What problems will lithium battery encounter under the new policy

The launch of a new subsidy policy, from the government's point of view, is intended to move the industry towards a more regulated path, but there are always many shortcomings for the Chinese enterprises closely related to the policy.

A new round of new energy vehicle subsidy policy has been issued by four ministries and commissions on September 17, 2013. The adjustment of the subsidy for new-type battery materials issued by this policy has also caused confusion and confusion among some lithium battery enterprises.

The reason is that the new subsidy policy on the use of super capacitors and lithium titanate quick charge lithium battery electric bus discriminatory subsidy treatment.

According to the requirements of the notice on the promotion and application of new energy vehicles, the fixed subsidy for super capacitor and lithium titanate quick-charge pure electric bus 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." Tong zhiming, general manager of weihong power systems (huzhou) co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as weihong power), told reporters 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, the pure electric bus of lithium titanate has lost its competitive advantage in the market." Deng ping, general manager of chongqing hengtong electric bus power system co., LTD.

It is understood that 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 not too much role. Also, because the energy density of lithium titanate batteries is much lower than lithium iron phosphate batteries, each car comes with a different battery

Can be less than 80 degrees, according to the price of 9,500 yuan once, the price of 80 degrees battery in 700,000 yuan or so, 150,000 yuan of subsidies 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 ping explains.

However, until 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 of pure electric bus. Although lithium titanate batteries have a low energy density, they can be charged quickly and have a much longer cycle life than lithium iron phosphate batteries, making them a suitable business model for short-distance bus operations.

It is understood that hengtong electric lithium titanate battery is produced and supplied by weihong power system (huzhou) co., LTD. So far, more than 900 buses have been put into chongqing's new energy bus project.

"Before the introduction of the new policy, Hong Kong bus companies and British bus companies came to hengtong electric bus to learn about the quick charging bus, and expressed their intention to cooperate. Deng ping believes that for short distance electric buses, the quick charge model has a large market space, but the reduction of state subsidies may make this model unsustainable.

"A lot of times there is no continuity or a systematic plan for the policies issued by the government, so we have to have our own rhythm for the enterprises that make power batteries, because you can't figure out the rhythm of the government." He expressed similar concerns about why lithium titanate batteries are not eligible for the new 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 this time the new subsidy policy has made the separate limit to the individual special material battery.

It is worth noting that an official of saic bus said that the new policy does reduce the profit margin of pure electric buses with lithium titanate quick charge mode, but it is also reasonable, because it further requires bus companies to work hard on lightweight. "The quick-charge model should do everything possible to reduce the number of batteries."

"It's good for the mainstream battery industry, but it's a hindrance to other applications." This person believes that the lithium titanate battery will be affected by the policy in the short term, but he said that saic bus still has a strong interest in the lithium titanate quick charge mode pure electric bus, maintains the attention of high speed, and even thinks that lithium titanate battery still has a large application space in the future.

Tong also believes that due to the cost problem of lithium titanate battery, a large number of subsidies have been reduced within a certain period of time, making it no longer advantageous in the field of new energy vehicles, but its high cycle life of more than 20,000 times will have great application prospects in the field of energy storage.

Subsidies are not renewed or will be changed

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

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

Tong zhiming to the reporter calculated a sum of money, the original load of 300 KWH of lithium iron phosphate electric bus, the market price is about 2 million yuan, micro macro titanate lithium car in chongqing operation is installed 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 price advantage of electric buses with lithium titanate batteries over those with lithium iron phosphate batteries is no longer there.

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 compound lithium battery. Compared with the mainstream lithium iron phosphate batteries, the multi-compound lithium batteries have low attenuation, can withstand high current and multiple charges, and have higher energy density and lower price.

According to deng ping's introduction, this new type of battery, hengtong electric bus was the next round of new energy bus competition to show the card, in the new energy car subsidies after the policy change, will appear in advance.

Hengtong electric has rolled out more than 900 new energy buses in chongqing over the past two years, among 25 demonstration cities in the previous "1,000 buses in 10 cities" project. Among them, 31 are pure electric buses and nearly 900 are plug-in hybrid buses, which not only creates the exclusive "ten minutes" quick charging mode in China, but also adopts the non-mainstream lithium iron titanate battery technology.

It was once the subject of a study by many domestic experts and other cities, but hengtong's future is hard to predict as the new subsidies are 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." In the telephone interview with deng ping on October 28, the voice at the other end of the phone was accompanied by a sigh of helplessness.

"Now that things have come to this, we don't care." Although deng 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 technology in advance. "This new technology, which we had planned to launch after the new energy vehicles entered the second wave of competition, can only be launched in advance.

It is understood that the ternary composite lithium battery technology is still by hengtong electric previous joint venture - micro macro power to provide, and the same rapid 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 be changed, 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 about to be cut in half as subsidies are scaled back, 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 adverse impact of the subsidy compression.

"" in the case of lithium titanate losing a large amount of subsidies, hengtong electric has jointly launched the latest composite battery material with micro-macro power," "deng ping said. "There are already bus companies that want to try out this model, so for our company, the issue of whether to use lithium titanate batteries won't have a big impact.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.