Written by | Wu Xue
Edit | Yang Guang
Produced | Automotive Sankei
"World Premiere! Dongfeng fired the first shot of solid-state battery industrialization! ”
Recently, Dongfeng's official account released such a message. According to reports, on January 22, the first batch of 50 Dongfeng-Ganfeng high-specific solid-state battery vehicles developed by Dongfeng Company and Ganfeng Lithium Industry was delivered in Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province.
According to Dongfeng, this project is also the world's first solid-state battery vehicle demonstration operation project, taking the lead in firing the first shot of solid-state battery industrialization.
With its own halo of high energy density and high safety, the mass production of solid-state batteries has been highly anticipated. However, it is interesting that when someone asked about the mileage of the cooperative model, Dongfeng insiders said that they should "weaken this point."
As a next-generation battery technology widely recognized by the industry, in recent years, solid-state batteries have become the "traffic code" that car companies have attracted attention. It's just that after some operations, marketing "rollovers" also occur from time to time.
Solid-state batteries ≠ all-solid-state batteries
Why does Dongfeng weaken the cruising range in publicity?
Flipping through the solid-state battery related information released by Ganfeng Lithium in December, it is not difficult to find clues.
According to Ganfeng Lithium, the energy density of the "first generation solid-state battery" carried by Dongfeng is about 260Wh/kg. This is a data similar to the current mainstream ternary lithium battery. At the same time, it is not a solid-state battery in the full sense, but a semi-solid-state battery. More accurately, it is a solid-liquid hybrid lithium-ion battery.
As with ternary lithium batteries, the positive and negative electrode materials of this battery are also ternary materials and graphite, but the electrolyte is a solid-liquid mixture. In all-solid-state batteries, the electrolyte is all solid.
In other words, Dongfeng's propaganda is inevitably suspected of playing "edge ball".
In fact, as an immature new technology, solid-state batteries seem to lack a unified standard in propaganda. Prior to this, WEILAI had a similar situation.
In January 2021, at the annual NIO DAY, NIO took the lead in releasing the first 150kWh solid-state battery. A stone stirred up a thousand waves, and then in the capital market, lithium battery stocks have risen sharply, and the lithium battery separators and electrolytes that will be eliminated after the maturity of solid-state battery technology have fallen sharply, and many stocks have even fallen to a halt.
So much so that Weilai officials had to come out to "debunk rumors", saying that the solid-state batteries produced in 2022 are only "semi-solid-state batteries" to be precise.
In April 2021, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, publicly stated that "those who can do it in the car in 3-5 years are not all solid-state batteries."
The R&D process released by Toyota, Volkswagen, Nissan and other car companies also proves this.
Taking Toyota as an example, as the company with the most solid-state battery patents in the world, after repeatedly postponing the mass production time, Toyota recently set the mass production time of solid-state batteries in 2025.
Previously, Ouyang Minggao, vice chairman of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, also bluntly said that China's solid-state battery technology is at least five years different from Japan's, and the commercial application scale of China's solid-state batteries will reach about 1% by 2030.
All-solid-state batteries, "harder than the moon"
As a recognized next-generation battery technology, solid-state batteries have unparalleled advantages over other technical routes in terms of improving endurance, shortening charging time, reducing the risk of fire, and reducing vehicle costs:
For example, in terms of energy density, liquid lithium-ion batteries can only reach a maximum of 300Wh/kg, while solid-state batteries can easily achieve 400Wh/kg, or even 500Wh/kg;
In terms of cost, current liquid lithium-ion batteries average $100 to $150 per kilowatt-hour, while Nissan has said that by 2028, solid-state batteries will reduce the cost of battery packs to $75 per kilowatt-hour, or even $65 or less.
"The competition of electric vehicles will eventually become the competition of batteries", the broad prospects of solid-state batteries have also made many relatively backward overseas car companies take this technology as the starting point of curve overtaking, and have increased investment in this field:
Volkswagen Group invested in solid-state battery company Quantum Scape;
BMW, Ford, Hyundai invested in Solid Power;
Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis invested in Factorial Energy.
However, although companies have paid a lot of real money and silver for the research and development of solid-state batteries, this technology seems to have no possibility of breakthrough in the short term. So much so that some industry insiders joked that "solid-state batteries are more difficult than moon landing, the moon landing is successful, and the long march of solid-state batteries does not know when."
Therefore, while not giving up this route, many companies have set their sights on semi-solid-state batteries (solid-liquid hybrid lithium-ion batteries) and chosen to take the lead in mass production of this transitional technology.
Semi-solid-state batteries also have some of the advantages of solid-state batteries. Taking the first generation of solid-state batteries of Ganfeng Lithium as an example, its energy density is comparable to that of ternary lithium batteries, and its safety is relatively higher.
Wang Yu, chairman of Fu Neng Technology, once said bluntly, "No one wants to have hidden dangers in the production of batteries, and with semi-solid-state batteries, your factory will no longer have the problem of fire." ”
In addition, from the data released by fu neng technology, Ganfeng lithium, Weilan new energy and other battery companies, it is expected that the energy density of semi-solid-state batteries that are expected to be mass-produced in 2022 and 2023 can further reach about 360 Wh/kg.
Of course, this does not mean that semi-solid-state batteries are already the perfect solution in the current power battery field. The biggest problem it faces is that there is still no advantage in terms of cost compared with mature technical routes such as lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries.
For the current battery companies, the production of semi-solid-state batteries must be transformed into process equipment, which also means a significant increase in costs.
In this regard, Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of Hive Energy, believes that although the current technical problems of mass production of semi-solid-state batteries can be solved, there is still considerable uncertainty about large-scale commercialization. In Yang Hongxin's view, in the next decade, the mainstream of power batteries will be ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries.
Judging from the planning released by some battery companies, from 2022, semi-solid-state batteries will gradually go to the market:
According to Ganfeng Lithium, in addition to the first generation of solid-state batteries that have been installed, the second-generation solid-state batteries with energy density of 360Wh/kg have also completed B-sample development in the first quarter of 2021, C-sample development will be completed in the first quarter of 2022, and SOP stage will be completed in the first quarter of 2023;
Guoxuan Hi-Tech said that its semi-solid-state battery is expected to start small-batch mass production and loading in the fourth quarter of 2022 and achieve industrialization in 2023;
Weilai's solid-state battery supplier Weilan New Energy also revealed that its high-safety vehicle solid-liquid hybrid battery will provide batch verification to customers in the second half of 2022;
……
Next, semi-solid-state batteries and ternary lithium batteries, lithium iron phosphate batteries which will become the mainstream, the test of the market is about to begin.