At the power battery forum hosted by China electric vehicle hundred people’s Association on March 27, the discussion on large cylindrical batteries was hot again. Following Tesla‘s first release of 4680 battery on battery day in September 2020, the large cylindrical battery once again broke into the market vision, causing the market to ask: can it lead the direction of the next generation of technology?
In contrast, the cylindrical battery process is mature, the pack cost is low, and the battery yield and group consistency are high; Due to the large heat dissipation area of the battery pack, its heat dissipation performance is better than that of the square battery, but in the later stage, it still has to face the problems of difficult heat dissipation design and low energy density after grouping. Therefore, the penetration rate is not high in the market dominated by square batteries in China.
“At present, the large cylindrical power battery is in the promotion stage from design verification to engineering verification.” This is the judgment made by fan Wenguang, vice president of Shenzhen BIC power battery, at the 100 people’s meeting of China electric vehicles on March 27. He believes that the large cylindrical battery is the best solution for medium and high-end electric vehicles in the next 5-10 years. By 2025, the market share of large cylindrical battery cells will exceed 30%, that is, about 480gwh, which has exceeded the total global demand in 2021.
According to fan Wenguang, since 2020, BIC power has promoted large cylinders to some high-end OEM customers. Since last year, samples have been delivered in batches, and the performance is in line with expectations.
In September 2020, Tesla released 4680 batteries for the first time on battery day. According to market estimates, the global installed capacity of 4680 battery 2025e is 264gwh, with a penetration rate of 22% in power batteries. According to the calculation, with the growth of Tesla’s global sales and the increase of the penetration rate of 4680 batteries in ternary battery models, it is expected that the sales volume of Tesla’s models equipped with 4680 batteries will exceed 1.6 million in 2025, the penetration rate in Tesla’s total sales is nearly 50%, and the installed capacity is expected to reach 123gwh.
Led by Tesla’s technology, some organizations said that it is expected that global automobile enterprises and battery factories will follow the trend of 4680 battery structure innovation. In 2025, the global installed capacity of 4680 battery is expected to reach 264gwh, with a penetration rate of 22% in the global installed capacity of power battery and 68% in the installed capacity of cylindrical battery, which is expected to achieve rapid growth from 0 to 1 to n.
Fan Wenguang told the reporter of E company that several representative products of Beek battery 46 family have a height of 80-120mm, an energy density of 275wh / kg to 300wh / kg, and a fast charge of 80%, the fastest 15 minutes and the slowest 20 minutes. It also includes some customized products with special orientation, such as products with fast charging within 9 minutes. In addition, 26105 aluminum shell cell is currently in the B-sample stage, with an energy density of 270wh / kg and a power density of more than 2000W / kg The supporting models have a range of more than 700 kilometers. Within 12 minutes for 500 km fast charging and within 5 minutes for 280 km, the cycle life of pure fast charging is more than 800 times. Mass production is expected in 2024, and the energy density will reach 285wh / kg.
In addition to the planning of products and markets, the expansion of relevant production capacity has also been preliminarily planned. Fan Wenguang said that in the next few years, the company will expand 80gwh battery capacity at home and abroad in two stages.
For the future planning and layout of BIC battery, fan Wenguang said that from the product side, it will be diversified and parallel, and provide strong power and excellent performance for changing terminal applications with constant strong R & D strength, advanced production equipment and pursuit of excellent quality.
Although BIC power believes that the large cylinder is the optimal solution of medium and high-end electric vehicles in 5-10 years, it also faces many challenges under the new situation. From the production side, the current soaring price of raw materials in the lithium battery industry has been transmitted to the whole industrial chain, which has a very far-reaching impact on the whole industry.
According to fan Wenguang, the price rise of raw materials has posed a continuous and severe challenge to the company’s entire R & D capacity and supply chain integration capacity. “I have always been worried about the high price of lithium battery raw materials, which makes the survival of new energy vehicle enterprises and power battery enterprises very difficult, which may lead to further industrial integration, which is unfavorable to the diversity of our whole development. From the perspective of possible countermeasures, including the need to work closely with upstream suppliers, properly pass the price pressure to customers, and strengthen the cooperation with upstream suppliers on recycled materials The use of, internal research and development to accelerate the research on other alternative material systems such as sodium batteries, and when appropriate, the company will seek safer supply chain supply through external equity investment. “
4680 battery is essentially an innovation of battery structure. Under the leading effect of Tesla, it has attracted other manufacturers to “enter”. Among them, Panasonic has announced that its 4680 battery developed for Tesla will be put into trial production in April 2022, which is expected to realize Tesla loading within 2022 Eve Energy Co.Ltd(300014) also announced the project of expanding the production of large cylindrical batteries for 20gwh passenger cars in November 2021.
Fan Wenguang believes that in recent years, the investment in all links of the power lithium battery industry has expanded rapidly, showing the trend of overall overcapacity and declining product prices, but the high-quality capacity is still insufficient. In the future, the competition among power lithium battery enterprises will rely more on core technology and capital strength. The phenomenon that the strong are stronger and the weak are weaker will further improve the industry concentration.
“Electric vehicles will eventually be benchmarked and replaced by fuel vehicles. The top priority is to keep the use experience, such as endurance and fast charging, in line with fuel vehicles, and reduce the cost and price of products on the premise of continuously improving reliability.” Fan Wenguang analyzed that the large cylinder has certain advantages in the overall cost because of its simple process and high standardization, as well as the reduction of structural parts and simple grouping at the whole package level. However, to realize this advantage, we need to work together in each link of the industrial chain to break through the inflection point of large-scale.
