The explosive growth of the new energy vehicle market in 2021 has stimulated the vitality of related technical fields, as one of the three core technologies of new energy vehicles, the power battery industry has entered an explosive period in 2021, and the world's major economic powers have begun to regard the power battery industry as a strategic industry. However, on the other hand, in terms of the premise of technical level, there are still many pain points in the power battery, and this has become a historical moment when new batteries and new technologies are emerging in an endless stream, for intelligent electric vehicles, power batteries are fundamental, and even more important than chips.
Wen 丨 wisdom driving network Zhang Xin
Today's power battery is called a new strategic resource of the automobile industry is not excessive, intelligent driving network special planning "Looking Back at 2021" Today we focus on the power battery industry and power battery technology.
——01——
The power battery industry is super strong
In 2021, the power battery industry has shown a super strong situation in the world, and the Ningde era dominates the world, but LG new energy and BYD are close behind.
Many car companies have also penetrated into the power battery industry, China's Great Wall Motor, GAC Group, SAIC Motor have built their own power battery industry chain, and launched self-developed products.
Battery density and safety have made greater progress in 2021, and semi-solid-state batteries, solid-state batteries have mass-produced products.
Data show that in 2021, the installed capacity of domestic power batteries will reach 140GWh, an increase of 165% year-on-year.
Among them, the passenger car market in 2021 power battery installed capacity increased by 164% year-on-year.
According to the monthly point of view, the monthly growth rate in 2021 exceeded 95%, and the growth rate in February was as high as 622% due to the low base of the epidemic in 2020.
According to the type of power battery, the installed capacity of ternary batteries was 74.3GWh, an increase of 91% year-on-year, accounting for 53%; the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate was 65.4GWh, an increase of 192% year-on-year, accounting for 47%.
The share gap between the two has narrowed compared with 2020, and it is almost equal.
In terms of the market share of power batteries of various brands in 2021, the installed capacity of CATL (excluding joint ventures) ranked first, an increase of 132% year-on-year. Among them, the Catalonia era supporting Tesla battery installed capacity is the highest, accounting for 20%, which is naturally closely related to Tesla's high sales in China.
It was followed by BYD, China Innovation Airlines, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, LG New Energy and TIMES SAIC.
BYD power battery is mainly equipped with BYD automobiles, but also supplies FAW, Jinkang, Dongfeng and other car companies;
China Innovation Airlines supports GAC Group and Changan Automobile with the largest number, of which the installed capacity of BATTERIES of GAC Group accounts for 65%;
Guoxuan Hi-Tech supports SAIC With the most, accounting for 29%;
LG new energy supporting Tesla battery installed capacity is the highest;
Times SAIC has the highest supporting SAIC Group, accounting for 94%.
In the field of passenger cars, the top three car companies in terms of installed capacity are BYD, Tesla, and SAIC Motor.
Among them, BYD battery installed capacity is 21.34GWh, the main supplier is BYD (100%); Tesla battery installed capacity is 19.98GWh, the main suppliers are CATL Era (70%), LG Chemical (30%); SAIC Group battery installed capacity is 13.63GWh, the main suppliers are NINGDE Times (33%), Times SAIC (27%), Guoxuan Hi-Tech (14%).
On January 27 this year, there was a new trend in the power battery industry - LG New Energy was officially listed on the Korean Stock Exchange, raising 68 billion yuan, which is the largest IPO in South Korea's history.
On the first day of listing, LG New Energy soared 99%, with a market value of 750 billion yuan, becoming the second largest listed company in South Korea after Samsung Electronics.
LG New Energy was born from LG Group, is the strongest opponent in the Ningde era, and has established supply relations with Ford, Volkswagen, Audi, Daimler, Renault, Jaguar, Porsche and other car companies.
Starting from 2020, LG New Energy has become Tesla's power battery supplier, which has enhanced its strength and influence.
LG New Energy CEO Quan Yingshou said that its goal is to surpass the Ningde era to become the world's first.
However, in terms of market capitalization, the current market value of CATL is 1.4 trillion yuan, which is about twice that of LG New Energy.
According to the data released by the research agency SNE, the market share of the power battery in 2021 is 32.5%, ranking first, and the market share of LG New Energy is 21.5%, ranking second.
The difference between the two is 11 percentage points, and the gap is still relatively large.
According to the official information, the planned production capacity of the Cataline era before 2025 is close to 600GWh, and LG new energy is 430GWh, and the volume gap between the two is still obvious.
It is reported that on January 12, 2022, LG New Energy signed a 5-year purchase order with Australian lithium miner Liontown Resources.
According to the contract signed by the two parties, starting in 2024, Liontown will supply LG New Energy with 100,000 dry tons/year of spodumene concentrate, and the final total supply will be 700,000 dry tons, which can meet the power battery production demand of 2.5 million electric vehicles.
Today, the Ningde era has gained the name of "Ning Wang" in the Chinese stock market, but its position is not stable, there are strong opponents at home and abroad, a little bit, it will hand over the chief position, in the cusp of the Ningde era in recent days the stock price turmoil, all because it has been the attention of the relevant departments in the United States, there is a risk of being sanctioned.
