Text || Juice? Han Xiao
The once-hot NCM8 1 1 battery has quietly stepped down from the altar this year.
In the past two years, with high energy density, the NCM8 1 1 battery of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. is almost the flagship standard of major automobile brands.
Is GAC Aion cruising for 500 kilometers? S, geometry A, or 600km, 700km Weilai ES6, GAC Aion? LX and Tucki P7 are equipped with this battery, and many models are waiting in line.
But by 2020, the NCM8 1 1 battery that "one core is hard to find" will become a "hot potato".
Guangzhou automobile Aion? There were three consecutive fire incidents in the United States within four months, which caused great concern from the outside world. It is reported that the official has replaced the new factory model with NCM523 battery of AVIC lithium battery since May. As the first customer of NCM8 1 1 battery, Geely Geometry brand, together with other products, launched the second model Geometry C…
It is even reported that the technical route of NCM8 1 1 has been rejected in Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd., and the product is no longer promoted. At the same time, Guo Xuan Hi-Tech and Yuan Jing AESC, which were still actively embracing the NCM81/KLOC-0 battery last year, will not mention this product again this year.
More sources close to GAC revealed that GAC New Energy is "passionately fighting" with Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. on the fire incident.
Since its establishment, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has continuously increased its installed capacity in the field of power batteries in running all the way with excellent technology, and quickly became the first in China and even in the world, with its market value soaring to a high of 470 billion.
However, after all, no one can always be smooth sailing. After years of rapid growth, the problems encountered by its flagship product NCM8 1 1 battery are the first "defeat" of contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd.
So, what caused the NCM8 1 1 battery to fall off the altar? What impact will this major technological change have on the industry?
Benefits of this article: The 33-page report elaborates the trillion-dollar space of lithium batteries for new energy vehicles, and the official account dialog box of WeChat replies to the original report.
1. Frequent spontaneous combustion events? 8 1 1 the battery fell off the altar.
On August 23, a GAC new energy Aion? S spontaneous combustion accident occurred in qiongshan district, Haikou City, Hainan Province. At the time of the incident, the owner was driving the vehicle from Coconut Sea Avenue to Coconut Bo Road. When driving to the intersection of Coconut Bo Road and Coconut He Yi Street, the chassis of the vehicle gave out a bang, and the dashboard showed that the vehicle was out of order. Then the vehicles started to smoke and catch fire.
Haikou GAC new energy co., ltd. S spontaneous combustion (source Hainan live broadcast)
After the fire broke out, the owner tried to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher, but to no avail. After the firefighters arrived, the fire was under control, but the vehicle was burned. Fortunately, the accident did not cause any casualties.
At present, GAC New Energy has not responded to this incident. But isn't this Guangzhou Automobile New Energy Aion? S spontaneously ignited for the first time this year, and Guangzhou and Shenzhen spontaneously ignited on May 18 and August 12 respectively.
Eternal tower? S This car is a flagship model launched by GAC New Energy in 2065438+April 2009. At the beginning of its listing, GAC New Energy labeled this car as "the first car in China to achieve a comprehensive cruising range of pure electricity of 5 10 km", with a cruising range of 600 km at the same speed. At that time, this endurance data was really attractive in the domestic new energy vehicle market. Of course, such endurance performance is also inseparable from the NCM8 1 1 battery provided by Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd.
The energy density of the battery pack equipped with NCM8 1 1 cell is higher than that of other power batteries on the market, and the highest energy density is above 180Wh/kg, while the energy density of the battery pack equipped with other cells is below 160Wh/kg. Higher energy density also means longer battery life. Therefore, in 20 19 years, the NCM8 1 1 battery of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has been the object of competition among various car companies. Weilai ES6, Hechuang 007, Tucki P7, etc. Almost all models with a cruising range of more than 600 kilometers have adopted contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. NCM8 1 1.
Tucki P7
But there were three consecutive Aion in four months? The spontaneous combustion of the battery has also attracted the attention of the industry, and the NCM8 1 1 battery of contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. has also aroused public doubts.
