On September 16, the 2020 annual competitive brand list of China's lithium battery industry was officially released. 50 companies from the fields of cathode materials, anode materials, electrolytes, separators, power batteries and other fields were on the list; In addition, the 2020 annual competitive brand list of China's new energy passenger vehicle industry and the 2020 annual competitive brand list of China's charging pile operation service providers have also been released. 20 companies from the fields of new energy passenger vehicles and charging pile operation services have also been released. companies are on the list.
However, judging from the installed capacity of power batteries, CATL has far surpassed BYD by a few positions, and from the perspective of major customers, CATL obviously has a wider radiation range. Most of the OEMs The battery packs all use CATL products. In addition to providing its own supporting products, BYD has a very limited number of customers. Moreover, according to data from South Korean market research organization SNE?Research, the top three companies in the world in terms of installed power battery capacity in the first half of 2020 are LG Chem, CATL and Panasonic. Among the top three, Panasonic suffered the most serious decline, with a year-on-year drop of 23% and a market share of 20.4%. BYD ranks relatively low on this list.
2020 Annual Competitiveness Brand List of China’s Lithium Battery Industry
Global Vehicle Power Battery Installation Ranking in the First Half of 2020
But BYD is not without it A killer one. The emergence of BYD Blade Battery in 2020 shocked the industry. Once it came out, the blade battery conquered the acupuncture test, which is known as the "Mount Everest" in the field of power battery safety testing. Even Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, praised it. Super safety is the biggest advantage of the blade battery. In addition, the Han EV equipped with the blade battery has a cruising range of up to 605 kilometers (NEDC operating conditions), which basically solves the shortcomings of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
BYD Blade Electric?
This wave of operations by BYD is actually a positive "tribute" to the CTP technology released by CATL last year. In essence, both technologies are optimizing batteries. Package space utilization. Currently, CATL's CTP technology is based on a ternary cathode material, which will of course also be used in lithium iron phosphate batteries in the future. BYD's blade battery is called "blade" because it looks like a blade. Its plan is to flatten the battery core and increase the length of the battery core. According to patent information, the length range of the blade battery cell is 400~2500mm, using lithium iron phosphate batteries.
CTP technology structure diagram of the CATL era
However, due to the late introduction of blade batteries, the current production capacity is greatly restricted, and it is still difficult to support BYD's own product line, and CATL Era’s CTP batteries have been able to be supplied to other car companies for a long time. These two battery technologies should be said to be the most advanced power battery solutions currently on the market that can be promoted commercially on a large scale. But to say who can fundamentally represent the future development direction of China's power batteries, judging from the current conditions, both technologies have their own advantages and disadvantages. Although CTP technology has been famous for a long time, the emergence of blade batteries broke the long-standing calm in the industry.
BYD provokes a war of needles
Seeing that CATL has gradually left BYD several blocks behind in terms of power battery shipments, after learning from the painful experience, power batteries had not been able to do so before. BYD, which was sold to external parties, split its closed-loop battery business on June 25, 2019 and established Fudi Battery Co., Ltd. This move is also BYD's fierce counterattack against CATL. The blade battery, the first black technology product launched by Fudi Battery after its establishment, made CATL lose its face. This is the very dramatic "battery acupuncture test" that will be mentioned later. This experiment directly gave BYD a wonderful turnaround.
BYD acupuncture experiment
In the experiment, the blade battery was compared with the Ningde era's ternary lithium battery, showing a huge safety gap. The blade battery was punctured after the battery was punctured. There was no open flame or smoke, but the temperature of the ternary lithium battery exceeded 500 degrees Celsius and exploded directly, which shocked the audience.
Facing BYD’s frontal provocation, on May 11, the boss of CATL could not sit still and publicly protested: “Some people equate passing the abuse test with battery safety,” and said that CATL’s Safety measures mainly focus on charging, water immersion, and collision, but the structural solution of the blade battery is outdated and they look down upon it. That night, the vice president of BYD Auto Sales Company responded on Weibo, saying: "Don't accept it? Then you can come and take a stab at it."
In the era of BYD and CATL, we are sharpening our knives and preparing for it. When the swordsmen met, a personal lithium battery enthusiast @小鱼lithium battery? was encouraged by his friends to buy CATL 811 batteries and did acupuncture experiments. Judging from the test video released by "Xiaoyu Lithium Battery", after the steel needle penetrated the battery, the battery immediately bulged and burned violently. The test results caused a huge sensation. Such a test forced CATL to stand up. Subsequently, CATL released two acupuncture test videos of its ternary lithium batteries, but the results were completely different from those of the "Xiaoyu Lithium Battery" test. One video demonstrates that the steel needle cannot penetrate CATL's ternary battery, and the steel needle breaks; the other video shows that CATL has already mastered the ternary battery acupuncture technology.
Next, BYD once again demonstrated its strong style as a hard-core science and technology man. Li Yunfei, BYD's deputy sales general manager, listed several key points in a clear and logical manner. The general meaning is: the acupuncture test you did did not achieve the desired effect, and the test results are invalid.
