Due to the new policy, the lithium battery line may change

The release of new subsidy policy, from the government's point of view, is intended to make the industry move towards a more standardized way, but for the Chinese enterprises closely related to the policy, there are always many deficiencies.

A new round of subsidies for new energy vehicles was announced by four ministries on September 17th, and the restrictions on new-material batteries caused confusion among some lithium battery companies.

The reason is that the new subsidy policy for the use of new materials lithium battery electric bus discriminatory subsidies.

According to the requirements of the notice on the promotion and application of new energy vehicles, the fixed subsidy for supercapacitors and lithium titanate quick-charge pure electric buses is 150,000 yuan, which is 350,000 yuan less than the previous subsidy standard.

"With a $350, 000 reduction in the subsidy, the advantage that lithium-titanate batteries have built on quick charging on electric buses will be lost due to price." Mr. Tong Zhiming, general manager of micro-macro power system (Huzhou) co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as micro-macro power), told me that the uncertainty of the government's policy will have a great impact on the upstream power battery enterprises, and will even change the direction of some power battery research and development to a certain extent.

The difficult line under the new policy

After the new round of subsidy scheme, lithium titanate pure electric bus has lost the advantage of market competition. As we have learned, a lithium titanate pure electric bus, the price of the whole car is about 1.6 million yuan, 150,000 yuan of subsidies and high car prices, play less than too much role. Moreover, since the energy density of lithium titanate battery is much lower than that of lithium iron phosphate battery, the battery equipped with each car cannot be lower than 80 degrees. According to the price of 9,500 yuan per degree, the price of 80-degree battery is around 700,000 yuan, and the subsidy of 150,000 yuan is less than a quarter of the price of the battery.

"But now that the subsidies are so much lower, it's hard for us to promote such cars." Deng Pingshui.

However, before the new round of subsidies, the fast-charging electric bus with lithium titanate batteries has been the flagship model of Hengtong electric's green bus project in Chongqing. Deng ping believes that it is a valuable exploration for the use of lithium titanate battery in the fast-charging mode pure electric bus. Although the energy density of lithium titanate battery is low, it can be charged quickly and its cycle life is much longer than that of lithium iron phosphate battery. Therefore, it is a suitable business model for short-distance bus operation.

It is understood that Hengtong electric lithium titanate battery is produced and provided by Weihong power system (Huzhou) co., LTD. So far, more than 900 buses have been put in Chongqing's new energy bus project.

"Sometime before the introduction of the new policy, bus companies in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom came to Hengtong electric bus to learn about the quick charging bus and expressed their intention to cooperate. The quick charging mode of the electric bus began to gain popularity." Deng ping believes that for short distance electric buses, the quick charging model has a large market space. However, the reduction of state subsidies may make the quick charging model unsustainable.

There is often no continuity or systematic planning for the policies issued by the government. Therefore, the enterprises that make power batteries should have their own rhythm, because you cannot figure out the rhythm of the government. He expressed similar concerns, wondering why lithium titanate batteries would not get the same treatment in the new round of subsidies.

According to the previous new energy vehicle subsidy standard, all pure electric buses can enjoy a subsidy of 500,000 yuan, without obvious technical bias and route guidance. But the new subsidy policy has made a separate limit on the battery of some special materials.

It is worth noting that an official of Saic bus said that the new policy does reduce the profit margin of lithium titanate quick charge model pure electric bus, but it does not lose its rationality, because it further requires bus companies to work hard on lightweight. "The quick-charge model should do everything possible to reduce the battery."

"This is good for the mainstream battery industry at the moment, but it will definitely hinder the exploration of other application models." This person believes that lithium titanate batteries will be affected by the policy in the short term, but he said that Saic bus still has a strong interest in lithium titanate quick charge mode pure electric bus, to maintain the attention of high speed, and even thinks that lithium titanate batteries still have a large application space in the future.

Tong also believes that due to the cost of lithium titanate batteries, within a certain period of time to reduce a large number of subsidies so that its advantages in the field of new energy vehicles no longer, but its more than 20,000 times of high cycle life in the field of energy storage will have a great prospect.

Subsidies are not renewed or will be changed

Although the reduction of subsidies in the new policy makes the relevant car companies feel painful, more hurt is some of the research and development and production of lithium titanate power battery enterprises.

"The short charging time and long cycle life of lithium titanate have been fully demonstrated on short-distance electric buses, but the restriction of targeted subsidies in the new policy has cost the vehicle manufacturers 350,000 yuan, which will inevitably lead to the weakening of the competitiveness of battery manufacturers themselves." Tong introduced.

Tong Zhiming calculated an account to the author, the original electric bus with 300 KWH of lithium iron phosphate, the market price is about 2 million yuan, micro-macro titanate lithium car in Chongqing operation is equipped with 160 kWh battery pack, about 400,000 yuan less than the car with lithium iron phosphate. According to the new round of subsidies, and the original than less than 350,000 yuan. In this way, the electric bus with lithium titanate battery has no price advantage over the bus with lithium iron phosphate battery.

The market always pursues the optimization of price. Since the price advantage of lithium titanate quick rechargeable battery in the field of electric bus no longer exists, under the impact of new market competition pattern, new products or operation mode will emerge as The Times require.

It is worth noting that in response to the New Deal subsidy reduction crisis, micro-macro power to give the move is the introduction of new composite material power battery.

As the second generation of power lithium battery product developed and produced by micro-macro power -- multiple composite lithium batteries. Compared with the mainstream lithium iron phosphate batteries, the multi-material lithium battery has low attenuation, can withstand high current and multiple charging, and has higher energy density and lower price.

