As the core component of new energy vehicles, the technical route of power batteries has never stopped. Although electric vehicles have become the mainstream development direction of automobiles, whether to use ternary lithium batteries or lithium iron phosphate batteries is a hot topic of technical debate in the industry in the past decade.
Because the new energy automobile industry and policies have different needs in different periods, resulting in these two "personalities" of completely different power batteries, their fate is also ups and downs.
The dispute between the technical route of ternary lithium and lithium iron phosphate
In 1997, lithium iron phosphate materials came out, lithium iron phosphate batteries are characterized by strong safety, low cost, but also low energy density. Ternary lithium battery materials came out at about the same time as lithium iron phosphate materials, in 1997-2000, nickel cobalt manganese, nickel cobalt aluminum and other ternary materials have been introduced.
The characteristics of ternary lithium batteries are just the opposite of lithium iron phosphate batteries, its energy density is high, the endurance is strong, but the cost is expensive, the safety is low, and it is easy to burn or even explode in a high temperature environment.
In 2004, lithium iron phosphate battery materials were introduced to China. By 2007, Bydir, a giant in China's new energy field, released its latest lithium iron phosphate battery and officially announced its entry into the field of new energy vehicles. In the years since, lithium iron phosphate batteries led by BYD have dominated China's new energy vehicle market.
With the rapid expansion of the wind outlet of the transformation of new energy vehicles, the coverage of electric vehicles has expanded from the commercial vehicle field with high safety requirements but low requirements for endurance to the passenger car field, at which time the drawbacks of low energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries have begun to be revealed.
In 2016, for the first time, the state included the energy density of the battery system in the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles. At this point, high energy density and long mileage have become the key assessment items for new energy vehicle companies to obtain state subsidies, and the market share of ternary lithium batteries with innate advantages in energy density is taking off in this year.
In 2018, the overall installed capacity of ternary lithium batteries surpassed lithium iron phosphate batteries for the first time, and CATL also completed the counterattack challenge of BYD, a giant in China's new energy field, which occupied half of the power battery field with its ternary lithium battery.
In Xiao Lei's view, the main reason why ternary lithium batteries can rise rapidly in the new energy vehicle market is that state subsidies have largely shared the cost of power batteries.
Driven by the subsidy policy, the mainland new energy automobile industry has a great technological improvement compared with ten years ago, or even a few years ago, even if looking at the world, the mainland's new energy automobile industry also has a position that cannot be ignored in the field of new energy vehicles.
However, pure electric vehicles have fallen into a vicious circle in a short period of time due to radical development. In this cycle, the rapid development of pure electric vehicles directly leads to the shortage of battery raw materials, and expensive battery raw materials in turn restrict the development of pure electric vehicles.
Source: CCTV-2
It should be known that the car has a lengthy industrial chain, and the power battery as the core component of new energy vehicles, its market situation will directly affect the development of the new energy automobile industry. Therefore, Xiao Lei believes that in the case that the subsidy push wave has become a foregone conclusion, the cost will determine the direction of the power battery technology route, and the decisive game of the power battery should be unfolded on the battery raw material supply side.
Cobalt-free and high nickelization are the development trend of ternary lithium batteries
The dispute between ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries has been protracted, and at present, lithium iron phosphate batteries have the upper hand with cost advantages. From the perspective of the material end, the upstream materials of lithium iron phosphate batteries are mainly lithium carbonate and iron phosphate, and the supply stability of these two materials is strong and the cost is low.
Although in the past two years, lithium iron phosphate batteries have benefited from breakthroughs in CTP technology, and its energy density has been greatly improved, but compared with ternary lithium batteries, energy density is still its short board. Therefore, in Xiao Lei's view, the expensive ternary lithium battery is still a technical route that cannot be abandoned. Xiao Lei believes that in the environment of the general rise of battery raw materials, cobalt-free and high nickel will become the main development route of ternary lithium batteries.
Nickel, cobalt, manganese is an important part of the cathode of ternary lithium batteries, of which cobalt, which is a veritable rare metal, it is expensive, and the market volatility is large. According to the data, as of January 2022, the total inventory level of global LME cobalt is only 2.5 million tons. Since September, the price of cobalt has continued to rise, and as of February 5, 2022, the price of cobalt has risen to 502,400/ton.
Compared with cobalt, which has large price fluctuations and the price center of gravity production is at a high level, nickel ore resources are abundant and the price is relatively stable. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the global nickel resource reserves in 2020 are about 89 million tons, and the global nickel mine mining period is 35 years based on the global nickel ore production of 2.5 million tons in 2020.
