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With high energy density, high safety and low cost advantages, large cylindrical batteries have become one of the important directions for power battery companies to tackle tough problems, and have attracted a large number of fans and followers on the product side and application side.
After Tesla announced the mass production of the 1 millionth 4680 battery, the large cylindrical battery became famous and is becoming an important force in the power battery arena.
"The 46 series of batteries have outstanding safety and economy, the use process is not deformed, the body is slim, lifelong cute, is becoming the ultimate technical direction of power batteries." Liu Jincheng, chairman of Ewell Lithium Energy, expressed his high recognition of this battery technology route at the previous electric vehicle 100-person meeting.
"Gamble letter" large cylinder, Ewell Lithium Energy has planned 200GWh large cylinder and square laminated production capacity, of which large cylindrical batteries occupy a large proportion and are expected to be completed in 2022.
Liu Jincheng's judgment is that based on the cognition of battery safety and economy, the large cylindrical battery will become the main power battery form of high-end new energy vehicles. It also emphasizes the advantages of the big cylinder with 4 "extremes", namely "extreme standard, extreme reliability, extreme manufacturing and extreme system". For example, in terms of reliability, the expansion resistance of the cylinder is almost unchanged in the radial direction, and the structure is stable and stress-free throughout the life cycle.
Fan Wenguang, vice president of BAK Battery, is also optimistic about the large cylindrical technical route. He believes that based on the power battery high safety, cost performance, long endurance, long life, fast charging and other demand pyramid judgment, large cylindrical batteries are the best solution for high-end electric vehicles in the next 5-10 years.
For the market demand space, Fan Wenguang is very "radical", combined with the customer demand has been received combined with industry information judgment, by 2025, large cylindrical batteries will account for at least more than 30% of the share, that is, about 480GWh, which has exceeded the total demand for 21 years of global (power batteries).
In addition, as the main supplier of Tesla cylindrical batteries, Panasonic is also a fan of large cylindrical batteries, planning to produce 4680 large cylindrical batteries in small batches this year and start mass production next year.
The large cylindrical battery, which is highly sought after by OEMs and battery companies, is a large cylindrical battery with a diameter of 46mm and a height covering 80mm-120mm, which was first announced by Tesla on its 2020 Battery Day. Tesla realizes the optimal solution for cylindrical battery safety and performance by enlarging batteries, electrodeless ear design, silicon anode materials, dry electrode process manufacturing processes and other materials, technological innovations and process changes.
With high energy density, high safety and low cost advantages, large cylindrical batteries have become one of the important directions for power battery companies to tackle tough problems, and have attracted a large number of fans and followers on the product side and application side.
On the application side, Tesla, Porsche, JAC, Dongfeng Lantu and other passenger car companies have successively released clear large cylindrical battery application signals. On the supply side, battery companies such as LG, Panasonic, BAK, Lishen, Yiwei Lithium Energy, and Hive Energy actively follow up with large cylindrical batteries including 4680.
Tesla effect pull, superimposed full-pole ear technology breakthrough, ternary / iron lithium technology parallel and other mature technologies, the large cylinder in performance, cost, safety advantages are becoming more and more obvious. With the joint efforts of domestic and foreign battery companies and supply chain links, large cylindrical batteries have ushered in a critical point of industrialization, and it is expected to start large-scale mass production in 2023.
Battery enterprises dense layout in 2023 scale mass production
As the proposer of the 4680 large cylindrical battery, Tesla industrialization is also at the forefront of the market.
In February this year, Tesla announced that the 1 millionth 4680 battery was rolled off the production line at a pilot factory in California, opening a new stage of large-scale production of large-cylinder batteries.
Tesla is currently planning to produce its own 4680 batteries at four gigafactories in California, Texas, Nevada and Berlin, Germany. According to the previous plan, the annual production of its 4680 battery will reach 100GWh in 2022 and 3TWh in 2030.
As a Tesla cylindrical battery supplier, Panasonic is close behind, planning to produce 4680 batteries in the first half of this year, and 4680 batteries for Tesla from 2023, with an annual production capacity of 10GWh, to meet the battery demand of about 150,000 cars.
Such a huge demand for batteries, in addition to the self-produced 4680 batteries and Panasonic supply, Tesla also began to look for 4680 large cylindrical battery partners in August last year, including Ningde Times, LG Chemical, Yiwei Lithium Energy and so on.
Internationally, LG plans to expand the 4680 battery production capacity at the Wucang plant in South Korea, planning mass production in 2022-2023; Samsung SDI plans to achieve mass production in 2024; and Israeli company Storedot announced the production of the first 4680 battery in September last year, planning to achieve mass production in 2024.
