NIO swap station fire: NIO owner feedback is unexpected Battery becomes a "time bomb"

There are so many things in the world that are not written by coincidence, and this time it is NIO's turn.

June 25 should have been a moment worth a little celebration, and in 2021-2022, it was described as the world's automotive industry infrastructure maniac, and finally completed the landing of 1,500 substations on the same day.

However, on that day, the NIO exchange station in Jiangmen City caught fire and smoked, and within half an hour from the alarm to the open flame was extinguished. As of June 26, NIO has not yet given an official response from the company, and through the official response, the conclusion can be obtained that "the fire was quickly extinguished without causing casualties."

At this time, after fermentation in the network, countless jokers were also hooked, "1500 seats in the morning, 1499 seats in the afternoon." ”

In fact, this matter has a strong warning effect on the current high-speed development of the new energy vehicle industry, because the battery replacement mode has been known as the safest energy replenishment strategy for a long time, after this incident, whether NIO owners should worry, the division of responsibility for this incident, NIO's previously planned replacement station and traditional gas station combination, this series, can it be promoted normally.

The exchange station is on fire, but the owner of the NIO car is not particularly worried?

Do you worry about this kind of problem when changing the battery? To this end, we contacted more than 10 NIO owners around us, and the answers we got were quite different from what the outside world thought.

The answer is basically the same, as follows: "There is nothing to worry about, I have not encountered it before so many times to change the battery, and this time is not a special situation, in fact, from another perspective, it is not even a bad thing for the owner." ”

The special situation mentioned by car owners comes from sharing information in the NIO app. To the effect that the cause of this incident is that the NIO battery monitoring system found that the vehicle's battery error may have problems, remind the owner to go to the power exchange station for power change, about 10 minutes after the power change, this battery has problems, thermal runaway in the battery compartment of the power exchange station, causing fire and smoke.

In short, if the information is ultimately determined to be true. This incident is indeed good for the use of NIO owners, but it also poses a lot of challenges to NIO's current substation operation system. The reason is that the official system takes the initiative to prompt, and finally allows the owner to exempt the vehicle from spontaneous combustion, causing material damage, etc. The challenge for NIO's system is how to properly deal with the owner's battery monitoring system when it checks out that the owner's battery is experiencing a problem after this incident.

Processed with current logic, the answer is no. Because when the power battery shell is damaged by impact, there is a high probability of thermal runaway caused by a short circuit, if the network transmission information is true, the battery is included in the charging station, this logic is tantamount to NIO itself to set a problem. Therefore, how to deal with this kind of problem, from an afterthought and simple and crude point of view, should be NIO exchange power station equipped with explosion-proof barrels equipped with airports and auto shows, or specially prepare an explosion-proof area to be exempted.

Otherwise, if the same kind of small probability accidental event occurs again, either only remind the owner and let the owner find a way to deal with it, and the result is most likely spontaneous combustion; Otherwise, recall to the vicinity of the exchange station for related treatment.

The former is naturally contrary to the user-oriented enterprise, which is the foundation of life, and the latter, although there are some jokes and jokes, but it is a problem that NIO has to face, the technical level is on the one hand, and the enterprise management level is on the other.

At present, NIO is rapidly deploying the third-generation station, and conditionally replacing the previous first-generation station and second-generation station, the biggest difference between the third-generation replacement station is that the first-generation station is basically in an attended state, and the second-generation and third-generation stations are unattended most of the time under the original intention of high-automation research and development. In 2022, we were suspended when the battery was halfway up when the battery was replaced due to a small deviation from the standard parking position when the vehicle was automatically parked in the second-generation station in Beijing. After contacting by phone, the power exchange is completed after remote reset. Reducing the proportion of people in the power exchange system is the core idea of NIO in the current infrastructure construction, if relying on people to deal with such accidental events, NIO will adjust not only the technical logic in the power exchange system, but also the logic of the entire operation and cost control.

In short, there are few particularly good solutions to such incidents today. The reason why it is rare, because Mercedes-Benz's scheme on the pure electric EQE in 2022 can solve the problem to a certain extent, that is, the vehicle in the stationary parking state, driving process, will be relatively high frequency at the same time to do local monitoring, cloud monitoring, when found that there are errors and other problems, the vehicle will not be allowed to unlock / start and other power-on behaviors when stationary, the vehicle will be quickly reminded when moving, seek power off after the reminder, and then connect with the relevant emergency rescue department to deal with possible risks.

This strategy can be regarded as a relatively complete treatment mechanism in the current pure electric vehicle model, but in view of the fact that if the impact of the vehicle's power battery is not easy to predict, it is not a perfect solution.

Is it still possible to build the exchange station in the gas station?

For most car owners, the choice of this incident is to side with NIO. However, because NIO has another innovation in power replacement, that is, cooperating with gas station giants such as Sinopec to build stations, this behavior has also become a hot topic after the fire in the power exchange station.

Today, whether the construction of the replacement station in the gas station can continue to advance rapidly, the crux of the problem depends on how NIO adjusts the pit stop strategy of the diseased battery.

