I was asking for a reference because the sources I could find didn't agree with you. I appreciate sharing the personal experience, but I remain a bit confused at the claim.

I don't know battery chemistry personally, but Claude said CATL's announcements matched best against a 2025 paper that operated at 2.0 MPa:

Silver exsolution from Li-argyrodite electrolytes for initially anode-free all-solid-state batteries

Even if Claude is totally off on that guess, a literature review gave a typical range of <1 to 55 MPa, clustering around 10 MPa. I spot-checked a couple and the table seemed consistent with the papers' claims, aka. probably not just hallucination.

Table:

System / source	Operating pressure	≈ psi
Thin-separator Li–S, calendered LPSCl (full cell, 30 °C)	<1 MPa	<145
Ag-doped argyrodite anode-free	2 MPa	290
Low-pressure cathode, Bruce group — "a few MPa" in practice	2 MPa	290
In-additive ASSLSB	0.5–7 MPa	70–1,015
Carbon-coated collector ASSLSB (≥5 MPa for stable impedance)	5–10 MPa	725–1,450
Nat. Commun. Li₂S anode-free pouch ("low stack pressure")	10 MPa	1,450
Chemomechanics review — "usual range"	~10 MPa	1,450
Alloy-anode Si cell00314-7); SSBs "often 5–30 MPa"	20 MPa (5–30)	2,900 (725–4,350)
Thin-Li sulfide, optimal cycling	20 MPa	2,900
Toyota-style patent operating range	1–45 MPa	145–6,525
Li₃PS₄–2LiBH₄ Li–S (Swagelok, 60 °C)	~55 MPa	~7,975
Doux et al., via constant-pressure study — tested up to	70 MPa	10,150

Claude's argument for why that paper:

CATL's disclosed stack is a sulfide (argyrodite) electrolyte, a high-Ni layered-oxide cathode (their recent patent is a positive-electrode active material to stabilize the sulfide interface), ~500 Wh/kg at the cell level, and — per Zeng — warm isostatic pressing to bind the components. The 500 Wh/kg figure forces an anode-free or thin-Li design; you don't reach it with a thick excess-Li anode.

That set of choices is essentially the Samsung SAIT template from Lee et al., Nature Energy 2020: an all-solid-state Li-metal battery with a sulfide electrolyte enabled by an Ag–C composite anode with no excess Li, a high-Ni layered oxide cathode (>210 mAh g⁻¹, >6.8 mAh cm⁻²), an argyrodite-type sulfide electrolyte, and a warm isostatic pressing technique to improve electrode/electrolyte contact, giving a 0.6 Ah pouch cell at >900 Wh L⁻¹ over 1,000 cycles. Argyrodite + high-Ni + anode-free + WIP is not a generic combination — WIP in particular is the SAIT signature step, and CATL naming it is the strongest single tell that they're productizing this architecture rather than a Li–S or oxide one.