The present situation and future trend of lithium battery industry in China are discussed

The new energy vehicle and related power battery industries are expanding rapidly. In the first half of this year, China's new energy vehicle sales rose 127 percent year-on-year to 170,000 units. The China association of automobile manufacturers predicts that 700, 000 new energy vehicles will be sold this year. Lithium battery industry investment subsequently continues to heat up. According to incomplete statistics, in the first half of this year alone, 54 listed companies in the upper, middle and lower reaches of power batteries issued investment and production expansion plans, with a total investment of nearly 116 billion yuan.

However, in many enterprises and capital to the lithium battery industry at the same time, but also buried a lot of security risks. The mixed and spotty quality of battery manufacturers, and the recent spate of safety incidents, are partly to blame.

Water and fire

On July 7, two electric buses with rain-soaked chassis burst into flames in nanjing. The cause of the fire is believed to be a short circuit caused by water entering the battery pack. An industry insider recently told the reporter that the problem of electric cars should be in accordance with the IP54 design, its waterproof grade is lower than IP67, usually IP54 is enough, but in special circumstances, it is best to meet the IP67 standard requirements.

IP stands for IngressProtection and is derived from the international electrotechnical commission standard IEC60529. It is composed of two Numbers, the first number is dust proof, the second number is waterproof, the larger the number is the better its protection level, IP67 standard specific requirements to prevent dust into and protection against flooding.

On the current situation and future trend of lithium battery industry in China: water and fire intersect

Similarly, three days after the nanjing electric bus caught fire, a fire accident also occurred in shenzhen meibai electronics co., LTD., which was caused by the semi-finished lithium battery in the aging workshop. On the day of July 10, shenzhen longhua office of the office of work safety supervision staff on the area of 115 battery production, storage enterprises to carry out the investigation and rectification of potential safety hazards, a total of 20 battery inspection enterprises, seized 8.

At present, lithium ion batteries are commonly used in electric vehicles in China. Lithium ion battery itself has the characteristics of small volume and high density, which meets the requirements of lightweight electric vehicles. Lithium, however, is the most active metal in its cycle. When the battery system fails, it may cause the lithium ion battery to fail, producing a large amount of high-temperature gas. If the hot gas is not released, it may cause combustion or explosion.

Both lithium iron phosphate and lithium ternary batteries carry certain safety risks. In order to make a quick buck, some battery manufacturers choose materials that are shoddy or do not strictly check the quality of batteries. Since 2011, China has witnessed 31 accidents of various types of electric vehicles. With the rapid growth of new energy vehicle ownership, accidents are on the rise. There were nine electric vehicle accidents in 2015 and eight in the first half of this year alone. Most of the accidents were caused by defects in battery system, related components and charging system.

Ningde new energy technology co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as "ATL"), President and chief executive, ningde era of new energy technology co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as the "age of ningde) founder yu-qun zeng recently in an interview with the media played an analogy, lithium iron phosphate, like burning coal combustion, and three yuan, like burning gasoline, combustible, but is not the same as the dangerous degree.

Ningde age independence from ATL power battery business enterprises, since its inception in 2011, has been with the domestic and foreign many well-known car manufacturers depth cooperation, provide pure electric and hybrid electric vehicle power battery system, brilliance BMW, geely emgrand EV, yutong have already mass production models, such as pure electric bus is the era of ningde batteries, as of March 2016, the cumulative running mileage reached 3 billion kilometers.

According to data from various sources, panasonic, the supplier of tesla power batteries, ranks first in the global output of lithium batteries for vehicles with 5.5GWh, byd ranks second with 3GWh and ningde times ranks third with 2.43GWh. In 2016, the planned output of ningde times lithium battery is 7~8GWh.

Huang shilin, President of ningde times, said in a media interview on July 11 that foreign companies entered the power battery industry ten years earlier than China. Undeniably, the domestic power battery technology in the initial stage and they have a certain gap, the overall industry is much smaller than the individual scale. However, with the support of domestic policies, Chinese power battery enterprises have also made technological improvements in five aspects, including safety, energy density, power and density, service life and cost. Now some technologies are comparable, and some domestic special projects have made rapid progress. In the field of consumer electronic batteries, ATL's participation in international competition is no less than that of foreign enterprises, and even has obvious advantages. Power batteries are also gradually forming such a trend.

At present, China's auto industry has developed more than 70 of the standard for new energy vehicles, and, more recently, often in all kinds of battery related policies, also shows that the state of battery safety, industry standards, etc all attach great importance to technology development, the ministry of equipment department released on June 8, the electric bus safety technical conditions "(draft), for power battery waterproof performance, etc, have more strict requirements, a new standard electric bus safety technology is expected to be officially released in the near future. At present, from GB/T national certification standards, some standards are even more stringent than foreign certification.

The future development

In the future, lithium battery production capacity will face the situation of excess, the survival of the fittest will be intensified, power battery manufacturers have been around battery safety, endurance, charging rate, environmental adaptability and cost and other aspects to enhance competitiveness. Unlike Japan, which is accelerating the development of hydrogen fuel cell, the main domestic power battery enterprises are still focused on attacking lithium battery.

Byd, which had previously clung to lithium iron phosphate, last year adopted the ternary lithium battery for the first time in its song plug-in hybrid SUV model. Byd chairman and President wang chuanfu told reporters earlier this year, in the power battery will walk on two legs, electric bus batteries to lithium iron phosphate mainly, passenger cars will be expanded to adopt three lithium batteries. Yang qi, marketing director of ningde times, said in a media interview recently: "in the first half of this year, the company's shipment proportion of lithium iron phosphate and ternary is 6:4. In the second half of this year, several major models will be launched, and this proportion will change. At this stage, for example, we still use lithium iron phosphate in the bus, and we will use three yuan in the passenger car. In the next few years, when the safety of three yuan products is guaranteed, we may recommend three yuan to the bus.

In terms of materials, ningde era gradually evolved from lithium iron phosphate/graphite, ternary, high nickel ternary/silicon carbon to all-solid lithium battery. During the 13th five-year plan period, we will be committed to the research and development of high nickel ternary/silicon carbon batteries. The country's 13th five-year plan has a very clear science and technology project, the next generation of products by 2020 compared to the current power battery, energy density will be doubled (that is, 300 watt-hours/kg), the price is half cheaper. Ningde times is one of the three units undertaking battery projects in China. "At present, we have been able to achieve 200~250 watt-hours/kg lithium ion battery, through the optimization of the design, we have confidence in the battery energy density to achieve 300~350 watt-hours/kg. The doubling of energy density will reduce consumers' "" charging anxiety" "and dramatically increase the range of all-electric vehicles. So said Dr. Lingyan jiang in ningde times.

With the continuous growth of new energy vehicle ownership, the demand for high-performance, safe and reliable power batteries will see an explosive growth. According to byd's plan, the company's total battery capacity is expected to reach 34GWh by 2020, which is almost equal to tesla's expected 35GWh capacity of Gigafactory. The ningde era is more ambitious, with total capacity expected to reach 50GWh by 2020.

At the same time, both byd and ningde times have long been engaged in battery recycling and cascade utilization. The current power battery life is generally 5~8 years, this year will have a batch of new energy vehicle battery attenuation and face recycling. Byd insiders told reporters that when the battery life of byd electric vehicles, will be recycled for energy storage batteries, energy storage batteries will be significantly reduced or even close to zero cost. Since the beginning of battery cell design, ningde era has taken into account such factors as convenient disassembly and battery material recovery after battery retirement. Power batteries are used in the energy storage market for the second time after retirement from automobiles, which is also one of the important exports for cascade utilization of power batteries in ningde era.

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