The progress of domestic enterprises should not be underestimated. Ewell Lithium Energy has laid out two major models, 4680 and 4695, and has planned 200GWh large cylindrical and square battery production capacity, which is expected to be completed in 2022. Its large cylindrical material has achieved the ultimate level of nickel 9 series.
BAK Battery 46 series large cylindrical battery height from 80-120mm, energy density of 275-300Wh/kg, is scheduled to be small batch mass production in the second half of this year, mass production in 2023, is expected to expand production capacity to 80GWh in the next few years.
The main battery companies are planning to achieve mass production of large cylindrical battery products around 2023. It is foreseeable that after the completion of large-scale mass production and the initial introduction of the market, the market competition of the large cylinder may have just begun.
The industrialization of supporting supply chains is accelerated
Large cylindrical batteries to achieve endurance, charging and cost compatibility and optimization, has become an important choice for electric vehicle battery supporting, industrialization is imminent, supply chain supporting links to accelerate follow-up, in advance to seize the 4680 battery market to the highest point.
The main and auxiliary materials of the 46 series large cylindrical batteries have been upgraded to the direction of high energy and high magnification, and the penetration/ dosage of main auxiliary materials such as high nickel cathode, silicon carbon anode, lithium supplement, carbon nanotube, and LiFSI is expected to increase. In the field of structural parts, due to the new structural design of 4680, the manufacturing threshold is raised, so that the structural parts turn to customization, shell + cover complete sets of procurement; in terms of equipment, laser die-cutting, laser welding and other processes increase the amount of use, high-precision requirements are improved.
Silicon-based anode material: As an ideal next-generation anode material, pure silicon has a specific capacity of 10 times that of graphite, but pure silicon expands nearly 3x during charging, and is currently doped with silicon oxide, with a doping content of about 5%, and 4680 batteries are expected to increase to more than 10%.
At present, the anode enterprises represented by Shanshan Shares and Beiterui have achieved silicon-based anode mass production and batch supply, while Putailai, Shida Shenghua, Xiangfenghua, Silicon Treasure Technology and other companies are in the layout, pilot or research and development stage.
High nickel materials: At present, including Ningde Times, Panasonic, LG New Energy, Samsung SDI, SKI and other head battery companies have mass-produced and supplied ternary batteries with a nickel content of more than 80%, and are accelerating the research and development progress of ultra-high nickel batteries.
Among them, NCM9 series, NCA9 series and NCMA batteries with nickel content of 90% or more can reduce the cobalt content to 10% or even 5%, becoming the next generation of battery companies.
New lithium salt LiFSi field: including Tianci Materials, Yongtai Technology, Xinjiubang, Polyfluoride, Hongfluoroli Lithium, Kangpeng Technology and other enterprises are actively expanding LIFSI production capacity. The cost advantage will be highlighted after large-scale production.
Carbon nanotube field: GGII expects that China's carbon nanotube conductive paste shipments will exceed 120,000 tons in 2022 and 320,000 tons by 2025, becoming the most growing category in the field of lithium battery conductive agents.
Structural parts field: the technical barrier of large cylindrical battery structural parts is higher than 2170 cylindrical batteries, one is to cancel the module structure, the load current becomes larger, the second is the size becomes larger, the thickness becomes thicker, and the third is the bottom and top are designed explosion-proof valves, and the positive collector disc is directly welded to the pole, with a CID design.
Kodali announced that it has the production capacity of large cylindrical 4680 battery structural parts, and will provide customers with corresponding supporting facilities according to the actual needs of customers. Slack also said that the verification of the new 4680 structural parts in downstream customers is progressing smoothly.
Front dry electrode technology: the positive and negative electrode particles are mixed with the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) binder to make it fibrous, and the positive and negative electrode sheets are prepared by directly rolling the powder into a film and pressing onto the aluminum foil or copper foil. It can omit complicated roll pressing, drying and other processes, greatly simplify the production process, improve production efficiency and save costs.
Full polar ear technology field: Yifei laser cylindrical full polar ear "intelligent manufacturing" series of solutions can provide test equipment, semi-automatic equipment, fully automatic equipment, digital workshop turnkey projects for battery companies at different stages of development. Its cylindrical all-pole ear "intelligent manufacturing" digital workshop turnkey project is suitable for high-volume, digital production.
What needs to be vigilant is that the agglomeration phenomenon of active materials in the dry electrode homogenization process is still the biggest challenge of large cylindrical scale mass production, dry electrode, full pole ear welding and other technologies have a long research and development cycle, and there is a certain know-how, when other companies achieve breakthroughs still need to keep track.
In addition, the yield of battery production is also a key, it is understood that the large-scale mass production of 4680 batteries under the yield rate of 80% is not economical.
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