Semi-solid state, removal of modules, self-research by car companies... Keywords for power batteries in 2023

NIO 150kWh battery , JiKrypton brick battery, Changan golden bell battery, CATL condensed matter battery, Shenxing supercharged battery, Juwan Technology Phoenix battery, Ruipulan Junwending battery... In 2023, the power battery market The competition is getting fiercer!

Power battery release or mass production in 2023 (Source: Gasgoo)

On December 17, Li Bin personally came out and conducted a battery life test on the go. This battery was the semi- solid battery released by NIO three years ago , using ultra-high nickel cathode material and silicon-carbon composite anode . The material and solid-liquid mixed electrolyte have an energy density of 360Wh/kg and will be mass-produced in April next year.

Judging from the live test results, the pure electric range exceeded 1,000 kilometers, once again breaking the ceiling of power batteries.

On the evening of December 14, Jikrypton Automobile released its first full-stack self-developed BRIC battery. The battery is an 800V lithium iron phosphate battery with a volume utilization rate of 83.7% and a maximum charging rate of 4.5C. In addition, Changan Automobile released its own battery brand Golden Bell at this year's Guangzhou Auto Show.

Of course, in addition to self-developed batteries by car companies, major power battery players have shown their talents since this year, such as CATL condensed matter batteries, Shenxing supercharged batteries, Honeycomb Energy Dragon Scale Batteries, and Sunwanda Flash Charge Batteries. 2.0, Yiwei lithium energy π battery and other products have been released, upgraded, or put into mass production, directly sweeping the power battery market.

Judging from the positive and negative electrode materials, structures, processes, performance and technical solutions of various power battery products, the editor of Gasgoo summarized the four major characteristics of the development of power batteries this year: First, semi-solid-state batteries are increasingly mature and mass-produced. Imminent; second, the cathode material is high in nickel and low in cobalt, and the negative electrode material is silicon-based; third, the battery structure is large module/modular, and the space utilization rate is greatly improved; fourth, self-developed batteries by car companies have become a common practice.

Semi-solid-state batteries are becoming increasingly mature and mass production is about to begin

From the perspective of the form of the electrolyte, the development of power batteries almost follows the trend of liquid batteries → semi-solid batteries → solid-state batteries.

For now, most products in the power battery market are still liquid batteries. However, because the organic electrolyte used in liquid batteries is flammable, it can easily cause the battery to catch fire or explode. In order to ensure battery safety, liquid batteries need to add additional materials and The process increases the weight, volume and cost of the battery, and the selection of positive and negative electrode materials is limited, making it difficult to further improve the energy density of the battery.

Therefore, in order to ensure battery safety and increase energy density, the industry has been exploring the route of solid electrolytes. However, the development of solid-state batteries is still in the laboratory stage. Even Toyota, which has invested decades in research, has never been able to implement all-solid-state mass production and has extended the mass production time from 2027 to 2030.

Specifically, solid-state batteries need to solve technical difficulties such as low conductivity , poor motor /electrolyte interface compatibility and stability, ion transmission speed, material preparation and molding, and packaging design. Therefore, the industry had no choice but to choose another more compromise solution, which is semi-solid-state batteries.

Since semi-solid batteries use solid-liquid mixed electrolytes, they are safer than liquid lithium-ion batteries , have better interface contact than solid-state batteries, and are easier to implement commercially.

Among them, the 150kWh battery that Li Bin personally tested a few days ago is a semi-solid battery. The cells of this battery were provided by Weilan New Energy and were officially delivered to Weilai in June this year. Weilai then produced the battery packs itself.

Judging from the cell product parameters, NIO’s battery uses NCM solid-liquid hybrid electrolyte. The number of cells reaches 384. It adopts a high-voltage connection method of 4 in parallel and 96 in series. The mass energy density is 360Wh/kg, and the volume energy density is 360Wh/kg. It is 775Wh/L, with a nominal capacity of 111Ah and a nominal voltage of 3.51V. It only takes less than 60 minutes to charge from 10% to 80% SOC. Its size is 359*118*11.9mm and its cycle life is 600 times. .