After the accident, some media reported that after the Aion month produced by GAC New Energy? S has switched to the NCM523 battery, and this model, which first adopted the NCM8 1 1 battery, also gave up the NCM 81/battery one year after its launch, but the official of GAC New Energy has not issued a statement to confirm it.
There are even media reports that GAC New Energy is recalling Aion? S replaced the battery, but the official denied this statement.
Someone close to GAC New Energy revealed to the car because of Aion? S fire accidents occur frequently, and the sales, R&D and procurement departments of GAC New Energy engage in "passionate tearing" with Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd..
Of course, the "passion tearing" in the mouth of this insider is somewhat exaggerated, but it can also be seen that GAC New Energy and Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. are conducting intensive and even intense communication on the fire incident.
Judging from the action that GAC New Energy chose to replace the battery, neither side should have found the exact cause of the fire nor found a suitable solution.
However, GAC New Energy is not the only car company that no longer chooses NCM8 1 1 battery. Geely also gave up the NCM8 1 1 battery, and the Geometry C listed this year re-used the NCM523 battery.
It is worth noting that Geometry A, the previous generation product of Geely Geometry, used NCM8 1 1 battery. Although there was no spontaneous combustion and fire accident, Geely gave up the NCM8 1 1 battery.
Geometric figure a
This also reflects the attitude of some car companies to the NCM8 1 1 battery to some extent. The battery of contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. NCM8 1 1 was queued for use by many car companies last year, and it completely fell off the altar this year.
Then, what are the reasons why some car companies choose not to use the NCM8 1 1 battery? Is frequent fire related to NCM8 1 1?
Second, high nickel leads to poor stability? Security is lower than other electricity?
To understand the above problems, we first need to look at the characteristics of the NCM8 1 1 battery itself.
NCM8 1 1 battery belongs to the category of ternary lithium battery. NCM represents nickel, cobalt and manganese respectively, and 8 1 1 represents the ratio of the three elements as 8: 1: 1. At present, there are NCM523 and NCM622 batteries, and the numbers also represent nickel, cobalt and manganese respectively.
Compared with NCM523 and NCM622 batteries, the biggest change of NCM8 1 1 battery is that the content of nickel metal is increased, and the activity of nickel element is relatively strong. After increasing the content of nickel, the energy density of the battery can be significantly improved. In the mass-produced battery pack equipped with NCM8 1 1, the energy density reaches 180Wh/kg at most, while the energy density of the mass-produced battery pack equipped with NCM523 and NCM622 is mostly below 160Wh/kg.
However, when the content of nickel is increased, there is a risk. The stability of nickel is poor, and blindly increasing the content of nickel leads to the phenomenon of thermal runaway of the battery.
Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. ternary lithium battery?
With the increase of battery life, the number of fast charging increases. In the case of overcharge, overdischarge, high temperature, external impact, etc. The electrochemical reaction of oxygen evolution or lithium evolution between anode and cathode will also lead to thermal runaway of the battery.
In other words, the energy density of NCM8 1 1 battery is higher, but the safety is also lower.
When BYD released the blade battery this year, it emphasized that the iron phosphate battery is safer than the ternary lithium battery. The core performance is that it can withstand the test of acupuncture-even if it is punctured and causes a short circuit, it will not catch fire and explode.
In contrast, ternary lithium batteries are difficult to pass this experiment, especially the NCM8 1 1 battery with the worst stability among ternary lithium batteries.
Some bloggers have also confirmed the fact that the safety of NCM8 1 1 battery is low through their own experiments. The blogger bought a battery of contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. NCM8 1 1 and conducted acupuncture test. As can be seen from the video, the steel needle caused a fire at the moment it entered the battery.
NCM8 1 1 acupuncture video shared by users of Xiaoyu lithium battery in Weibo.
A person in the new energy automobile industry also confirmed this statement to the car. He said that the higher the energy density of ternary lithium batteries at this stage, the worse the safety. When car companies develop electric vehicles, they will choose unused power batteries for testing. In the previous tests, car companies will do bench tests, charge and discharge tests and acupuncture tests on batteries. From the internal test of automobile enterprises, under the same conditions, the safety of NCM8 1 1 battery is obviously lower than that of NCM622 battery and NCM523 battery.
