The blade battery has an opponent?
On November 28, Chery and Huawei released the first model named "Zhijie S7". In addition to being equipped with the latest HarmonyOS 4 intelligent cockpit and intelligent technologies such as the HUAWEI ADS 2.0 advanced intelligent driving system, this car also has a special feature.
It is equipped with CATL M3P battery, which is a ternary-lithium manganese iron phosphate battery.
At the 2022 World Power Battery Conference, CATL officially announced that its newly developed M3P battery will be put into use next year as a battery system for pure electric vehicles with a range of about 700km.
Many people don't realize the significance of this battery application, in a sense, it is an evolutionary version of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
As we all know, the current power battery is divided into two kinds, namely ternary lithium battery and lithium iron phosphate battery, but they have certain shortcomings, ternary lithium battery energy density is higher, discharge performance is better, but thermal stability is poor, cost is higher, lithium iron phosphate battery, lower cost, better thermal stability, but low energy density.
So, is there a battery that can meet the requirements of low cost, high safety and high energy density at the same time?
CATL has found that some iron atoms can be replaced with manganese atoms, and this kind of battery is also a lithium manganese iron phosphate battery. To be precise, M3P is not lithium manganese iron phosphate, but also contains other metal elements - therefore, this kind of battery is called ternary-lithium manganese iron phosphate battery.
The cathode material of lithium manganese iron phosphate battery is composed of lithium iron phosphate and lithium manganese oxide (LiMn2O4) two crystals, lithium iron phosphate crystal we are more familiar with, its stability and cycle life advantages are retained, and lithium manganese oxide can carry out reversible redox reaction in the process of battery charging and discharging, the crystal structure of lithium manganese oxide belongs to the spinel structure, this structure provides more embedding and release positions for lithium ions, which can increase the storage capacity of the battery, so it can improve the energy density.
The special crystal structure and manganese ions have the characteristics of a variety of oxidation states, so that the M3P battery can have a higher single output voltage phase, compared with the 3.2-3.4V of lithium iron phosphate batteries, the lithium manganese iron phosphate battery can reach about 4.1V at a maximum. In terms of energy density, it can reach 200Wh/kg, which is 15% higher than lithium iron phosphate batteries, comparable to ternary lithium batteries, but the cost is much lower than ternary lithium batteries.
Therefore, the M3P battery can be said to be a combination of ternary lithium battery and lithium iron phosphate battery, the energy density is higher than that of lithium iron phosphate, and the cost and safety are better than that of ternary batteries.
This kind of battery is so good, why has it not been developed and applied before? The biggest problem is that the cost of research and development is high.
Although only a part of manganese is added compared with lithium iron phosphate batteries, its production process has changed greatly, and the synthesis pathway and formula have to be changed, therefore, from the R & D system to the production system, huge sums of money have to be invested to change, in addition, the octahedral structure composed of manganese-oxygen in lithium manganese oxide crystals is prone to lattice distortion in the charge and discharge cycle, and huge R & D costs need to be invested. In addition, the previous subsidy policy was only for lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium batteries, so car companies have no incentive to spend huge sums of money on the research and development of this kind of battery.
Equipped with M3P battery, Zhijie S7 has four versions, the price and battery life are:
Pro version, 550 km, 258,000 yuan
Max version, 705 km, 298,000 yuan
MAX+ version, more than 800 kilometers, 328,000 yuan
MAX RS 630km four-wheel drive version, 358,000 yuan
The pre-sale price of less than 330,000 can achieve a range of more than 800 kilometers, and the cost performance is indeed quite high, among which this M3P battery has played an important role, in addition, this car also supports 800V high-voltage fast charging, which shows that it also performs well in fast charging performance.
M3P battery is very promising, to a certain extent, to replace lithium iron phosphate batteries, with Chery and Huawei's cooperation in the intellectual world to take the lead, the M3P battery market is about to explode.