Power batteries are becoming a strategic industry that transcends the status of oil.
——02——
Domestic car companies deeply layout the power battery industry
In the capital market, the follow-up force of the mainland power battery industry is also rapid.
Among them, Chinese car companies have begun to take the initiative to lay out in the field of power batteries and establish their own moats.
Since February 2021, Hive Energy has completed 5 consecutive rounds of financing.
Among them, In late February, Hive Energy obtained 3.5 billion yuan of A round financing, and a month later obtained A+ round;
In July, Hive Energy received a Series B financing of 10.28 billion yuan;
In December, the B+ round of financing was completed;
On January 17, 2022, Hailiang co., Ltd. increased its capital by 322 million yuan, accounting for 0.7%.
So far, the valuation of Honeycomb Energy has reached 46 billion yuan.
In addition, the financing worth mentioning in 2021 also includes: AVIC Lithium Battery completed a 12 billion equity financing in September; Huineng Technology, which claimed to develop the world's first solid-state lithium ceramic battery, completed a financing of 326 million US dollars; Lin Li New Energy, which focuses on the industrialization of high-performance iron phosphate materials, was also invested.
According to statistics, in the past year, dozens of VC/PE institutions, including Sequoia China, Shenzhen Venture Capital, IDG Capital, Hillhouse Venture Capital, Legend Capital, Primavera Capital, Cathay Fund, Lightspeed China, SoftBank China, etc., as well as industrial funds such as CATL Times, Great Wall Motors, Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund, and Guangzhou Investment Capital, have entered the door of the power battery industry.
At the technical level, 2021 is also a big year for the technology of power batteries, especially vehicle companies, which have launched a lot of new technologies worth paying attention to, GAC Aean launched a magazine battery, BYD's blade battery, Great Wall Motors launched a cobalt-free battery and jelly battery in 202, and then launched a Dayu battery in 2021.
On March 10, 2021, GAC Aeon released a new generation of power battery safety technology - magazine battery, which realized for the first time that the whole package of ternary lithium batteries could not catch fire, and achieved a breakthrough in battery safety performance.
Based on the design idea of preventing short circuit in the battery cell, preventing thermal runaway after short circuit, and preventing heat spread after thermal runaway, the magazine battery adopts a design similar to the safety chamber, which can effectively block the spread of thermal runaway batteries. When an abnormality is detected in the cell voltage or temperature, the battery cooling system can be automatically activated to cool the battery.
According to reports, the magazine battery has four core technologies: ultra-high heat resistance and stability of the cell, super heat insulation battery safety compartment, extremely fast cooling system, full-time control of the fifth generation of battery management system.
Among them, the ultra-high heat resistance and stability of the battery cell through the nano-scale coating of the cathode material and the application of doping technology, effectively improve the thermal stability, to prevent thermal runaway; the application of the new electrolyte additive to achieve self-repair of the SEI film, improve the life of the battery cell, reduce the risk of cell short circuit; high safety electrolyte through the special electrolyte additive, when heated to more than 120 ° C, spontaneous polymerization on the surface of the active material to form a polymer film with high impedance characteristics, greatly reducing the thermal runaway reaction heat production.
The ultra-heat insulated battery safety compartment has a mesh nanoporous thermal insulation material and a high-temperature resistant upper shell, which constructs a super-insulated safety compartment for the battery, and finally realizes that the thermal runaway of the ternary lithium battery cell does not spread to adjacent cells. The housing on the battery pack can withstand temperatures above 1400 °C, which can effectively protect the entire battery pack.
Through the design of the fully bonded liquid cooling system, high-speed heat dissipation channel, and high-precision heat conduction path, the ultra-fast cooling system has achieved a 40% increase in heat dissipation area and a 30% increase in heat dissipation efficiency.
The fifth-generation battery management system with full-time control can achieve 10 round-weather data collection per second by using the latest generation battery management system chip of the vehicle standard level, which is 100 times higher than the previous generation system, and monitors the battery status with a full-time patrol mode with full coverage for 24 hours. When an abnormality is found, the battery cooling system is immediately activated to cool the battery.
In addition, the magazine battery has also been fully optimized in terms of cooling system, battery cell design, package layout, etc., and the energy density has increased by 9.4% compared with the volume energy density of similar ordinary battery packs, the weight energy density has increased by 5.7%, and the cost has decreased by 10%.
After more than half a month, BYD officially launched the blade battery on March 29, 2021, and once again passed the most severe needle prick test.
Traditional lithium iron phosphate batteries contain a three-layer structure - cells, modules, battery packs, and the supporting and fixed structural parts of the cells and modules will occupy a large part of the space.
The blade battery has reshaped the structure of the battery pack, eliminating the module and most of the structural parts, and the battery cell is directly packaged, which increases the energy density per unit volume by 50%. At the same time, the longer polar ear distance reduces the risk of internal short circuit and heat generation, and the thinner thickness further reduces the heat accumulation during puncture, improving the strength and safety of the battery pack.
At the launch of the blade battery, BYD announced a video of the battery safety comparison test.
