Whether the three-way battery installation has quickly overtaken the lithium iron phosphate power battery technology route has become a foregone conclusion

The power cell technology route is slowly changing the situation of lithium iron phosphate "one of the largest". Since this year, triple battery installed fast catch up, more than many people in the industry expected.

According to the power battery installed data of the real lithium research, in the first eight months of this year, the installed capacity of ternary/manganese battery was the largest, accounting for 55% of 6.4GWh, and the lithium iron phosphate battery installed was rarely relegated to the next, with 5.1GWh proportion. 44.1%. It is worth noting that last year, lithium iron phosphate accounted for 71.5% of the installed capacity of 15.2GWh, while ternary/manganese batteries were less than half of the installed lithium iron phosphate, only 7.3GWh, accounting for only 26.3%.

Is the lithium iron phosphate route only maintained by China?

True Lithium Research CEO Moke told reporters that the lithium iron phosphate battery route is currently only China's insistence. The United States, which originally advocated this route, has basically no battery manufacturers with the bankruptcy of A123 Systems and Valence's gradual decline. Take this route.

"On the other hand, the fact that lithium iron phosphate batteries are already so large adds to the difficulty of achieving China's goal of 300W/kg for car batteries by 2020. " added Merko.

lithium iron phosphate has always been widely used by power battery manufacturers due to its safety performance and recycling life. In particular, at the beginning of last year, Zhang Xiangmu, Director of Equipment of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, verbally issued a ban on the suspension of three-way batteries for pure electric passenger cars. It has strengthened the confidence of many power battery manufacturers to take the lithium iron phosphate route. This year, however, lithium iron phosphate has generally been considered to be at its limit, as policy demands for energy density in power cells have increased. In contrast, ternary batteries have high expectations because of their high specific energy.

BYD, which has been on the lithium iron phosphate route since November 16, told institutional investors in a survey that all of the company's PHEV passenger cars are now using three-way batteries, and that future plans for the company may continue to use lithium iron phosphate batteries in addition to public transportation. Other new models will use ternary batteries. According to BYD's plan, there will be 16GWh of power battery capacity by the end of this year. Among them, 6GWh's three-part battery, 10GWh's lithium iron phosphate battery, and next year will increase the production capacity of 10GWh three-part battery.

Even BYD, which has been sticking to the line of lithium iron phosphate, has begun to "shake", indicating that the power battery technology route has been set? In an interview with the reporter, it was found that many companies still adhere to the line of lithium iron phosphate. The head of a power battery company in Shenzhen said that lithium iron phosphate has a long cycle life, strong safety and stability, and is more environmentally friendly than ternary, and costs are gradually decreasing. It is believed that it is still the mainstream choice.

The head of the Shenzhen power battery company does not agree with the industry's claim that lithium iron phosphate has reached a technical bottleneck. He said that the focus of continuing research and development of lithium iron phosphate is not the improvement of the material itself, but the need to study what kind of negative electrode material lithium iron phosphate is equipped with in order to better perform well.

"One is that you can charge quickly at low temperatures, and the other is that you can have higher specific energy. The former is graphene material that can be charged quickly at low temperatures. This is currently used in many cities in the North. The latter has a higher specific energy is carbon Silicon material, and it must be nanoscale Silicon, which we are also increasing research and development. " The head of the power battery company said.

Significant unevenness in monthly installed capacity

In addition to the technical line dispute, whether or not the power cell overcapacity has also become the focus of industry discussions. According to the report "Analysis and Forecast of the Development of the lithium battery Market from 2017 to 2018" published by the True Lithium Research, more than half of the battery installed capacity in 2015 and 2016 was achieved in the next two months: 8.15 GWh was installed in the two months after 2015, accounting for 50.8 % of the total annual installed capacity; In the second two months of 2016, 14 GWh were installed, accounting for 50.3 % of the annual installed capacity.

Merko believes that the first two years are mainly due to the annual adjustment of subsidy policies, and this year's subsidy policy does not retreat. It is expected that car companies will distribute production tasks in a relatively balanced manner, and the situation of surprise installed equipment at the end of the year will be eased.

According to preliminary statistics from the real lithium study this year, China's automotive power battery production capacity may reach 130 GWh, with an average monthly capacity of 11 GWh. Does this mean that there is a serious excess?

"I asked a lot of companies about this issue, including Fueng Technology, Bic Battery, Zhenhua New Energy, and the SAIC Times, and they all admitted that the power battery capacity is generally excess, but it is only structural excess. There may be no excess of efficient and quality capacity. " said Merko.

In the eyes of many industry insiders, the serious imbalance in monthly installed capacity is one of the main reasons for excess capacity of automotive power batteries. In addition, the rumored 8GWh policy and optimism about the development of electric vehicles are also causes of excess capacity.

However, for overcapacity, the capital sector has a different voice. Wu Shenjun, chairman and founder of Jinshajiang Capital Board of Directors, said that the power battery industry is still in its infancy in the past few years, and it is still a sunrise industry. As for the outside world, there is a possibility that China’s production capacity will be excessive.

"No matter whether it is Guangdong, Jiangsu or Tianjin, production capacity is still limited to 1GW to 2GWh, but a German factory is 30 GWh. If we stay here, we will certainly have no competitive advantage. We need to scale and increase. On the one hand, it is to build new factories, and on the other hand, it is to transform old factories. " Said Wushenjun.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.