Based on Li Bin’s actual measurement data, a battery can run 1,000 kilometers and cycle 600 times, which is equivalent to a cumulative use of 600,000 kilometers. For ordinary car owners, it can be used for 10-20 years, and there is almost no problem in daily use. .

However, NIO President Qin Lihong once revealed that the cost of this battery is equivalent to a NIO ET5, which is about 250,000 yuan. Therefore, NIO currently adopts a lease-only plan for this battery, and NIO There are relatively complete battery replacement facilities, so the application value of this battery will be higher.

In addition, at this year's Shanghai Auto Show, CATL also released a product that is suspected of being a semi-solid battery - a condensed matter battery. The battery uses a high-power bionic condensed matter electrolyte, and the condensed matter is different from what we call "jelly-like" every day. "Similar, between solid and liquid, this is similar to the electrolyte of polymer batteries and semi-solid batteries.

It is worth noting that in addition to NIO and CATL, there are more domestic players in the field of semi-solid-state batteries.

In May 2022, Guoxuan Hi-Tech released a semi-solid battery with a single cell energy density of 360Wh/kg. In August this year, Guoxuan Hi-Tech once again revealed that semi-solid batteries will be mass-produced within the year.

On November 1, 2022, Funeng Technology's SPS soft pack battery production line using semi-solid electrolyte started construction in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province. It is expected to achieve mass production in the second half of 2023 and be used in high-performance models of cooperative car companies. Recently, Funeng Technology stated that the company's first-generation semi-solid-state battery has been installed in vehicles, and it will realize the iteration of solid-state batteries by gradually reducing the electrolyte and adjusting the electrolyte formula. At the same time, the company is promoting the industrialization process of the next generation of new products.

On December 15, 2022, Dongfeng Motor released a new product, Chasing Light. The model equipped with an 82kWh battery pack version uses semi-solid-state batteries. The first batch of new cars was launched and delivered in May this year. At the same time, at the beginning of 2022, 50 Dongfeng Fengshen E70 equipped with Ganfeng semi-solid batteries were delivered.

On February 7, 2023, the ternary solid-liquid hybrid lithium-ion battery developed by Ganfeng Lithium Battery is planned to be used in the SERES pure electric SUV SERES 5, which is planned to be launched in 2023.

Earlier, on December 2, 2020, Honeycomb Energy had released the first-generation jelly battery. At Honeycomb Energy’s 4th Battery Day held on December 12 this year, Honeycomb Energy also released a square semi-solid battery. The battery is a new second-generation jelly battery, which breaks through the expansion bottleneck of the high nickel-doped silicon system in the square case and is currently in the A-type development stage.

It can be said that by the end of 2023, the development of semi-solid-state batteries has become increasingly mature, especially when Li Bin personally tested the battery life performance of the 150kWh semi-solid-state battery, which undoubtedly made the C-end market once again confident in the prospects of semi-solid-state batteries.

The positive electrode material is high in nickel and low in cobalt, and the negative electrode material is silicon-based.

In addition to innovations in electrolyte form, innovation in battery positive and negative electrode materials has also become another major trend in the development of power batteries this year - that is, the positive electrode material is high in nickel and low in cobalt, and the negative electrode material is silicon-based.

Generally speaking, the cathode material of ternary lithium batteries is composed of nickel cobalt manganese or nickel cobalt aluminum, while cobalt resources are relatively scarce and unevenly distributed. In particular, China has currently proven cobalt reserves of about 80,000 tons, which only accounts for the world's total reserves. About 1%, highly dependent on imports. With the explosion of new energy vehicles, cobalt prices have also risen.

Therefore, reducing the cobalt content in ternary materials is crucial to cost control by battery manufacturers.

In addition, in ternary lithium batteries, nickel can increase the volume energy density of the battery, and cobalt can stabilize the structure. If you want to increase the battery life, you need to increase the nickel content.

Taken together, increasing the nickel content while reducing the cobalt content is an effective way to increase battery energy density and reduce costs.

In addition, negative electrode materials are also developing towards silicon-based composite materials. From a technical perspective, the upper capacity limit of graphite anode materials can no longer meet the demand for higher energy density of electric vehicles . Silicon is the key to improving the energy density of power batteries. At present, the main development direction of silicon-based materials is silicon-carbon composite materials and silicon-oxygen composite materials.