CATL enters Korean market, ternary lithium batteries installed in Kia Niro EV

According to the news, the 2023 Kia Niro EV sold in South Korea uses a ternary lithium battery from CATL with a capacity of 64.8/68kWh (available/total energy). This battery has now been disassembled by Korean counterparts - it adopts a very conservative design, as shown in the figure below, with a total of 24 modules, each with a capacity of 2.83kWh, and the modules use a 1P4S method. This article mainly discusses the design of this CATL battery and the subsequent battery selection of Hyundai Kia, to see how much share Chinese battery companies can get in the second round of platformization.

Figure 1: CATL ternary lithium battery in Kia Niro EV

In fact, in addition to the Chinese market, other markets also have a huge demand for power batteries. From January to July 2022, the demand for electric vehicle batteries outside the Chinese market was 105.5GWh, a year-on-year increase of 40.3%. This growth is a relatively stable upward curve.

LG Energy Solutions ranked first with 31.1GWh, up 18% year-on-year. What is more noteworthy is that CATL ranked third with a growth of 119.2%.

Figure 2: Automotive companies that choose CATL in the global power battery market

Part 1: Niro EV and its battery design

We know that Hyundai and Kia's power battery supply was mainly shared by SK ON and LG. After the KONA BEV recall, Hyundai Motors was under great pressure. Currently, Hyundai and Kia mainly sell 800V models, one is Hyundai's Ioniq5 and subsequent series, and Kia's is the EV6 series.

The Niro EV is a previous 400V product and a pure electric model that is converted from oil to electricity. It is positioned as an entry-level model with a lower price. Its previous main sales areas focused on the Korean and European markets.

Figure 3 Niro EV battery switching

In fact, the design of the 2023 Niro EV is very classic (it has been eliminated in China), as shown in the figure below. It is built with VDA's 355 standard module, and the 68kWh is divided into 24 modules. Each module uses 4 large cells with a width of 148mm. Compared with this design, soft-pack cells still have some difficulties in terms of cost.

Figure 4 Niro EV battery module design

PART 2: Subsequent evolution of the modern EMP platform

Hyundai Kia is very serious about its electrification transformation. Its next-generation battery system has been standardized into 9 types. The battery process consists of lithium battery cells, battery packs and battery packs. In addition to increasing the module ratio to improve energy density, it has been changed to a cell-to-pack approach. The CTC process of directly integrating battery cells and chassis is also under consideration.

From the perspective of 400 and 800V, the eM series all adopt 800V, divided into performance version and basic version. The former only has the solution of ternary lithium battery, and the latter includes both ternary lithium and lithium iron phosphate versions. Only the eS series has a 400V system. Through the new design, it is planned that by 2030, the battery energy density will be increased by 50% and the cost will be reduced by 40% compared with 2021; the motor cost will be reduced by 35% and the weight will be reduced by 30%.

Figure 5 Battery demand for Hyundai and Kia electric vehicles

The joint cell factory of Hyundai Motor and LG can supply 10GWh, and then 50% of the next-generation batteries will be purchased from the joint cell factory after 2025, and part of them need to be purchased locally. From the current point of view, those who want to open up the low-price market will also purchase iron lithium and ternary lithium batteries. At the investment level, the main investment is in the next-generation battery technology and solid-state batteries-accumulated through global entrepreneurial companies. Hyundai Kia needs 170GWh of batteries in 2030 (about 119GWh for Hyundai and about 51GWh for Kia), and it is also necessary to gradually increase qualified suppliers.

Figure 6 Hyundai Kia's battery selection

My understanding is that in this round of electrification transformation of global automakers, Hyundai Kia basically "perfectly missed" the Chinese market, so the overall rhythm is still centered around Europe and the United States. The layout in Europe is relatively faster, but what was unexpected was the need to build a factory in the United States (the U.S. IRA Act), so the entire localized regional procurement strategy will require Hyundai Kia to re-examine its procurement layout.

Figure 7 Hyundai Kia's layout

Summary: China's rapid iteration of battery cells and structural designs will most likely be exported to the world, and there will be a lot to discuss. We can look at the soft-pack and cylindrical battery systems designed in Europe and the United States, but there seems to be very little to learn from square-shell batteries, and we are almost done with them.