Whether BYD’s “knife” can cut through the current weak power battery landscape of lithium iron phosphate remains to be tested by the market.
The most watched press conference in the automotive industry in 2020 was the unveiling of BYD’s blade battery a few days ago. Wang Chuanfu not only stood up in person to express his support for blade batteries, but also used the words "the blade battery comes out of its sheath to settle the world", clearly revealing BYD's ambition to break the existing power battery market structure.
However, behind his series of words such as "complete end", "correction", "force" and "return to the right path", there is somewhat implicit BYD's urgent need to return to the mainstream perspective. And the dream of King Qin who wants to use this "knife" to "bring order to chaos".
Outside, CATL has become bigger and stronger, and giants such as Panasonic and LG Chem are eyeing it. BYD has shown signs of decline internally. Against the backdrop of declining subsidies, profits fell by 44% in 2019, and earnings per share With a decline of 46%, how to explain to shareholders has become the biggest trouble before Wang Chuanfu's case.
It is foreseeable that in the post-subsidy era, if BYD does not have a moat in core technologies, it will be difficult to return to its previous state of rapid growth, and it will gradually become a company with considerable scale but low profit margins. OEM assembly plants, the right to speak in the industry will gradually fade away.
At the press conference, BYD specially arranged a battery acupuncture experiment session. Judging from its excellent safety performance, combined with a series of spontaneous combustion incidents of new energy vehicles that occurred last year, blade batteries seem to really have the ability to turn things around.
However, is BYD's "big move" and the milestone work of "Battery King" really as sharp as Wang Chuanfu said?
01
Is the "blade battery" really perfect?
Before discussing the "blade" battery, let us clarify one fact: Since the development of chemical batteries, the research on the underlying technology has been stagnant for nearly half a century. Regardless of BYD or other battery manufacturers, the existing battery cores are still It does not depart from the scope of research discoveries by Goodenough, last year's Nobel Prize winner.
So, "blade batteries" are only an advancement in battery form, not a breakthrough in the underlying structure of the battery.
Of course, making the lithium iron phosphate battery cell longer and thinner, and omitting the intermediate "module" step, can effectively reduce costs and improve vehicle space utilization and cruising range. It can be said that BYD's rapid technological progress is entirely due to its long-term specialization in battery technology, and it lives up to its reputation as an industry leader.
However, at the press conference, BYD used what is called the industry's most stringent "acupuncture test" to compare and verify the safety of blade batteries and ternary lithium batteries, which is biased.
First of all, the essence of the blade battery is still a lithium iron phosphate battery. Due to the inherent thermal stability of lithium iron phosphate, it is less likely to spontaneously ignite than ternary lithium.
So, in essence, the good safety of blade batteries can be equivalent to that of generalized lithium iron phosphate batteries. BYD's experiment is suspected of stealing the concept.
Secondly, as far as the "acupuncture test" itself is concerned, it is not included in the necessary items for battery safety verification regulations.
In the safety requirements standards for lithium batteries for various products issued by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC?), the earliest international electrotechnical standardization organization in the world, there is no "acupuncture test" item.
In the IEC?62660-2 standard regulations, the acupuncture experiment is even regarded as an "abuse experiment standard", and it is believed that this experiment cannot represent universal application scenarios.
Therefore, the acupuncture experiment is more like a "show", using huge sensory stimulation to create the impression that blade batteries are safer.
Once again, in the experiment, BYD adopted the method of acupuncture of single-chip blade batteries. As we all know, the battery on the vehicle exists in the form of a battery pack, which must contain multiple cells inside. Therefore, the safety verification of a single battery cell is not fully convincing.
The system safety of the battery pack also involves many key links such as exhaust, infiltration uniformity, thermal management, cell expansion, etc. Any flaw in any one of them will affect the overall battery safety.
So, if BYD wants to make the safety of blade batteries more convincing, it should show the system safety test instead of just a single experiment.
Finally, there are many forms of vehicle battery collisions, such as squeezing deformation, rolling, stretching deformation, cutting, etc., and "acupuncture" is the scene with the lowest probability of occurrence.
BYD chose the acupuncture experiment to prove the excellent safety of the blade battery. It only verified one scenario and has nothing to do with the safety of other scenarios. It is not fully convincing, and it cannot be announced just now." Erase the word 'spontaneous combustion' from the dictionary of new energy vehicles."
02
Has “blade battery” subverted the industry?
It is undeniable that the emergence of blade batteries is a huge leap forward for the lithium iron phosphate batteries that have been declining. With excellent safety and complementary energy density shortcomings, in Wang Chuanfu's "correction" vision, the blade battery will be the first domino to overthrow the existing power battery structure, and then trigger industry disruption.
He Long, chairman of Fudi Battery Co., Ltd., said: "We have successively received battery cooperation intentions from many domestic car companies. "It also seems to be confirmed that BYD will use this battery that has been grinding for a long time." "Knife", entering the power battery supply market.
In 2019, the installed capacity of domestic ternary lithium batteries has reached twice that of lithium iron phosphate batteries. In terms of total installed capacity, CATL has completed an installed capacity of 32.5GWh with a market share of more than 50%. In contrast, BYD only has 11GWh, which is only one-third of the former.
