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At Tesla Battery Day in September 2020, Musk subversively released a brand new battery , the high-nickel 4680 battery. Lao Ma claimed that compared with the 18650 battery on the market at that time, the 4680 battery could increase the mileage by 16%, increase the energy density by 5 times, and mass-produce this product in 2022.
Tesla Battery Day
Fast forward to 2022. Curiously, I studied it and found that the Model Y loaded with 4680 batteries has been delivered soon, and it is expected that by the end of this year, Tesla's battery capacity will climb to 100Gwh, allowing 1.3 million car owners to sit on 4680 batteries and drive.
4680 Battery Construction (Interface News)
In this way, the cylindrical battery with a diameter of 46mm and a height of 80mm blew the first opportunity for the lithium battery ring. Today, the author will take you to see, 4680 is really a black technology that hopes to subvert the lithium battery industry chain, or is it the next cow blown out by the madman Musk?
First, what makes your eyes light up?
We say that the packaging of lithium batteries is generally in three ways, such as the cylindrical battery in your mouse, the soft package that Ning Wang has always respected, and the square hard shell battery with high domestic popularity.
Battery package form
Tesla has always been a believer in cylindrical batteries, from the beginning of the 18650 battery (18mm in diameter and 65mm in length) to 21700, and then to the 4680 in mass production. With the increase of battery diameter, the proportion of the mass of active substances inside the battery is also increasing, which is also the internal logic of the increase in battery energy density.
Comparison without cylindrical battery (CNKI)
In addition to becoming bigger and taller, the 4680 battery has two other new technologies that have attracted the author's attention:
1. The collector is transformed into a polar ear
What is a pole ear you may be asking? The polar ear is the contact point (the bridge between the cell current and the outside of the cell) when the positive and negative poles of the battery are charged and discharged. This bridge is like a single wooden bridge, in the case of the increasingly large electric core, the polar ear single wooden bridge will produce more heat, which is bound to be detrimental to battery safety.
Pole ear of conventional battery (Tab)
Tesla chose to attack the weakness of the battery. Simply remove the polar ear directly, and turn the entire collector (the structure of the current collection) into the polar ear, so that the heating problem at high energy density can be broken.
2, silicon-based negative electrode to say goodbye to graphite
Now when it comes to lithium battery anode, everyone thinks of graphite, but scientific studies have shown that the capacity of graphite electrodes is close to the ceiling, and the energy density of silicon is higher, so silicon oxygen and silicon carbon are also eager to try. But the clichéd problem is that in the early days of technological disruption, the cost is always a pain, and the silicon-based negative electrode is more than 3 times that of graphite.
At the same time, the underlying logic of the implementation of the electrodeless ear technology is the dry electrode technology. Traditionally, the powder of battery material needs to be poured into the solution first, before drying and pressing the film. The dry electrode technology, on the other hand, is a positive/negative material pressing technique that directly eliminates the step of pouring the solution and directly presses the film after the powder is mixed. As a result, costs can be reduced by nearly 20% when the production process is reduced.
Solvent-Free Manufacturing of Electrodes for Lithium-ion Batteries
Therefore, such a step of micro-innovation may be able to cause subversive changes in the industry.
Second, players must not come to a great leap forward?
When a technology in the industry is becoming more and more mature, the next step is to quickly step up, seize the market, and play a beautiful blitzkrieg.
The maturity of lithium battery cell technology is mostly from the yield of the product. After communicating with friends in the industry, the author learned that Tesla's battery cell yield rate has increased from the previous 80% to 90%, and from an economic point of view, it has the premise of large-scale mass production. Under the technological revolution, the advantages of Tesla's gross profit margin are also more obvious. It is a good interpretation that technology is the first productive force of development.
Tesla Gross Margin (Company Announcement)
Tesla's partners are also desperately trying to increase production capacity, trying to ride the east wind in the next outlet. For example, Panasonic has planned to spend $700 million to build a 4680 battery factory with a production capacity of 10GWh, which is calculated to be 150,000 electric vehicles, and will start small batch production in two months. Ewell Lithium Energy (300014) and BAK batteries are also preparing to ship on a small scale this year. The Ningde era (300750) did not intend to leave others half-cut, and 8 production lines have been put on the agenda (12GWh). LG Energy said early last year that it began to build a pilot production line for tesla 4860, ready to compete with Panasonic.
In a word, Tesla's 4680 partners are ready to achieve small-scale production this year, and the real mass production may still be in 2023.
From the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, Tesla is also triggering the catfish effect.
This includes the impact of the silicon-based anode on the graphite anode of the anode material just mentioned, and Bertry (835185), Guoxuan Hi-Tech (002074), Shanshan Shares (600884) and so on have stepped up their efforts to increase investment in the silicon-based anode and play the first chess before the technical substitution.
In addition, the slave side will also bring a new round of equipment updates. For example, the winding machine (the die-cut and formed pole piece is rolled into a battery cell, the real king of the coil). The arrival of the 4680 puts forward higher requirements for the winding machine. From the current point of view, Yinghe Technology (300457) claims to have begun to supply winding equipment to downstream customers in batches.
Winding machine product comparison (company announcement)
Finally, the arrival of the large cylindrical battery 4680 has made significant progress in the efficiency of the battery, the mileage of the vehicle, and the cost of manufacturing (in theory, the battery cost can be reduced by up to 0.54 yuan / wh in the next 3 years), so that the mileage anxiety of the owner can be further alleviated. At the same time, the 4680 may also use a higher voltage (800V) electrical architecture, providing a better application scenario for fast charging.
The progress of technology and industry is happening all around us day by day.
Note: This article does not constitute any investment advice. The stock market is risky, and you need to be cautious when entering the market. There is no harm in buying and selling.