BYD joins the "solid-state battery" war

Recently, according to the public account "Voltaplus", BYD's Fudi Battery publicly disclosed the progress of its all-solid-state batteries for the first time.

At the end of 2022, relevant media reported that BYD's all-solid-state battery, which took six years to develop, was about to be put into production. At that time, the project was led by Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor of Tsinghua University, and three other academician consultants participated in the research and development work. It was a standard national key project.

According to the data released at that time, the negative electrode of the solid-state battery uses silicon-based materials, and the energy density is expected to reach 400Wh/kg. In total, the energy density of the solid-state battery is more than twice that of BYD's blade battery. In addition, its two technical routes, oxide solid-state batteries and sulfide solid-state batteries, have been completed and can be installed for testing.

However, it was not until recently that we heard about BYD's progress in solid-state batteries.

Data source: Fudi Battery, VoltaPLUS

This time, Fudi Battery's technical route is mainly high-nickel ternary (single crystal) + silicon-based negative electrode (low expansion) + sulfide electrolyte (complex halide). In terms of battery cell capacity, it can reach more than 60Ah, mass energy density reaches 400Wh/Kg, volume energy density reaches 800Wh/L, and it will not catch fire or explode when punctured or hot-boxed. At the same time, the battery pack energy density exceeds 280Wh/Kg.

According to Fudi Battery's plan, in order to truly achieve large-scale commercialization, in terms of cost control, the cost reduction plan for sulfide solid electrolytes is to reduce the cost of LiS by 15 to 20 times by 2027 compared with 2024, and by 2030, through the improvement and optimization of the synthesis process, it will be reduced by another 30% to 50% compared with 2027. In 2033, the cost will be reduced by about 20% to 30% through scale efficiency.

In terms of the cost of solid-state batteries, the overall material BOM cost is planned to be reduced by 20 to 30 times by 2027, and then the manufacturing cost will be reduced by 30% to 50% by improving product yield + scale effect + process optimization, etc., which is expected to have a certain price competitiveness.

In terms of mass production time, BYD will start small-scale production in 2027 and install it in BYD's high-end models. The scale of the demonstration project is about 1,000 vehicles. In 2030, it is expected that 40,000 vehicles will be equipped with all-solid-state batteries. In 2033, it is expected that 120,000 vehicles will be equipped with all-solid-state batteries.

There is a biased saying that "the day when solid-state batteries become popular is the day when fuel vehicles will exit the stage of history." In fact, according to current technological progress, fuel vehicles are steadily exiting the market without waiting for the arrival of solid-state batteries. However, the industry's vague concept and excessive hype about "solid-state batteries" have distorted the ecology and the marketing is too much.

According to my understanding, the rapid advancement of semi-solid-state batteries in recent years may put an end to the "running to the death" goal of solid-state batteries. Moreover, everyone is stealing the concept, talking about solid-state, and mass-producing semi-solid-state.

On April 8, Zhiji Auto released its new pure electric model Zhiji L6, which was first equipped with the "first generation of light-year solid-state batteries". Later, everyone discovered that it was a semi-solid-state battery.

GAC Group announced that all-solid-state batteries are planned to be installed in vehicles in 2026, and will first be installed in the Haobo model. Everyone found out that it was a futures deal.

Lingxin New Energy announced that its first phase 0.5GWh solid polymer battery production line has achieved mass production. The problem is that gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) is also a semi-solid electrolyte, composed of a polymer matrix, a solvent containing electrolyte salts and additives, and has a certain fluidity, but it is not as fluid as traditional liquid electrolytes.

Tailan New Energy announced that it has developed the world's first automotive-grade single-cell capacity of 120Ah and an ultra-high energy density all-solid-state lithium metal battery with an actual energy density of up to 720Wh/kg. However, when will it be mass-produced? No one knows.

However, under the continuous carnival and dissemination, giants like CATL have been forced to change their original external attitude. Recently, Wu Kai, chief scientist of CATL, revealed that CATL has the opportunity to produce solid-state batteries in small batches in 2027. If the maturity of all-solid-state batteries is represented by numbers 1-9, CATL's current maturity is at level 4.

In fact, people related to CATL told me that CATL has been developing solid-state batteries for more than ten years, and the team size is nearly 1,000 people. Previously, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, had been saying that solid-state batteries are still far from being truly commercialized, which just shows the difficulty of this matter. However, as long as the carnival of solid-state batteries continues, everyone has to follow.

Another problem is that high cost is a disadvantage of solid-state batteries. Data shows that the cost per kilowatt-hour of solid-state batteries is about $150 at this stage, almost twice that of ternary lithium batteries. Therefore, cost reduction is an important part of the commercialization of solid-state batteries. However, there is no accurate answer as to when solid-state batteries can achieve the cost reduction goal.

Currently, from a global perspective, Japan is in the leading position in the research of solid-state batteries. Toyota holds more than 1,300 patents, ranking first among global automakers. It looks very impressive. However, you can also see that Toyota's mass production plan is still very erratic, sometimes forward and sometimes backward.

I still say that, don't let Toyota lead you into the ditch. Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Tsinghua University, also realized that our lithium battery base cannot be lost. We eat what's in the bowl and look at what's in the pot, but at least the bowl cannot be robbed or smashed, right?