Last week, there were two "unrelated" news, one was a fire in a BYD dolphin and the other was a fire in an online ride-hailing car in Chengdu.
Because they are not in the same region, the causes of the fire are inconsistent, and it is likely that they are not the same brand, so they are irrelevant, but it is these two unrelated news that point to the same keyword: electric vehicle fire.
Leaving aside the specific causes of the fire of these two cars, this year, as long as it is related to the fire of electric vehicles, it can attract attention.
The reason is probably that the accident that traditional fuel vehicles cannot occur has become a fatal hidden danger of electric vehicles.
When it comes to electric vehicles catching fire, we have to say the batteries of electric vehicles.
The current situation is that in order to meet the needs of users (more importantly, "Yan Pressure" friends), when announcing new cars, car companies will deliberately promote mileage: if the endurance can not exceed 1,000, they are embarrassed to mention this stubble.
In January last year, GAC Aean released "Black Technology". This graphene-based battery claims to be able to fill 80% of the electricity in 8 minutes, the energy density can be increased to about 280Wh/kg, of course, the endurance can reach 1000 kilometers.
However, this was not the first battery that claimed to have a range of 1,000 kilometers, at that time, Weilai, Zhiji and Tesla also had new battery related technologies, and the endurance also reached 1,000 kilometers.
In November 2021, some media reported for the first time that they found relevant information about the new model of GAC Aion LX, the title of which was "the first super 1000KM endurance model" announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
However, after the inquiry, it will be found that this car does not use the black technology graphene-based battery previously announced, but uses the ternary lithium battery used by the vast majority of models.
This also marks that the battery life of electric vehicles has entered a new era.
According to the information released by various car companies at present, according to incomplete statistics, until now, there are three models that have clearly announced mass production and listing or even started pre-sale.
One is the AION LX mentioned above, with a maximum endurance of more than 1,000 kilometers at 459,600.
The other two are the NIO ET7 and the Zhiji L7, and the NIO ET7 version with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers may be priced at more than 520,000, although it has been listed, but it will be delivered in the first quarter.
The Zhiji L7 is also said to be delivered in April, and the price is slightly cheaper, less than 410,000.
In addition, there is a concept car, mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX, although it is worth looking forward to, but when it will be launched is still unknown.
Speaking of the battery thing back.
GAC Aeon as the first car company announced in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology more than 1000 km endurance, it is really gratifying, but from the battery itself, there is no eye-catching breakthrough technology, after all, although the energy density of the ternary lithium battery on board has reached 205Wh/kg, the capacity is as high as 144.4kWh, but the battery weight has also reached 700kg.
The reason why the graphene-based battery that was hyped up at the beginning of last year may be known from subsequent reports.
On the second day of the release, Ouyang Ming, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, "If someone says that his car can run a thousand kilometers, recharge in a few minutes, and is particularly safe, and the cost is still very low, then everyone does not have to believe it, because it is impossible to achieve at the same time at present." ”
Perhaps the words of experts have brought great pressure to GAC, and soon GAC responded: graphene-based super fast charging batteries and long-lasting silicon anode batteries are two different technologies, which solve different pain points in the application of "slow charging speed" and "short mileage" respectively.
This seems to be different from what the poster says.
Battery technology should be regarded as the direction that GAC Aean is more concerned about, and in fact, at present, GAC Aean has also achieved certain results in this regard, such as lithium iron phosphate magazine battery, or the AION LX mentioned above, which are good research results of GAC Aean in batteries.
But is it like the propaganda says, can lead the development of pure trams?
In August last year, GAC Aean made news over the issue of "locking electricity".
They found that the car had changed after the OTA upgrade, such as reduced range, significantly weakened acceleration performance, and slower charging speed. At the same time, the car's charging power has also been reduced, the original official is full of 58.8KWh, the owner's actual charging can not reach 50KWh, less than 10 degrees of electricity means that the endurance is reduced by about 100km.
And many car owners, unaware of this upgrade and locking the power.
Then again, locking the electricity seems to be an indispensable means for car companies to reduce the risk of spontaneous combustion of vehicles caused by thermal runaway, in other words, the battery technology is immature, but as a result, the owner needs to bear the consequences of immature technology.
The same "negative" attitude towards 1,000 km endurance is also shen hui of Weima, "If the mainstream models use 1,000 km endurance batteries, social resources will be a huge waste." This is what Shen Hui said at the mass production ceremony of the W6.
Although the endurance of Weima did not reach 1000 kilometers, the car that did not hinder Weima was also locked.
Many WM EX5 car owners participated in the "New Year's Eve user premium" campaign carried out by WM Motor. The content of the event is free vehicle inspection + 200 yuan JD card.
As a result, many car owners who participated in the activity broke the news that WM Automobile used this activity to lock the owner's vehicle, which greatly reduced the mileage of the vehicle, thus affecting the use experience.
In the end, 173 car owners recently jointly sent a lawyer's letter to WM Automobile Manufacturer to defend their rights.
And WM decided to lock the electricity for the owner, all for the safety of the owner.
According to media reports, from September 23, 2020 to October 27, 2020, there were a total of four spontaneous combustion incidents; a year later, from December 20 to 23, 2021, three more WM cars were burned in four days.
WM's battery suppliers are Ningde Times and Zhejiang Ceres Energy, while GAC Aean's battery suppliers are Ningde Times, AVIC Lithium Battery, Fu Neng Technology and Jiangsu Times, listing these manufacturers, but I want to tell you that no matter which car company, which battery cell supplier is, no matter how much battery life, there may be a power lock behavior.
Obviously, the technology of the battery is advancing, and how much it really improves is a problem.
Back to the graphene-based battery mentioned above, according to GAC's explanation, the so-called graphene-based battery is only used in lithium batteries as an additive to promote conductivity, thereby improving charging efficiency, and does not use graphene as the main material of the battery.
So strictly speaking, it should be a lithium battery with graphene added, as to whether it can be fast charged, it also depends on the charging pile, in the northern winter at 5 o'clock in the morning, you need to get up to charge the tram, and also require the owner to specify the charging pile, is the requirement for the owner too high?
The real graphene-based battery is still in the laboratory stage, far from reaching the stage of mass production.
Of course, everyone is looking forward to a breakthrough in technology, but at this stage, it is still less gimmicks and more skills, after all, the consequences are borne by the owner.