In January this year, Huineng Technology announced that the world's first solid-state battery production line had been officially put into operation, followed by March when SAIC announced the launch of the Zhiji L6 equipped with solid-state batteries.
After a series of fermentation and catalysis of production capacity and application landing events, solid-state batteries have once again returned to everyone's field of vision.
In fact, it has been more than 30 years since the introduction of solid-state batteries, and during this period, liquid batteries have become the mainstream application due to their advantages of lower cost and manufacturing difficulty.
However, in recent years, due to the increased investment in R&D of solid-state batteries in Europe, America, Japan and China, solid-state batteries have developed rapidly.
Why have solid-state batteries started to rise strongly in the last two years?
Compared with the solid-liquid contact mode of liquid battery, the solid-solid electrolyte and the positive and negative electrodes are in contact with the solid-solid interface, which leads to a small contact area, poor compactness, and the ionic conductivity is usually two orders of magnitude lower than that of the liquid electrolyte.
Compared with liquid batteries, solid-state batteries have advantages in endurance and safety.
Since solid-state batteries do not require electrolytes and separators, they can achieve the accumulation of multiple layers of materials, thereby further improving the energy density of the battery and improving the endurance, such as the Zhiji L6, which can reach 1,000 kilometers.
In addition, the ion transport of the solid-state electrolyte is relatively low affected by temperature, and its performance attenuation in the low temperature state is relatively small, thus alleviating the situation of short endurance in winter.
Another advantage of solid-state batteries is safety. Because the solid-state battery has a strong ability to inhibit lithium crystallization, it avoids the problem of short circuit caused by lithium crystals piercing the separator, which greatly improves the safety of use.
There are several technical routes for solid-state batteries, which one is the mainland betting on?
At present, there are three technical routes for electrolytes, namely sulfide route, polymer route and oxide route. Due to the non-flammable molecules contained in the oxide solid electrolyte, it has strong thermal stability and safety, and the working mechanism is relatively mature, which has become the mainstream technical route in China.
Like Ganfeng Lithium, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Weilan New Energy, and Qingtao Energy are all using oxide routes, and from the energy density of the published samples, they all exceed 350Wh/kg, of which the second-generation products of Ganfeng Lithium and Guoxuan Hi-Tech have reached 400Wh/kg.
CATL has also adopted the method of polymer proportioning oxide, by filling the pores of the gel electrolyte separator with solid electrolyte particles and adding a small amount of electrolyte, thereby improving the ionic conductivity, becoming one of the few enterprises in China with an energy density of 500Wh/kg.
However, the shortcomings of the oxide route are also obvious, it is the route that uses the most rare earth elements in the three technical routes, and it needs to be doped with lanthanum, zirconium, titanium and other elements in the electrolyte to improve the ionic conductivity and thermal stability of the electrolyte, which leads to uncontrollable production costs.
With so many advantages, why can't solid-state batteries be mass-produced?
Although solid-state batteries have various benefits, it is not easy to achieve mass production, such as the solid-state battery claimed by the Zhiji L6, which has a liquid electrolyte content of between 5% and 15%, and its essence is still a semi-solid-state battery.
The difficulties of solid-state batteries are mainly reflected in two aspects: cost and technology.
In terms of cost, solid-state batteries will use more lithium metal than liquid batteries, and the amount of lithium metal used in all-solid-state batteries is about 3~4 times that of lithium iron phosphate. If you also consider factors such as manufacturing difficulty, the entire mass production efficiency, and the process flow, the final mass production cost of all-solid-state is roughly 5~6 times that of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
The car itself is a price-sensitive commodity, and the cost of solid-state batteries cannot be reduced in the short term, the first batch of solid-state batteries will be used in high-end models in the future, and will be extended to the application of low-end vehicles when the technology is mature and the cost is reduced.
In terms of technology, there are two key factors: stability and conductivity.
In terms of stability, the electrolyte and electrode materials in the current solid-state battery are prone to structural changes or chemical reactions in the process of charging and discharging, resulting in the degradation or even failure of the battery, and it is difficult to ensure the stability in the process of use.
In terms of electrical conductivity, the ionic conductivity of current solid-state electrolytes is much lower than that of liquid electrolytes, which limits the energy density and power density of solid-state batteries.
In addition, solid-state electrode materials also have the problem of poor electronic conductivity, which affects the charging and discharging speed and energy efficiency of the battery.
What is the competitive landscape of solid-state battery market?
In March this year, the retail sales of 709,000 new energy vehicles in the market, a year-on-year increase of 29.5%, can be said to be very good.
It is estimated that by 2030, the global solid-state battery shipment will reach 251.1GWh, the penetration rate will reach 10%, and the market size will exceed 20 billion yuan.
From the perspective of the global market, there are mainly China, Japan, South Korea, the United States, and the European Union participating, of which Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea are currently focusing on all-solid-state batteries, and China is dominated by semi-solid-state batteries.
There are three main types of enterprises involved in the production of solid-state batteries in China, one is traditional battery companies, such as CATL and Ganfeng Lithium, the other is start-up battery companies, such as Qingtao Energy and Weilan New Energy, and the third is vehicle enterprises, such as FAW, Changan and Dongfeng.
Among them, Huineng Technology and Qingtao New Energy have core key technologies and outstanding capacity construction capabilities in the first echelon, Weilan New Energy, BYD, CATL, etc. are in the second echelon, and Ganfeng Lithium and Guoxuan Hi-Tech are in the third echelon.
According to statistics, in 2023, the cumulative production capacity planning of domestic semi-solid-state batteries will be close to 300GWh, with a landing capacity of about 15GWh, and shipments will exceed the GWh level. In 2024, more than 5 new models equipped with (semi-)solid-state batteries will be launched in China, and shipments are expected to reach the 5GWh level.
In the face of the vast market increment, the research and development of major manufacturers is in full swing, and one of them has been at the forefront of semi-solid-state and solid-state battery technology, which is CATL.
In 2023, CATL will achieve revenue of 400.917 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22%, and a profit of 46.761 billion, a year-on-year increase of 39.76%. Among them, the growth rate of battery sales was 35%, the output growth rate was 19.7%, and the production-sales ratio increased from 89% in 22 years to 100%, and the effect of destocking in the industrial chain was obvious.
A very good performance is that last year, CATL's net profit growth exceeded the revenue growth rate, and the net operating cash flow increased by 51.65% year-on-year, which shows that the company's profits have been effectively converted into cash flow and returned to the company's accounts, and the company's operating ability is quite good.
Moreover, this year, CATL launched a condensed matter battery with a maximum energy density of 500Wh/kg, which is one step closer to the production of aviation lithium batteries, and may directly contribute to the development of low-altitude economy in the future.
From the perspective of shareholders, CATL's dividend yield reached 2.8%, and last year, CATL paid a dividend of 22.1 billion yuan, allowing shareholders to really enjoy the dividends of the company's growth.
In general, the market-oriented competition of semi-solid-state batteries has provided a good foundation for the research and development of all-solid-state batteries, and technological breakthroughs and mass production of solid-state batteries may be achieved in the near future.
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