According to Deng ping's introduction, this kind of new battery is the Hengtong electric bus originally in the next round of new energy bus competition to show the card, in the new energy car subsidy policy changes, will appear in advance.

Hengtong electric has rolled out more than 900 new energy buses in Chongqing over the past two years among the 25 demonstration cities in the "ten thousand vehicles in ten cities" project. Among them, there were 31 pure electric buses and nearly 900 plug-in hybrid buses, which not only created the exclusive "ten minutes" quick charging mode in China but also adopted the non-mainstream lithium iron titanate battery technology.

It has been the subject of a number of studies by domestic experts and other cities, but Hengtong's future is hard to predict as the new subsidy policy is unfair.

For "lithium titanate quick charge pure electric bus quota subsidy 150,000 yuan" this policy limit, Hengtong electric general manager Deng ping is obviously unexpected. "Nor do we understand why the new subsidies are technically restrictive." When the author interviewed Deng ping by phone, the voice at the end of the phone was accompanied by a sigh of helplessness.

"Now that things have come to this, we don't care." Although Deng ping expressed frustration over the injustice of the policy, he did not despair. The reason for this is that Hengtong electric has made technical reserves in advance. "In the future, instead of the previous battery technology, we will enable multiple composite lithium battery technologies in advance. "This new technology, which we intended to start after the new energy vehicles entered the second wave of competition, can only be started in advance.

It is understood that the ternary composite lithium battery technology is still by Hengtong electric previous joint venture - macro-micro power supply, and the same use of fast charging mode.

"The energy density of ternary composite lithium battery can reach 120kWh/kg, which is 1.5 times higher than lithium titanate battery; But at the same volume, the price of ternary compound lithium battery is 1/3 lower than lithium titanate battery. According to tong, the new multi-element composite lithium battery will replace lithium titanate battery in the field of electric buses.

According to Deng ping, Hengtong has launched 340 new energy buses in the first half of this year and will launch 170 more this year. The target of 500 new energy vehicles will not change, and the new energy vehicles behind the exit will use multiple composite material batteries.

An exploratory model, already in its early stages of operation, is being cut in half by a cut in subsidies, an obstacle felt most acutely by new energy car companies.

In this case, Hengtong electric began to try to use other materials of the battery to get rid of the negative impact of the subsidy compression.

"In the case of lithium titanate losing a large number of subsidies, Hengtong electric has launched the latest composite battery in conjunction with micro-macro power," Deng ping said. There are already bus companies that want to try this model. Therefore, for our company, the problem of whether to use lithium titanate battery will not be affected too much.

The demonstration city is preliminary determined

Recently, the ministry of finance, the ministry of science and technology, the ministry of industry and information technology and the national development and reform commission organized experts to review and evaluate the application plans for the promotion of new energy vehicles, and identified 28 cities or regions as the first batch of cities for the promotion and application of new energy vehicles.

Chongqing once again successfully selected as one of the first batches of new energy vehicle promotion and application city.

Although a new round of subsidy policy makes the lithium titanate quick charge mode into trouble, the new multi-element composite lithium battery seems to make up for this market shortage.

From the perspective of energy density and cost, multiple composite lithium batteries are more competitive than the original lithium titanate batteries. Will Hengtong electric open a new market quickly?

To this, Deng ping's answer seems uncertain, the reason is not worried about the competitiveness of ternary composite lithium battery, but worried about whether Chongqing will change the policy in the process of this round of demonstration city. As Hengtong electric bus is located in Chongqing, the initial launch of new products must be based in Chongqing, Chongqing local government policy has become an important factor. This makes the spread of the new technology full of uncertainty.

It is reported that the new round of declaration of the city or region of the total number of nearly 40, the total number of more than 330,000 vehicles, in line with the principle of "wide in and strict out", most of the cities will be included in the final demonstration list. Because of this, even the cities on the demonstration list will be eliminated if they fail to meet their targets on time.

In addition to central policies, demonstration cities will also introduce local policies to support the development of new energy vehicles. According to the number of subsidies from the central government, the price of new energy vehicles still cannot be reduced to an acceptable level, and they are not competitive with similar traditional cars. Therefore, in the future demonstration work, the support from local governments will largely determine the development speed of new energy vehicles.

At present, for example, relevant policies for new energy vehicles have been issued outside Beijing, such as Beijing 2013-2017 clean air action plan. The plan includes targets for developing new energy vehicles. In a new round of demonstrations, Beijing reported a target of more than 35,000 vehicles. Shenzhen, second only to Beijing, also reported a target of 35,000 vehicles. Compared with the above two cities, most cities or regions still target the bottom line of 5,000 vehicles.

"As for the recently announced new energy vehicle subsidy policy, I still have many unclear points, and I am planning to spend some time in Beijing to consult and consult with the leaders of the ministry of industry and information technology." He Xiulin, director of the automobile industry department of Hangzhou economic and information technology commission, told me that not only Chongqing but also Hangzhou, as a city with the mature promotion of new energy vehicles, need to reformulate this round of subsidy policies.

Similar to the confusion of Chongqing new energy automobile enterprises, Hangzhou automobile enterprises, which carry out the mode of "charging and changing electricity in parallel", are also trapped in the waiting process because they are waiting for a new round of local policies of demonstration cities.

"At present, the first batch of demonstration cities (regions) have been preliminarily determined, and it is reasonable that Chongqing has once again been selected as one of the first batches, but we cannot carry out the next step of product sales before the introduction of the local subsidy policy." Deng ping pointed out that the next step is waiting for the introduction of local subsidy policy.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.