Zeng Yuqun spoke at the 2020 World New Energy Vehicle Conference
Seeing that CATL may lose the opportunity in this war caused by a steel needle. At the end of September, CATL Chairman Zeng Yuqun made a rare statement at the 2020 World New Energy Vehicle Conference that CATL’s newly developed products can emit smoke without catching fire and will be mass-produced in some models by the end of the year. Zeng Yuqun further pointed out: "We hope that even if one battery cell catches fire, the entire PACK will only emit smoke. This is a direct solution to the pain point. Currently, high energy density and high safety are no longer problems, but low cost will take time to solve."
So far, BYD has not responded. However, the CATL battery technology that only emits smoke but does not catch fire has not yet come up with concrete products. This battle over battery safety triggered by a steel needle ultimately came to nothing. However, from the perspective of the entire process, BYD received a lot of attention after launching the blade battery and completed a strong wave of marketing promotion, while CATL overall responded in a hurry and gained nothing but feathers. It seems that there is already an answer to who of the two sides won and what they won.
Lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium each have their own advantages
On the surface, BYD and CATL are having a heated debate about battery packaging technology. But essentially, this is a battle between the technical routes of lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium. Although the energy density of lithium iron phosphate is lower than that of ternary, it has a stable structure, good cycle performance, and good safety performance. It is a very cost-effective cathode material.
At the current price, the cost of cathode material lithium iron phosphate can be reduced by ?65-72 compared with ternary. Under the extreme calculation of considering that there is no cobalt and the price of ternary yuan has dropped significantly, assuming that the price of ternary yuan drops to 100,000 yuan/ton, and other recent market prices are referred to, the cost of use of lithium iron phosphate is still significantly better than that of ternary yuan. In the cathode There are 55 and 22 cost reduction advantages at the and battery level respectively. Since it does not contain precious metals such as cobalt and nickel, the price fluctuation of lithium iron phosphate is much smaller than that of ternary materials, which is conducive to cost control.
Tesla Model?3 after price reduction
It is precisely thanks to the huge advantage in cost control that lithium iron phosphate is expected to suddenly emerge in the next electric vehicle cost control war. .
During the Double Festival, Tesla announced the third price reduction of its domestically produced Model in three years. The standard range upgraded version is priced at 249,900 yuan after subsidies, and the long-range rear-wheel drive version is priced at 309,900 yuan after subsidies. This price reduction is rooted in supply. Chain localization and new installation of CATL lithium iron phosphate batteries. Previously, people familiar with the matter also revealed that Tesla is preparing to start selling Model 3 cars made in China and equipped with cobalt-free lithium iron phosphate batteries.
As subsidies continue to decline and car companies face continued pressure to reduce costs, the current price of lithium iron phosphate batteries is even lower. At the same time, through the use of large modules or CTP module-less solutions, the volumetric energy density has been greatly improved. , improve the cruising range. In the short term, in the next 2-3 years, the purchase of lithium iron phosphate batteries may be considered for use in the mid- to low-end passenger car field (operational vehicles) that is highly cost-sensitive. As a result, the proportion of passenger cars using LFP batteries will increase. .
However, this does not mean that lithium iron phosphate will subvert the dominant position of ternary lithium power batteries in a short time. In the field of high-end models, ternary batteries will still be one of the main battlegrounds for major car manufacturers. Mid- to high-end models pursue improved vehicle performance, and ternary batteries are more likely to meet their needs in terms of cruising range, power consumption, fast charging performance, and sense of space. High-specific energy batteries will still be the trend and account for the majority of the market share. In the future, with the increase of high-specific energy As battery technology matures and costs are reduced, comparative advantages will emerge.
Models equipped with CATL 811 ternary lithium battery
In the domestic market, CATL’s battery market share has reached more than 40%, occupying an absolute advantage among all power battery manufacturers . It was previously reported that CATL will abandon 811 batteries and shift its focus to 523 system batteries. However, according to the latest news, CATL officially confirmed that it will not give up 811 batteries. And in a short period of time, 811 batteries are still the main strategy of CATL.
Currently, in addition to GAC New Energy, CATL’s NCM811 batteries are supplied to mainstream car companies such as BMW, Dongfeng, NIO, Mercedes-Benz, Geely, and Xpeng. Thanks to its high energy density, high-end models such as BMW iX3, Mercedes-Benz EQC and Volkswagen ID and other German new energy vehicles generally use 811 batteries. It is for this reason that CATL will not talk lightly about 811 batteries. "give up".
However, the 811 battery is not unique to CATL. Japanese and Korean power battery companies have also focused on high-nickel batteries. The ternary batteries that Panasonic supplies to Tesla are also high-nickel batteries, and LG Chem has also begun supplying NCM811 in bulk. South Korea's SKI's Changzhou joint venture also produces batteries with a nickel content of 80%. Thanks to a large number of orders from Tesla, LG Chem surpassed CATL to rank first in terms of installed capacity this year. Although there are still safety risks that need to be resolved urgently, from the perspective of development trends, high-density ternary lithium batteries are still the best choice for mainstream electric vehicle power batteries.
People review cars
The era of only focusing on the energy density of power batteries has passed. The 2.0 version of the "Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap" has passed the expert review and is expected to be released soon. release. Different from the first version of the roadmap, the new version of the roadmap no longer provides a single high-energy density guide for power batteries, but instead adheres to the principle of safety first, taking into account performance, cost, life and other indicators. In fact, whether it is a technical route or a strategic direction, as long as we truly pay attention to the actual needs of consumers, think about what consumers want, and provide products that the market needs, we can ensure that the company is on the right path and develops steadily.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.