Whether in theory or in practice, the safety of NCM8 1 1 battery needs to be improved, so it is not surprising that car companies replace NCM81/battery with NCM523 battery.
However, there are no fire cases in some car companies that use NCM8 1 1 batteries, such as Geely Geometry A, but why not use Brother Geometry C?
People in the new energy automobile industry explained that NCM8 1 1 battery spontaneous combustion is a probability event. Maybe a batch of cars sold before didn't spontaneously ignite, but it doesn't mean that the safety of NCM8 1 1 battery is very high. Because the sales scale of Geometry A is much lower than that of GAC Aion? So at the same probability? There are many fire cases in S. Due to the spontaneous combustion of other car companies NCM8 1 1, these car companies will also choose to replace safer batteries.
Guangzhou automobile Aion? S
Poor safety, the original sin of NCM8 1 1 battery, is even worse in the case of frequent fires in new energy vehicles this year, which also drives car companies to give up the pursuit of NCM8 1 1 battery.
Third, through Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. to 523? Other players have let go.
At present, only Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. is mass-producing NCM8 1 1 batteries. How to deal with NCM8 1 1 battery cold contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd.? How do other players in the industry respond?
Recently, a screenshot of WeChat conversation was circulated on the Internet. Some people say that Contemporary Anpu Technology Co., Ltd. basically rejected the route of NCM8 1 1, and that Contemporary Anpu Technology Co., Ltd. has been watched by AQSIQ, and the battery inventory of NCM8 1 1 can only be handled flexibly.
Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. basically gave up NCM8 1 1 battery (TYNET).
In other words, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. will give up the NCM8 1 1 battery that he has been studying for a long time. There are also media reports that the focus of the future development of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. will shift to NCM523 battery.
But at present, officials of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. have not issued a statement.
Previously, when NCM8 1 1 batteries were sought after by domestic car companies, many battery companies were quietly laying out NCM81/batteries. Public reports show that Guo Xuan Hi-Tech, Li Shen Battery, Yuan Jing AESC, Honeycomb Energy, Tafel, Wanxiang 123, BYD, Thornton New Energy, etc.
Power battery companies such as Guo Xuan Hi-Tech, Honeycomb Energy, Wanxiang 123 and Yuan Jing AESC all plan to install cars in mass production in 2020, while battery companies such as Li Shen Battery, Tafel, Thornton New Energy and Tianjin Co., Ltd. have already achieved small-scale mass production installation.
Since the beginning of this year, none of these battery companies have reported the research situation of NCM8 1 1 battery. BYD mainly promoted lithium iron phosphate battery (blade battery) this year, and Honeycomb Energy released cobalt-free battery. Both companies no longer mentioned NCM8 1 1 battery.
BYD Blade Battery Chongqing Factory Interior
In fact, the advantages of NCM8 1 1 battery are also weakening, and the energy density of the battery pack equipped with NCM523 battery in Roewe ER6 has also reached? 180Wh/kg. Theoretically, the battery safety of Roewe ER6 is better than that of NCM8 1 1 battery.
Roewe ER6 vehicles information
In terms of cruising range, the cruising range of BYD Korea equipped with blade batteries has also exceeded 600 kilometers, and the cruising range of Roewe ER6 has also reached? 620km, long battery life is no longer the advantage of NCM8 1 1 battery.
In this case, car companies no longer focus on NCM8 1 1 batteries, and the enthusiasm of battery companies for research and development of NCM8 1 1 has also begun to decrease.
Fourth, the power battery pattern has quietly changed? Small and medium-sized players welcome new opportunities
At present, there are mainly two kinds of batteries for electric vehicles: ternary lithium battery and iron phosphate. In the past few years, iron phosphate products have gradually become marginal products because of their low energy density.