In the test, the ternary lithium battery directly deflagulated when the heat ran out, and the eggs placed on the battery were blown away; the surface temperature of the traditional lithium iron phosphate block battery reached 200-400 ° C, and the eggs were burned; the surface temperature of the blade battery was only 60 ° C, and the eggs were intact.
Wang Chuanfu, chairman and president of BYD Group, said: "The 'blade battery' reflects BYD's determination to completely end the safety pain points of new energy vehicles, and is more confident to completely erase the word 'spontaneous combustion' from the dictionary of new energy vehicles." ”
At the same time, BYD announced that blade battery technology will be open to the entire new energy automobile industry.
On June 29, 2021, Great Wall Motors officially released dayu batteries, its core advantage is outstanding safety performance, its triple 811 large-capacity high-nickel cells can be anywhere in the battery pack, single or multiple cells trigger thermal runaway, can achieve no fire, no explosion.
In 2021, when there have been many new energy vehicle battery fire accidents, this is also quite interesting, becoming another new breakthrough that is expected to completely solve the pain points of battery safety.
The technical core of Dayu battery lies in eight new designs, including: heat source isolation, two-way exchange, heat flow distribution, directional discharge, high temperature insulation, automatic fire extinguishing, positive pressure oxygen resistance, intelligent cooling, and has obtained dozens of core technology patents, covering heat source suppression, isolation, cooling, discharge and other technical fields.
According to the official introduction, the maximum temperature of the test experiment reached 1037 ° C, the instantaneous maximum air pressure was about 16KPa, and there was no open flame spillage and explosion in the Dayu battery, and the exhaust flue gas temperature was also lower than 100 degrees Celsius.
In addition, Great Wall Motors also announced that dayu battery will be open to the whole society free of charge as an open series of technologies.
According to the plan, Dayu Battery will become the power battery of Great Wall Motor's new models and will be fully put into use in 2022.
For Great Wall Motors, there are two new technologies in the field of batteries that are also worth mentioning, that is, cobalt-free batteries and jelly batteries, which were released earlier at the end of 2020.
Among them, cobalt-free batteries are the first mass-produced technology of Honeycomb Energy under the Great Wall, which realizes the cobalt-free battery and effectively improves safety. According to the official introduction of the Great Wall, the cobalt-free battery has been sent to many car companies at home and abroad for inspection, and the feedback effect is very good.
In terms of technology, Hive Energy uses a single crystal cobalt-free material. Compared with the 811 low-cobalt battery, the energy density of the cobalt-free battery can be the same as the 811 battery, or even slightly higher, but the safety is better than the 811 battery.
In the field of battery cell technology, The jelly battery of Honeycomb Energy is a lithium battery that applies a new jelly-like electrolyte, which has the characteristics of high conductivity, self-healing and flame retardancy, which can prevent the spread of heat on the basis of almost no reduction in electrical performance.
Official data show that the conductivity of the jelly battery is 6 * 10 s / cm, the heat resistance temperature can reach 150 ° C, and the full electric needle puncture test has achieved no fire, no smoke and self-healing.
——03——
Looking forward to 2022: 4680 enters the mass production stage
The power battery industry is more promising in 2022.
One of the most concerned aspects is whether the solid-state battery has come to a critical point, and the second is whether Musk's 4680 battery can be mass-produced to further reduce the cost of the battery.
In the Chinese market, there are also many new technologies that will usher in the landing moment in 2022, first of all, THET 7 will be launched on March 28 this year, which will be the first time that a semi-solid-state battery will be installed in a mass production car.
According to the news released by Dongfeng Motor on January 22 this year, the first batch of 50 Dongfeng-Ganfeng high-specific solid-state battery vehicles developed in cooperation with Ganfeng Lithium was delivered in Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province, becoming the world's first solid-state battery vehicle demonstration operation project.
However, although it is a solid-state battery, its performance is limited, and the biggest improvement is mainly reflected in safety.
It can be clearly said that the real breakthrough solid-state battery in 2022 will not be mass-produced, but what the market is most looking forward to is that the 4680 battery released by Tesla in 2020 is already expected to really land.
According to overseas media reports, on February 2, Panasonic Chief Financial Officer Hirokazu Umeda said at the company's quarterly earnings meeting that Panasonic will start trial production of 4680 batteries at its Wakayama Prefecture plant near Panasonic Osaka headquarters early this year, but the specific time and location of mass production have not yet been announced.
It is reported that Umeda Hirokazu said: "After various tests, we will install a new 4680 battery mass production line, which may also be in Wakayama Prefecture." Once the 4680 battery is delivered, Panasonic will supply Tesla first. ”
At the time node, this coincides with a new round of technological iterations in the field of automatic driving and the Internet of Vehicles, so it also means that new energy intelligent vehicles are expected to usher in a new round of technological outbreaks in 2022 and achieve the overall improvement of comprehensive strength.
Whether electric vehicles can break through the endurance dilemma in 2022, power batteries are being deeply focused by countries around the world, and its every bit of progress means that the automotive industry has taken a big step forward on the road of full electrification.
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