Working with LG to develop the whole path of electric core universal battery development

"This production line only needs four people to control, including the two people needed for the final Pack cover," said the staff standing next to the battery line. On June 5, at the SAIC General Motors power battery System Development Center in Jinqiao, Pudong, Shanghai, the media saw the SAIC General Battery Production Line officially operating at the end of last year. More than a dozen elaborate and complex processes were all completed by the "Little Yellow Man". The facts prove that, the irreversible development of new energy vehicles is shifting the competition of car manufacturers to the research and development and production of electrical systems. And this seemingly unspectacular battery line will have an unstoppable impact on China's brand new car manufacturing chain.

On this day, global auto giant General Motors released a “zero-emission” development path in China. In addition to proposing to launch 20 new new energy vehicles in China in 2023, GM first demonstrated its complete battery path in China. R & D, verification of single cells, to test, assembly of battery packs, in addition to the production of single cells, GM already has the development and manufacturing capabilities of all other aspects of this industry chain. In the battery lab at the GM China Forward Technology Center in Pudong, the Sino-US (GM North America Headquarters) exchange for cell and battery systems has been around since 6 years ago. In a sense, the car manufacturer has It is a partner of South Korea's LG Chemical Company.

"The key to electric vehicles is batteries. General Motors has long begun to build its own battery development capabilities, focusing on basic research on battery materials and individual battery design, challenging the limits." JenniferGoforth, general engineer of electrification at GM China, said. In 2016, GM established a new "chief engineer of electrification" for China and was fully responsible for the development of GM's new energy products in China.

Gm is not the only multinational car company to invest in battery development and production capacity in China, including BMW, VW and Mercedes, which have spent or plan to spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars building battery lines in China to localize the core components of new energy vehicles. At the end of May, Huachenbaoma, which had just been in production for seven months, announced the launch of the second phase of expansion. Volkswagen's global power battery investment totaling 50 billion yuan is also rapidly advancing in China ...

With subsidies as a catalyst, local investment in battery capacity has become a new hotspot for automakers in China. Who can reduce battery costs as quickly as possible means who can gain an advantage in China, the world's largest new energy vehicle market. And multinational car companies once again demonstrate the R&D and production strength on the power battery, or it will become the key to reversing the new energy advantages of local car companies.

Full Path of Universal Battery Development

"GM has announced that it will launch 10 new energy vehicles in the Chinese market between 2016 and 2020, and this plan is currently progressing in an orderly manner." On June 5, GM released a "zero-emission" development path in China. Qianhuikang, president of General Motors China, said the company would then expand its product mix and expected to double the total number of new energy vehicles in China by 2023.

At present, General Motors has launched three new energy products on the Chinese market, including the Cadillac CT6 plug-in hybrid car, the Buick VELITE5 augmentation hybrid car and Baojun E100 pure electric vehicle. Buick VELITE 6 plug-in hybrid and its sister model VELITE 6 pure electric vehicles will also be launched in August this year. As of May this year, GM's new energy vehicle products in China have accumulated more than 75 million kilometers of pure electric mileage.

Compared with Volkswagen's more than 40 new energy strategies, General Motors has always been considered too conservative in terms of the speed at which electric vehicles are commercialized. The increasingly clear style shows that "risk minimization" has become a top priority for the team of GM CEO Mary Barra.

The most obvious example is that GM launched the industry's first mass-produced electric vehicle EV1 in 1996. Since then, it has launched breakthrough hybrids including the Chevrolet Volt and the Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle. Pure electric model. Among them, Bolt even formed technical competition for Tesla Model3 in the North American market. But in China, after the failure of the Chevrolet Volt experiment many years ago, GM is no longer willing to be the "first person to eat grapes."

However, the focus of the "zero-emission" route released this time is not on the launch plan for new energy models, but on the demonstration of the strength of battery technology in the front section of the path. In other words, GM is announcing that it is becoming the most battery-savvy carmaker.

