectrans II: 8C Ultra-Fast Charging Light Commercial EVs.” iaa-transportation.com
• Powertrain International, “CATL Tectrans II Powered by Sodium Ion Battery.” powertraininternationalweb.com
• Sustainable Truck & Van, “CATL launches Tectrans II, new sodium-ion battery for light commercial vehicles.” sustainabletruckvan.com
• CATL / PR Newswire, “CATL Launches TECTRANS II at IAA Transportation 2026 to Accelerate Global Commercial Vehicle Electrification.” prnewswire.com
• electrive.com, “CATL unveils truck battery with up to 1,000 km range.” electrive.com
• CATL newsroom, “Breakthrough in the electrification of commercial vehicles: CATL Unveils Revolutionary TECTRANS Battery System.” catl.com
• electrive.com, “DAF completes electric truck line-up.” electrive.com
• electrive.com, “Electric trucks at IAA Transportation: a crowded field takes shape.” electrive.com
• PR Newswire, “SANY Heavy Truck Debuts Production-Ready Electric Truck Portfolio at IAA Transportation 2026.” prnewswire.com