Is lead-acid batteries even more environmentally friendly than lithium batteries? uncertain

Recently, the 35th Nanjing exhibition closed smoothly. In 16 provinces, cities and regions across the country, nearly 800 exhibitors competed on the same stage, and the number of visitors on the first day reached 150,000.

Many models have been exhibited at this exhibition. Whether it is an electric two-wheeled, three-wheeled, four-wheeled enterprise, there are new products on display. After the rough statistics of pepper on the scene, lead-acid electric vehicles account for more than 80 % of all electric two-wheelers, and almost all electric three-wheeled and four-wheeled products use lead-acid batteries.

At the Tianjin Exhibition in 2013, the industry clearly summed up the future development direction of electric vehicles for the first time: light, refined, clever, and high. Because of this, lithium batteries are more and more accepted by more and more industries because of their light, small, and high technology characteristics. However, after four years, lithium battery products are still not warm, why?

According to the analysis of pepper, there are two main reasons:

For most consumers, the price of lead-acid batteries is lower when the performance is not very different.

For battery manufacturers, lithium battery recovery is quite difficult. The cost of battery recovery is 8540 yuan, but the extracted material is only 8110 yuan.

First question.

Many consumers are still impressed with lithium-electric vehicles a few years ago: light, but expensive. They don't care about technology, patents, pollution -- they buy things that are more important: how long can they last? How far can you go? Can the price be cheaper! In contrast, lead-acid batteries, while bulky, are relatively cheap and have similar performance. Because of this, lithium batteries can easily be labeled as "flashy".

In fact, lithium batteries are not as expensive as many consumers think. Lithium batteries from $4 / W five years ago

It has dropped to 1.5 yuan/w, and even companies have achieved a level of about 1 yuan/w.

In addition, large-scale production can dilute costs through large-scale expansion of production capacity. This is also the current new energy car giant BYD's approach.

Regarding the price of lithium batteries, Ruanyiliangcai, head of China Aviation's lithium electricity market, said: "Battery prices have dropped by 15 % per year on average. Some products can even reach 25 %. Qinxingcai, vice chairman of Tianjin lishen battery Co., Ltd., also said that from the national strategic level, battery price reduction is a major trend.

At present, lithium-ion batteries have entered a mature stage of technology, after the formation of scale production, the cost is rapidly declining, and the sales price of some powerful companies has reached the current price of lead-acid batteries. In other words, as long as consumers can reverse the old concept that lithium trams are "flashy", then the acceptance of the market should not be a problem.

So why are most battery manufacturers also "deterred" from lithium batteries?

This is also the second point mentioned above: Lithium batteries are difficult to recycle.

Look at a few sets of data first.

China's electric vehicle sales accounted for more than 40 per cent of the global market in 2016, and China overtook the US as the world's largest market for electric vehicles, according to the International Energy Agency. Chinese companies produced 6.7 billion batteries in the first eight months of 2017, up 51 per cent from a year earlier, according to data.

The country has promoted electric vehicles since 2009, and next year's lithium battery waste will reach 170,000 tons as the first electric vehicles reach their useful life. Industry experts predict that number will continue to rise as sales of electric vehicles increase.

China's battery recycling market will reach Rmb31 billion by 2023, according to industry think tanks.

But, to top it all off, the cost of recycling lithium batteries is very high. At present, the industry has not yet reached a unified standard for the large-scale treatment of used batteries, and profitability is a very difficult thing.

Zhangtianren, chairman of teneng group, points out that for an ordinary recycling company, the material extracted from a ton of lithium iron phosphate waste batteries is worth 8110 yuan, but the recovery cost is as high as 8540 yuan.

Recycling a ton of lithium iron phosphate waste batteries is not only not profitable, but also a loss of 430 yuan. Most companies refuse to recycle when there is no profit. However, some industry insiders have revealed to pepper that the natural degradation cycle of lithium batteries is extremely long. If no one does it, its harm to the environment even exceeds that of lead-acid batteries, that is, lead-acid batteries that can be recycled to some extent., It's even more environmentally friendly than the lithium batteries that no one has "picked up".

The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had asked the industry to introduce standardized design by 2020 and upgrade related technologies to the "international" level. The ministry is expected to release a new battery recycling code by the end of this year.

However, Zhangtianren pointed out that the relevant policies have not been effectively implemented, and those unqualified companies are not punished. "Lithium-ion battery recycling is simply not profitable at this stage because of inadequate policy implementation and the lack of incentives," he said. "

In the March proposal for the two sessions, Zhangtianren pointed out: "Accelerating the recycling of lithium batteries is an urgent matter and an important issue in the development of the new energy automotive industry. "

It can be seen that the recycling of lithium batteries has become the biggest obstacle to the development of lithium electric vehicles. If you can break through the barriers to recycling technology, then lithium trams will quickly occupy the electric vehicle market and become the industry's new pet.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.