A hand in hand caused the market value of the two automobile industry companies to soar simultaneously. ?
Recently, CATL issued an announcement stating that the company will sign an agreement with Tesla, Inc. and Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. to provide them with lithium-ion power battery products. Currently, CATL and Tesla Inc. have signed the agreement, which still needs to be signed by Tesla (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
After this announcement, the stock prices of both Tesla and CATL surged. CATL's partnership with Tesla this time is a win-win situation. The former's competitiveness in the power battery field has been further improved, and the latter's product cost performance will also be improved.
However, in this win-win cooperation, we still have several questions. For example, in the agreement, CATL did not specify what kind of power batteries it will provide Tesla; after using localized batteries, , what kind of price discounts will Tesla’s products have?
Mainstream battery types nowadays
For a long time, the performance of power batteries has been one of the most important factors restricting the development of pure electric vehicles. Bottlenecks such as charging efficiency and endurance are the main bottlenecks for electric vehicles. The biggest difficulty in popularizing cars. Currently, the well-known power lithium batteries are divided into three main schools due to the use of different cathode materials, namely the lithium iron phosphate battery, the lithium manganate battery, and the ternary lithium battery.
Among them, batteries using lithium iron phosphate as the cathode material have the advantage of long life, but the disadvantage is low energy density; the same is true for lithium manganate batteries; and in ternary lithium batteries, with nickel The higher the element content, the better the performance in terms of battery life, which also makes ternary lithium batteries gradually become the most commonly used power battery.
What kind of batteries will CATL provide?
The ternary lithium batteries currently on the market are mainly NCM ternary and NCA ternary. These two routes are also the currently recognized development directions of ternary batteries. Among them, the battery used most by Tesla is NCA battery, and most domestic battery manufacturers, including CATL, follow the NCM route.
So, after joining hands with CATL, what kind of battery will Tesla use in its future new cars?
For a long time, the NCA batteries used by Tesla have been provided by Panasonic. In NCA batteries, the common molar ratio of nickel, cobalt, and aluminum is 8:1.5:0.5. The high nickel content also gives NCA batteries higher energy and can bring longer battery life to vehicles.
Why are excellent batteries like NCA not promoted among domestic battery manufacturers? Because it is too difficult to make and the production conditions are harsh. It is understood that there are currently three technical routes for producing NCA batteries at home and abroad:
In the first and third routes, the aluminum element is added after the subsequent reaction, so it is easy to cause the aluminum element to The internal distribution of NCA batteries is uneven, and the overall battery capacity is not good. At the same time, the first route also has the problems of complicated process and high cost.
As a result, the second route has become the current mainstream method of manufacturing NCA batteries. NCA is manufactured by filtering, drying and washing the precursor Ni1-x-yCoxAly(OH)2. This process is simple, convenient and low-cost. The only problem is that the precursor Ni1-x-yCoxAly(OH)2 is difficult and costly to produce.
In addition, manufacturing NCA batteries requires an extremely harsh production environment, which requires the humidity to be controlled below 10% during the entire battery production process, while other materials currently only need to strictly control the humidity during the liquid injection process. This is a very big challenge. Moreover, manufacturing is never a matter of one factory. It needs to take into account all aspects of the entire industrial chain. Someone once said that in China, NCA batteries have been abandoned in recent years.
Obviously, judging from the current agreement signed between Tesla and CATL, this cooperation does not clearly indicate the type of batteries CATL provides Tesla, nor does it specify the specific The specific procurement situation of SLA. Therefore, CATL is more likely to provide Tesla with square or soft-pack NCM batteries, which we often call "811 batteries", but it is unlikely to provide NCA batteries.
It is understood that Tesla will achieve 100% localization of vehicle spare parts by the end of 2020.
After realizing localization, the cost performance of Tesla products will be further improved. Tesla's Model 3 sedan currently on sale in China is priced at about 300,000 yuan, and the Model 3 in the United States is priced at US$33,000, which is about 230,000 yuan.
I believe that as the localization rate increases, the price of Model 3 made in China may equal that of Model 3 sold in the United States. At present, if Tesla Model 3 uses batteries provided by CATL, its cost may be reduced by about 10%-15%. In other words, the price of Tesla Model 3 may drop to 250,000 yuan in the future.
What problems will we face after "holding hands"?
For a long time, the batteries used in Tesla models have been cylindrical NCA cells. If square or soft-packed NCM cells provided by CATL are used, Tesla's Model 3 will face "major changes."
If the same model uses two different batteries, the battery pack of the car will need to be redesigned, and the battery management system will also need to be redesigned. And we must try our best to ensure that vehicles using different batteries have the same power performance, charging efficiency and safety. This is not an easy task. It is no less difficult than developing a new car model. Even Musk, who has always liked to be "unconstrained", will not be like this.
Judging from the agreement, CATL may only provide Tesla with lithium batteries, and battery-related module design and battery management are not included. From this point of view, what is Tesla’s intention to join hands with CATL this time?
Here we have a guess, maybe CATL’s batteries are prepared for Model Y. It is understood that Tesla’s domestic Model Y will be officially delivered in 2021 or the end of 2020. CATL will begin providing batteries to Tesla on July 1, 2020. From a time perspective, it is quite appropriate.
So, will the Model 3 produced at Tesla’s Shanghai factory continue to use Panasonic’s NCA batteries?
Probably not. Don’t forget, before joining hands with CATL, Tesla also reached cooperation with LG. It is reported that the Nanjing factory that LG invested heavily in building may be to meet the sufficient supply of power batteries for Tesla.
So we can summarize and draw three conclusions:?
1. CATL may provide NCM batteries for Tesla, but it is unlikely to provide NCA batteries.
2. If Tesla Model 3 does not make "major changes", it may continue to use cylindrical batteries provided by Panasonic or LG. If the localization rate does not increase for the time being, there will be no greater price reduction in vehicle prices in a short period of time.
3. The domestic Model Y delivered at the end of the year may be the first to use NCM batteries provided by CATL.
In short, both Tesla and CATL have confirmed this cooperation. For CATL, this cooperation will have a positive impact on its brand, market, reputation and technology. For Tesla, the use of domestically produced batteries can further reduce the cost of products, and the overall competitiveness will accordingly be improved a lot.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.