"Our layout in the new energy sector goes far beyond simply selling electric cars. General Motors China Battery Laboratory is the second largest battery laboratory in the world, covering two aspects of battery development and testing. " Jen-niferGoforth said. In order to speed up China's electrification R&D capabilities, battery laboratories were established in 2011, and General Motors China Vision Research and Technology Center established battery laboratories as a branch of the general global battery laboratory system. The single battery test laboratory has the ability to test 96 single batteries and 6 battery packs at the same time.

The purpose of the peer side is that the laboratory not only conducts the research and development, verification and testing of battery systems, but also involves the design of battery chemical components and individual batteries, that is, starting from the source of battery development. At present, most multinational car manufacturers are still in the first step-the development of battery systems. Jen-niferGoforth revealed that before GM-developed monomer batteries are officially used, it takes at least 3-5 years to test and verify in the laboratory to achieve technical performance such as the safety of battery packs.

The industry believes that from this perspective, Mary. Bora's "risk minimization" strategy will not prevent the Advancement of general-purpose technology. Mary Bora asked GM to invest in research and development years in all forward-looking technologies and master every aspect of the technology. Then on the basis of ensuring the advanced and safety of each technology, commercial investment is carried out.

Electric core: beyond the competition in the automotive field

Unlike BMW's power battery center in Shenyang, GM's 1.6 billion battery-built localization entity was named "SAIC General Motors Battery System Development Center." In June last year, an air-cooled battery pack assembled in one of the center's battery factories was already loaded on the Cadillac XT5 light-mixed model produced by SAIC-GM. In August this year, another liquid-cooled battery pack production line will be launched.

In the production system, GM adopts the development of new battery materials and single battery design through the battery laboratory, and communicates with LG, and the unit battery developed for the production model is delivered to LG production, and then OEMs purchase LG's products and assemble them in their own battery factories. "We are currently talking with a number of battery suppliers, and we have not decided finally (with whom)." Qian Huikang said that the final supplier will not only lock one, and the current battery manufacturers have a large technology and capacity. Ascension, as long as it is a supplier that can meet the technical requirements of general products, is considered. As the only chemical company in the world that produces batteries, LG is a global partner of GM and a battery supplier for several new energy products of SAIC GM. GM's cooperation with LG focuses on battery development, battery technology upgrades, etc. aspect. It is reported that after the Buick VELITE6 made in August this year, SAIC GM is expected to turn the battery supplier into a local manufacturer, in order to benefit from the subsidy.

In terms of production path, most auto manufacturers currently use the same path as GM -- purchasing power cores and building their own factories to assemble battery packs, but there is little research and development of battery cores (electrode materials and electrolytes). However, more and more car manufacturers have realized the importance of pre-battery development. The core is the core component of the power battery. It determines the performance, capacity, charging efficiency, service life, and most important cost of the power battery. And these are also the key to electric car competition. More importantly, the products of each automotive company are different, and the performance and design requirements of batteries are also different. Battery manufacturers can not carry out targeted development, and they are still in multiple routes for battery technology. New technologies are ready to subvert the stage of existing technologies. For vehicle manufacturers, the "runaway" of battery technology will increase the risk of future competition.

Multinational car giants are already on the move. Last November, BMW's electric core technology center broke ground in Munich, Germany, and will be put into use as early as 2019. Behind the 200 million euro investment is BMW's demand for enhanced battery performance and more guidance to suppliers. Volkswagen announced last year that it would invest 50 billion euros in electric-vehicle batteries, and its previously announced solid batteries with a mileage of more than 1,000 kilometers are expected to be mass-produced by 2025.

As a representative of soft-pack battery technology, LG's current sales prices in Europe and the United States have been kept within 1 yuan per watt-hour, and profit margins can be guaranteed, according to technicians at GM's forward-looking technology center. In 2016, LG Chemical once stated that it would achieve a price of 1 yuan per wattage, which became the pretext for the Korean battery to ignite a price war. In June 2017, Ouyangminggao, a power battery expert, said that the cost of domestic power batteries in China is expected to reach 1 yuan per wattage in 2020. However, since 2018, due to the crazy rise in raw materials such as international lithium ore prices, 1 yuan per wattage can be achieved. Can it be a suspense?

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.