It still looks like there is a significant difference in energy density when comparing ternary and LFP battery chemistry. Apparently, the latest CATL Qilin CTP 3.0 will offer 1000km (NMC cathode) when fitted in one of the Zeekr models (to be released in 2023). It will be interesting to see actual on-road testing. It's hard to find specific details about Ultium on the pack level. Still, they did mention that they have taken the NCMA cathode to where they want it and will work on the anode side next by adding silicon to the graphite to take it 3/4 of the way to the Li-metal theoretical density. GM also mentioned they aim to reduce the use of cobalt and nickel moving forward, as this will reduce the cell cost.
Quantumscape (QS), along with others, are working on the anode side to produce Li-metal batteries, and most of these look to be cathode agnostic, working with both LFP and NMC, NCMA etc. The attached image is from the QS website to show some theoretical energy densities for Li-Metal. Battery-powered regional air travel is already on the cards with Heart Aerospace. They will require even higher energy density than the high-end EV batteries (I think they are working with Northvolt, producers of NMC batteries).
IMO, the biggest drawcard for COB at the moment is the US inflation reduction act that, automatically moves us to the top of the list compared to Chinese, DCR and Indonesian-sourced cobalt by unlocking the domestic or FTA subsidies.
It would be interesting to map the different energy densities on a pack level between the known big players ie Wh/kg, once all the cells are in the pack the way they will be in the car. Please note that cell and pack level density will be very different. I've started with a few easy ones below that I found on www.batterydesign.net well worth a look if you're interested in the battery and EV revolution (plenty of interesting information).
CATL Qilin CTP 3.0
160Wh/kg for LFP battery
255Wh/kg for ternary (NMC, NMCX etc)
BYD Blade
150Wh/kg
Tesla
CATL’s LFP 126Wh/kg
Model 3 NCA 171Wh/kg
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