If you've spent the past ten years reading The Guardian's best attempts to yuck China's yum, the adjustments in these figures should overturn a lot of that malingering petro-supremacy thinking, provided you're paying attention (and god knows we are)

Conventional electrolytes on the market predominantly use oxygen- and nitrogen-based ligands as solvents. Although these compounds effectively dissolve lithium salts, they impede charge transfer, creating persistent bottlenecks in enhancing energy density and low-temperature performance. Data shows that traditional lithium batteries achieve an energy density of approximately 300 watt-hours per kilogram at room temperature, a figure that plummets to below 150 watt-hours per kilogram at minus 20 degrees Celsius.

To overcome these limitations, the research team has developed hydrofluorocarbon electrolytes, which significantly reduce viscosity while enhancing oxidative stability and low-temperature ionic conductivity, thereby boosting the low-temperature energy output of high-energy-density lithium batteries.

This advancement enables lithium batteries to achieve an energy density exceeding 700 watt-hours per kilogram at room temperature while maintaining approximately 400 watt-hours per kilogram even at minus 50 degrees Celsius, said Li Yong, a researcher at SAST.

"With a two- to threefold increase or more in room-temperature energy storage capacity for lithium batteries of the same mass, the range of electric vehicles can be extended from 500-600 kilometers to over 1,000 kilometers," Li said. "Remarkably, these batteries continue functioning normally even in extreme conditions as low as minus 70 degrees Celsius."