In 2021, when the results of the cooperation between NIO and Sinopec first landed, the topic of safety was explained to the public. The core information is that through the 202 monitoring sensors of the second-generation swap station, 37 AI cameras with SDK functions, combined with the independent AI+ edge computing system with a computing power of 21Tops, it can automatically identify the organisms that enter the working area of the swap platform, and ensure human safety by identifying and stopping the work of the swap station. In terms of other potential safety hazards, we maintain safety by giving early warning of more than 20 composite working conditions such as temperature, humidity, smoke, and flooding 24 hours a day.

Then, based on the above information, what NIO can do is to algorithmically keep battery-sick vehicles away from the exchange station jointly built with gas stations, which can be regarded as the most secure solution. According to the news announced by Sinopec and NIO in 2021, Zhang Yuzhuo, chairman of Sinopec, said that by 2025, Sinopec will build 5,000 charging and swapping stations, and on April 15 this year, when the two sides officially celebrate the second anniversary of the cooperation, this number is 251, including 102 exchange stations, 121 supercharging stations, 28 destination charging stations, and more than 4,700 charging/swapping stations will land in the next two years.

Industry-wide challenges that will be solved in 10 years?

Still based on the assumption of "battery damage", we can further extend whether the next development ideas of the entire automotive industry change this topic.

If it is hit, the battery is damaged. Under the current technical environment, at a large level, it is a high probability of spontaneous combustion of the whole vehicle, and at a small level, the battery scrapping is also a certainty, causing high material damage to the owner. The industry is currently exploring new technological innovations such as no fire, no smoke, and no thermal runaway after a battery collision, but in view of the fact that the car is a complex integration project, it includes not only the safety of the three electric systems, but also whether the oil in other parts will cause spontaneous combustion of the vehicle after the accident of the three electric systems.

In a larger way, it is possible to cause a scene that causes spontaneous combustion of vehicles and other facilities. At a small scale, in fact, for most car owners, it is also an unbearable pain.

In 2022, there have been several "sky-high cases of replacing batteries", such as the Polestar 2 dual-motor version priced at about 300,000 yuan, where car owners were required to replace the entire battery pack after the collision, but the replacement price of the battery pack was as high as 540,000 yuan, which was inverted with the price of the car by 200,000 yuan.

Recently, Tesla's after-sales battery replacement price has also been exposed, the most expensive Model S/X replacement 100kWh battery pack, the final cost is more than 260,000 yuan, while the Model 3/Y battery replacement cost is between 12-150,000 yuan.

In addition, in 2022, there is also feedback from Ora good cat owners, and its maximum price is less than 150,000 yuan of the model, due to operation errors stopped into the pit, and finally got a replacement battery quotation of 95,000 yuan, accounting for more than 60% of the entire car price.

Whether there is a real solution to this incident, today, the local/remote monitoring and early warning system still lacks some heat, and from the known technical solutions, the answer is only all-solid-state batteries.

In the existing power battery, the safety hazards mainly lie in the three elements of high temperature, fuel and oxygen. In the working scene of lithium-ion batteries, short circuits will produce high temperatures, the carbonate solvent in the battery is a natural fuel, and the decomposition of cathode materials will produce oxygen.

Therefore, the thermal runaway caused by the power battery is always violent and dangerous.

The current solution in the industry is mainly that through high-temperature resistant ceramic separators, positive and negative electrode material surface modification, optimization of battery structure design, optimization of BMS, improvement of cooling system and other measures, safety can be greatly improved, but once the three elements of large capacity, electrolyte, and lithium-ion battery are gathered at the same time, it cannot be cured.

The technical path of all-solid-state batteries can be well cured, because without flammable electrolyte, the topic of safety will be well solved. Of course, things are always relative, and there is a huge technical gap and cost gap in all-solid-state batteries.

Now the all-solid-state battery samples that have run through in the laboratory should run for at least 5-10 years after loading, and there can be no quality problems, and the two are orders of magnitude small.

Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, has previously publicly stated, "Solid-state batteries have many scientific and technical basic problems that have not been solved, and we have been deeply cultivated for more than 10 years, and still believe that it is difficult to form products with technical feasibility and market competitiveness." ”

The head of LG Energy's TI strategy team said in May this year, "It will be difficult to commercialize next-generation batteries such as all-solid-state batteries in 2030, and it is expected that the market will be formed by 2030 mainly lithium-ion batteries." ”

Many international enterprises that are deeply bound to solid-state batteries as their core business are now frequently pre-cooled in the capital market.

Of course, there are still pioneers in the market, and Toyota CTO Hiroki Nakajima recently said that he has found good materials to commercialize the technology between 2027 and 2028 and bring electric vehicles with all-solid-state batteries to the market.

BMW's plan is that test cars equipped with solid-state batteries will be on the road by 2025, and production models equipped with solid-state batteries will be launched in 2030. Mercedes-Benz did not clearly announce the time rhythm, but the progress of its solid-state battery is not small.

There is no doubt whether this will be PPT, the world's top car companies do not want to lose their most important advantage - credibility at this stage. So, it's obviously not a big problem to build it. But when will the cost be reduced to the point where ordinary people can afford it?

In May this year, Qin Lihong said that the cost of a 150kWh solid-state technology battery pack is equivalent to an ET5, that is, about 300,000 yuan. This is only the price of semi-solid batteries, so according to what Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Toyota say, we will probably wait 10 years.