By this year, BYD has introduced a blade battery based on modular technology, which makes the energy density of iron phosphate equal to that of the mainstream lithium ternary battery, but at the same time it has better safety and cost advantages, and has won the favor of many manufacturers.
Comparison of acupuncture test results between BYD blade battery and other batteries
BYD even said directly that almost every car company you can think of is talking to us about the cooperation of blade batteries. When Che Dongxi visited BYD's blade battery factory in June, the factory staff said that the production capacity of the factory had been booked out this year, and the production capacity of the factory would be increased in the second half of the year.
It can be said that BYD cut a path with the blade battery and led the iron phosphate battery to pull back a game.
Under the background of this iron phosphate counterattack, ternary lithium industry has now lost its trump card product NCM8 1 1 battery, and the overall situation is even more unfavorable.
The 336th batch of Announcement of Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced new products. Sihao, Beiqi New Energy, Euler, Chery, Baojun, Wuling, Roewe and other companies have launched lithium-ion battery models.
In this catalogue, the supporting models of lithium iron phosphate batteries have surged, accounting for 75%. Even in passenger cars, the supporting models of lithium iron phosphate batteries account for nearly half.
According to the public documents of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Beiqi EU5 has replaced lithium iron phosphate battery?
This situation has also directly led to changes in the pattern of the power battery industry behind it.
On the one hand, as the leading power battery in China, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. can no longer rely on the technical advantages of NCM8 1 1 battery to attack the city. After the withdrawal of NCM8 1 1 battery, this market share of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. will be further seized by other battery companies. According to online news, GAC New Energy Aion? S The new battery is provided by AVIC lithium battery.
On the other hand, small and medium-sized players have also achieved sales growth through this east wind.
High-tech lithium battery shows that from June to July, 2020, contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., LG Chem, BYD, Panasonic, Guo Xuan Hi-Tech, AVIC Lithium Battery, Li Shen Battery, Tafel, Funeng Technology, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Thornton New Energy, Peng Hui Energy, Wei Jie Electric Power, Times SAIC, Ruipu Energy and other 15 battery enterprises.
Tafel, Ripple Energy and other enterprises never entered the previous 10 last year.
Rank of installed capacity of domestic power battery enterprises in the first 7 months
This reflects that car companies are no longer obsessed with chasing the energy density of power batteries, but pay more attention to the safety of batteries. In fact, the country stopped encouraging the pursuit of energy density of power batteries last year.
In 20 17, the state formally introduced the energy density adjustment coefficient into the subsidy calculation formula. At that time, the lower limit of energy density subsidy was 90Wh/kg, and the energy density of 120Wh/kg could get the highest subsidy coefficient 1. 1. By 20 18, the minimum subsidy standard for energy density is raised to 105Wh/kg, the maximum subsidy standard for energy density is raised to 160 WH/kg, and the subsidy coefficient is also raised to 1.2.
The new policy of 20 19 stipulates that even if the battery energy density exceeds 160Wh/kg, the subsidy coefficient will not exceed 1 times, which means that the advantage of battery energy density can no longer bring more subsidies to car companies. In 2020, this data will remain.
20 19 screenshot of subsidy policy
However, due to fierce competition in the industry last year, the NCM8 1 1 battery still maintained a strong heat. With the frequent occurrence of electric vehicle fires this year, this heat has weakened.
Conclusion: Safety is the most important index of new energy vehicles.
Since this summer, the continuous fire accidents of new energy vehicles have been affecting consumers' nerves, and the label of unsafe new energy vehicles has been difficult to remove.
In this case, the NCM8 1 1 battery with high energy density but poor safety stood on the wave, and many car companies chose not to use this battery. On the other hand, lithium iron phosphate batteries are slowly rising. The technical progress of NCM523 battery can also make the energy density of the battery pack equal to NCM8 1 1, but compared with NCM81/battery, these two batteries are safer.
At present, the safety of electric vehicles has become an important measure, but the performance of high-nickel ternary lithium batteries in this respect is not up to standard, so it is not surprising that NCM8 1 1 has stepped down from the altar.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.