The weight of traction batteries in the car-purchasing decisions of Chinese consumers has reached 13.8%, higher than that of intelligent features. 37.1% of respondents stated that they might not buy their desired car model if it is not equipped with CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited) batteries. A battery that cannot be fully evaluated during a test drive but will accompany the car for a decade is now making risk assessments on behalf of consumers, and this battery is redistributing the discourse power in the industrial chain.
In 2026, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have surpassed internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in China to become the primary powertrain.
In August 2026, the monthly insurance registrations for NEVs (New Energy Vehicles) in China reached 987,000 units, with a penetration rate of 63.9%; pure ICE vehicles recorded 481,000 units for the month, with their share dropping to a historical low of 31.1%, plus 75,000 units of oil-hybrid vehicles. Within NEVs, BEVs accounted for 683,000 units, PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles) for 219,000 units, and EREVs (Extended-Range Electric Vehicles) for 85,000 units.
Therefore, when you visit an auto 4S dealership, the questions consumers ask after viewing the cars have changed. After inquiring about the price, potential buyers often ask which manufacturer's battery is used in the car. Meanwhile, in the used car market, if you go to sell an electric vehicle, dealers evaluating a three-year-old BEV will inspect the battery first before negotiating the price.
NielsenIQ's '2026 Global NEV Consumer Research Report' is a highly valuable document. It shows that the weight of EV batteries in global consumers' car-purchasing decisions is 8.4%, while in China, it is 13.8%, surpassing intelligent features and second only to overall vehicle safety.
37.1% of Chinese respondents said they might abandon the purchase if their desired car model is not equipped with CATL batteries.
This came as a surprise to many, as most people still consider the battery to be just a line of fine print on the configuration sheet. Delving deeper, consumers realize they have no other way to judge the quality of a battery. As the core of an electric vehicle, the battery will accompany the car for a decade or even longer. 'Who manufactured it' has become the core question. Whether a battery has a brand reflects Chinese consumers' expectation of a lower probability of making a mistake.
Part 1: The Battery Is the Only Component That Cannot Be Evaluated During a Test Drive
A half-hour test drive can reveal the smoothness of an engine, but it cannot reveal the degradation after three years.
In the ICE vehicle era, consumers focused on the engine and transmission; the 'three major components' determined power, fuel consumption, and reliability. Ordinary people could at least feel whether the engine was smooth and whether the gear shifts were responsive during a test drive.
In the electric vehicle era, regardless of which manufacturer's battery is used, the driving feel is the same. How much it degrades after three years, how much the range drops in winter, whether the power can still hold up after continuous fast charging, how cell consistency changes under high temperature and high state of charge, whether the entire battery pack needs to be replaced after a minor collision, how much residual value remains after eight years, and what exactly the so-called lifetime warranty covers.
A new car can win favor in half an hour through its interior, infotainment system, and acceleration. The quality of a battery, however, requires hundreds or even thousands of charge-discharge cycles, several winters and summers, and over 100,000 kilometers to be truly evaluated.
Buying an ICE vehicle means buying a machine that has already been proven.
Buying an electric vehicle means buying a performance curve that has not yet been fully run. Changing the battery supplier for the same car model constitutes mixed installation. Except for differences during the homologation process, the parameter sheets can be identical, yet the condition after five years might differ significantly.
Traction batteries are typical credence goods, and their true quality may not be accurately assessed even after a period of use.
The displayed range is visible, but cell consistency is not.
The peak charging power is visible, but the complete charging curve is not.
The battery capacity is visible, but how much safety redundancy the system retains is not.
Whether it is labeled as lithium iron phosphate (LFP) or ternary lithium is visible, but the material formulation, manufacturing precision, thermal management strategy, and BMS (Battery Management System) calibration are not.
Temperature, state of charge, and charging C-rate all affect battery aging. Performing high C-rate charging at low temperatures and high state of charge will significantly accelerate capacity degradation. Supporting 5C fast charging and safely using 5C fast charging over the long term are two different things. Once the battery pack requires major repairs, this cost is hard to offset through used car depreciation, and such costs are completely invisible in the first few years.
People buying computers do not study chip manufacturing processes, but they look for 'Intel Inside.' Those buying Android phones generally consider Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips; those buying Apple phones all trust Apple's chip capabilities. People buying cameras do not understand sensor manufacturing processes, but they recognize Zeiss and Leica. When consumers cannot conduct technical due diligence on their own, they will look for a substitute identifier.
Battery branding is actually more important because batteries are more expensive. Chip brands promise the upper limit of performance, while battery brands first promise the lower limit of risk: no safety accidents, no abnormal degradation, no huge gap between nominal range and real-world range, no peak fast charging on the promotional page that remains only on paper, and no turning the car into an unpriceable black box when it enters the used car market.
The money consumers pay is for less uncertainty.
Part 2: Why Now, Why China
Traction batteries have always been the most expensive component of electric vehicles, yet no one cared about the supplier in the early years. Back then, the main concerns were whether they could get a license plate, whether there were subsidies, how much the final price would be, and whether they could install a charging pile at home. As long as the range was sufficient and the price was reasonable, it was fine.