If you look at the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries, BYD also has obvious disadvantages. The installed capacity of CATL, Guoxuan Hi-Tech and BYD are 11.4GWh, 2.9GWh and 2.8GWh respectively.
It can be seen that Ningde era is in an absolute leading position. The recent cooperation negotiations between Tesla and CATL on "cobalt-free batteries" are by no means groundless. According to industry insiders, this new energy vane car company has taken a fancy to the new CTP (cell to pack) battery packaging technology of CATL, and has initiated cooperation to continue to reduce battery costs.
So, even if BYD's blade battery has safety advantages and no cruising range disadvantage, can it sweep the ternary battery into the corner of history in one fell swoop?
Maybe not really.
The automobile industry has distinct long-cycle characteristics, and many existing products have appeared in PPTs planned by companies many years ago. At the same time, a large amount of resource investment is irreversible. Ternary lithium batteries can become the mainstream choice and a large amount of funds have been locked up.
Earlier, General Motors and LG Chem jointly invested US$2.3 billion to build a power battery factory, and Volkswagen Group also invested 2 billion euros to build its own power battery factory. Real money and silver have been smashed down, and the strong inertia formed by this cannot be overturned in a short time.
On the other hand, the greater resistance to the promotion of blade batteries comes from the more upstream end of the power battery industry. Led by the major exporters of rare metals such as nickel and cobalt, they are bound to block actions that shake the existing battery landscape. The mutual game between a large number of capitals involved behind the scenes will be an invisible but extremely tragic long-term " war".
It must be said that BYD’s long-term policy of not selling batteries has created a relatively stable development environment for it. Such self-preservation has allowed BYD, which has completed the construction of the entire new energy industry chain, to be protected from external impacts, but it has also limited its own business expansion.
When the cake and pattern of the market have been defined, it will be difficult for BYD to reverse the situation in the short term. Unless BYD Han, the first new product equipped with blade batteries, can be widely sought after by the market, thus triggering a demonstration effect.
On the other hand, ternary lithium batteries are still evolving. CATL's CTP technology has skipped the "module" link and achieved a leap in volume.
In terms of battery cell form, even though BYD has applied for a patent for its "blade", other battery giants also have in-depth research and development capabilities. Referring to Honda's case of bypassing Toyota's patent and independently developing a hybrid system, ternary lithium will be born in the future. Blade” batteries are also highly likely.
03
Relying on fuel vehicles to put out the fire as sales plummet Sales volume was 60,603 units, with a cumulative decline of 47.86, which was worse than the overall performance of the industry. Especially in the new energy sector, which BYD is proud of, the cumulative sales in the first quarter were 21,522 vehicles, a decrease of about 70% compared with the same period last year. In fact, since the implementation of the New Energy Policy on June 26, 2019, BYD New Energy's sales have declined for nine consecutive months. In the same period in 2019 before the decline in new energy subsidies, BYD's new energy vehicle sales accounted for more than 62%.
The proud new energy sector has been reduced to a supporting role in sales, and it is Wang Chuanfu who repeatedly calls for "fuel vehicles that should be banned" to shoulder the heavy responsibility of BYD's sales and become the hero who saves BYD from the fire.
In order to develop new energy, China's subsidy policy has lasted for a full 10 years. In the past 10 years, BYD has also made great profits, receiving more than 10 billion in national new energy subsidies. However, once the subsidies declined, BYD New Energy fell into a long "falling and falling" quagmire and was unable to extricate itself.
The dazzling halo and titles of "Battery King" and "New Energy Brother" suddenly became dim after the veil of subsidies was unveiled.
Recently, BYD Han EV rolled off the production line at its Shenzhen factory. This is BYD's first product equipped with its "blade battery". The battery life is divided into three types: 506 kilometers, 550 kilometers, and 605 kilometers. . The new car is expected to sell for less than 300,000, competing head-on with the Tesla Model 3.
For BYD, there is no room for error. It is not only related to the rise and fall of a product, but also the fate of BYD's battery strategy.
However, in the face of Tesla, whose brand power is at its peak, BYD, which has been hesitant in brand building for many years, has a slight chance of winning, and the future of Han EV is uncertain.
Network News Agency’s point of view:
Facing the great progress made by blade batteries, its emergence is of great "revolutionary" significance for traditional lithium iron phosphate batteries, but The "revolution" is not enough to extend to the entire power battery industry because it does not change the existing underlying structure of the battery.
BYD wants to use this "knife" to subvert the existing power battery industry structure in one fell swoop, but it currently seems to be facing many obstacles.
On the one hand, the excellent safety of BYD Blade Battery is not all-round and without blind spots. It is too early to conclude that it will never spontaneously ignite. On the other hand, if you want to achieve a single breakthrough in the industry and enter the market with a new identity as a supplier, you will inevitably face the pursuit of many opponents.
After successive failures in the field of power batteries and new energy electric vehicles, can a "blade battery" solve all the issues BYD is currently facing?
Perhaps, BYD's "knife" is not as sharp as imagined.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.