For the current situation of the raw material side, power battery manufacturers must be the most aware. In order to alleviate supply pressure and reduce costs, power battery manufacturers have begun their low-cobalt and high-nickel power battery research and development several years ago. The ratio of nickel, cobalt and manganese in ternary lithium batteries has evolved from the initial 111 era to 433, 532, 622, and 811 (the numbers represent the proportion of nickel, cobalt and manganese respectively).
Nowadays, head power battery manufacturers such as Ningde Times, Panasonic, LG New Energy, and Samsung SDI have mass-produced 811 ternary lithium batteries on a large scale, and some power battery manufacturers have even begun to lay out cobalt-free batteries. Among them, Hive Energy mass-produced its cobalt-free batteries as early as last July.
After more than 20 years of development of ternary lithium batteries, adjusting the ratio of raw materials for the positive electrode of the battery can only allow power battery manufacturers to reduce the manufacturing cost of power batteries, and cannot make them form core competitiveness. At the moment when the price of battery raw materials has risen sharply, purchasing battery raw materials is no longer the best choice for power battery manufacturers.
Raw materials are a must for power battery manufacturers
Xiao Lei believes that adjusting the ratio of cathode materials is only a compromise means for power battery manufacturers in the process of rising raw material prices, directly controlling power battery raw materials, and competing on the raw material side may be the final battle of power battery manufacturers. It should be known that the price increase caused by the shortage of raw materials has become the biggest variable in the development process of new energy vehicles, and power battery manufacturers can control the source in order to further control production capacity and cost.
In order to compete in the field of raw materials, Catalonia Times' subsidiary Canada Times spent $15 million to acquire a 25.38% stake in the North American nickel industry as early as April 2018. In September, CATL invested 1.85 billion yuan in conjunction with Grimme and Tsingshan Holdings to build precursor raw materials for high-nickel power ternary materials with an annual output of 50,000 tons in Indonesia, as well as 20,000 tons of ternary cathode materials.
With the entry of the world's number one power battery giant Ningde Era, BYD and Guoxuan Hi-Tech also joined hands with China Minmetals and Tangshan Caofeidian Investment Group in December 2018 to jointly launch the MCC new material project. In May 2021, Ewell Asia, a subsidiary of Ewell Lithium Energy, established a joint venture with Bertry and SKI to develop high-nickel ternary cathode materials.
Since the moment the Ningde era put its hand into the field of power battery raw materials, the war of power battery suppliers has spread to the uppermost industrial chain of new energy vehicle power batteries. However, the road for power battery suppliers to get involved in the mining sector is not easy. For battery raw material suppliers, the entry of power battery suppliers will directly touch their interests. In order to defend their territory, they are also actively laying out raw material mining projects.
For example, in October 2018, Huaqing Cobalt, a subsidiary of Huayou Cobalt, signed a cooperation agreement with Qingchuang International, IMIP, Woyuan Holdings and LONGSINCERE to build a laterite nickel smelting project with an annual output of 60,000 tons in Indonesia; in March 2021, Huayou Cobalt said on the interactive platform that it would invest in the construction of a high-ice nickel project with an annual output of 45,000 tons of nickel metal in Indonesia.
Seeing this, presumably careful friends have found that whether it is a power battery supplier or a raw material supplier, their raw material mining and smelting projects are carried out abroad without exception.
The reason for this situation is mainly because nickel is mainly abundant in New Caledonia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia and other countries, the mainland's nickel ore reserves are not abundant, and the raw material dispute carried out by Chinese companies abroad is not smooth.
In January, BYD Chile successfully bid for a contract for the mining of lithium mines in Chile with a quota of 80,000 tons for a high price of $61 million. However, due to regime change in chile, the 34th Chilean president, Boric, opposed the privatization of the mining industry and advocated the establishment of a state-run lithium company, which led to the suspension of BYD's contract, which had already successfully bid. Judging from Boric's governing program, the possibility of BYD winning this contract is already extremely slim.
Obviously, the main battlefield of lithium ore and nickel ore is abroad, and Chinese companies that want to compete abroad need to face not only the internal entanglement between peers, but also the game with the local government. It should be known that any country has a certain protection policy for local enterprises, especially mineral resources, so Chinese enterprises running to foreign countries to mine nickel ore and lithium mineral resources that have become popular now may touch the interests of local enterprises.
In addition, in Xiao Lei's view, in order to obtain power battery raw materials, in addition to the acquisition of minerals, waste power battery recycling is also a new blue ocean with great commercial development potential.
Previously, due to the imperfect recycling process and high recycling costs, power battery manufacturers were not active in the waste power battery recycling industry. Nowadays, the price of power battery raw materials has soared, and it has become a good choice to improve the power battery recycling system and extract raw materials from waste power batteries.
Note: The material for this article comes from the Internet