The first batch of mass-sold electric vehicles has reached three to five years of age. Range degradation, winter range loss, fast charging differences, maintenance costs, and used prices are being exposed on a large scale for the first time. Industry education no longer relies solely on advertising; car owners' own usage experiences have become the primary source of information.
The source of information has changed. Manufacturers say the range is sufficient, but what car owners discuss in their groups is how much the range drops in winter.
At the same time, intelligent cockpits, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and acceleration performance are rapidly converging. Configurations that once created gaps can easily be caught up by competitors. When explicit functions fail to create differentiation, attention shifts to underlying capabilities that are harder to replicate and have a greater impact on long-term value.
Data from the IEA (International Energy Agency) shows that in 2024, the average residual value rate of three-year-old BEVs in China was about 46%, lower than the overall used car market's level of about 55%; by the end of 2025, the average residual value rate of BEVs and PHEVs dropped again to about 42%. The uncertainty of battery health, potential major repair costs, and rapid technological iteration are all listed by the IEA as reasons.
For an asset whose primary collateral is battery health, the more opaque its condition, the higher the risk discount demanded by used car buyers. Battery brands have thus begun to assume a function similar to credit ratings.
The fact that Chinese consumers place so much emphasis on batteries has little to do with whether they understand batteries. The competition is the most fierce, and the iteration is the fastest. New models continuously push the boundaries of range, fast charging, voltage platforms, and energy density. Older cars are more easily rendered technologically obsolete, and consumers need a trusted object that can span vehicle model cycles.
Automaker brands have a short credit accumulation time. Traditional brands can use decades of reliability records to endorse new cars, while many new brands have been established for a shorter time than the planned usage cycle of a car. When it is uncertain whether a car company will still exist in five or eight years, mature battery suppliers are actually a more stable source of credit. Nominal ranges are getting longer and longer, but the real-world range accuracy remains a concentrated area of dissatisfaction; peak power is getting higher and higher, but what has a greater daily impact are the charging curve, low-temperature preheating, thermal management, and charging networks. When parameters lose credibility, brands become the screening mechanism.
Part 3: What Do Battery Brands Gain?
Therefore, 80% of people globally believe that batteries affect the safety of NEVs, and 37.1% of people would refuse to buy their desired vehicle because it lacks CATL batteries. They genuinely believe that without CATL, they will not buy the car.
Scale brings awareness, but not automatically trust.
The difficulty in battery quality lies in consistency.
Making a good sample is a basic skill representing R&D capabilities, while continuously producing hundreds of millions of units with stable quality is a factory capability, and also the core element for traction batteries to support the development of electric vehicles. A single vehicle is equipped with hundreds or thousands of cells. Multiplying the defect probability of a single cell by the number of cells, the number of vehicles, and the years of use will amplify low-probability events. This industry competes on tail risk; the average value cannot explain the problem.
Material research, failure analysis, online inspection, manufacturing precision, and quality control will ultimately translate into brand value visible to consumers.
These issues are far from consumers, and there is only one answer: Can the same battery model, produced 100 million times, still be as reliable as the first one? Installed volume brings real-world operating condition data. The data improves failure models, BMS strategies, and manufacturing control. The failure probability goes down, automakers and consumers are more willing to use it, and the installed volume goes up again. The threshold for this cycle is not in production capacity.
Consumers may not be able to clearly articulate the differences between Qilin, Shenxing, and Xiaoyao batteries, but they are buying the peace of mind that 'someone is managing this risk.'
In the past supply chain, component companies hid behind automaker brands. People buying Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, or Volkswagen rarely questioned who supplied the fuel injection and steering systems. After consumers began to specify battery brands, battery companies transformed from ordinary Tier 1 suppliers into gateways that can influence transactions. What automakers buy is not just production capacity; consumer trust is bought in together. Cost items have the opportunity to become sales tools, exchanging for more stable orders and deeper joint development. The right to define vehicle models is partially taken away. When consumers say 'it must be the CATL battery version,' automakers need to explain the battery source in launch events, configuration sheets, and sales scripts, and even use the supplier as a selling point.
The standards for price comparison are also changing. Beyond capacity, energy density, and peak power, state of health (SOH) distribution, real-world range achievement rates at different temperatures, complete charging curves, degradation after multiple fast charges, definition of maintenance liability after accidents, and battery health certificates in used car transactions will all become new objects of comparison.
The EU plans to implement a digital battery passport for EV batteries in 2027, disclosing battery identity, performance, durability, maintenance, and recycling information. Batteries will transform from closed black boxes into traceable assets with lifecycle records. After data transparency, the value of a brand shifts from 'everyone thinks it is reliable' to 'historical data proves it is more reliable.'
Consumers are beginning to recognize batteries because electric vehicles place too many long-term risks on a component that is invisible, intangible, and cannot be verified during a test drive. Safety, real-world range, fast charging experience, service life, maintenance costs, and used residual value—the bottleneck for all these is the battery.
Conclusion
After reading this report, I feel that CATL's acquisition of market share, both domestically and internationally, is the result of a multi-pronged approach.
The core is that it gives consumers confidence. In a market where ordinary people cannot judge battery quality, choosing it means a lower probability of making a mistake.
The biggest change in the traction battery industry is that it is shifting from producing components to producing certainty, and it needs to be remembered by consumers.