The bottleneck of high-nickel ternary lithium battery, the problem of large-scale application of new energy vehicle power battery

SMM News: China has been ranked as the world's largest producer of new energy vehicles for three consecutive years. It is expected to maintain rapid growth in the next few years. As the biggest feature of traditional cars, the cost of batteries in the new energy vehicle system accounts for 20-50%, and it is also the core factor determining the cruising range of electric vehicles.

The continued growth of the new energy vehicle market has driven the growth of the power battery industry. In 2017, the total installed capacity of domestic new energy vehicle lithium batteries reached 33.55Gwh. The iterative iteration of power battery products also affects the overall development of new energy vehicles. At present, Power lithium battery development route is undergoing a change. Ternary battery overtaking of 2017 years ago, the market choice lithium iron phosphate batteries as a mainstream technology, and new energy vehicles to the requirement of battery energy density is a process of continuous improvement, constantly changing industry will also go to choose. lithium iron phosphate batteries around the upper limit of the energy density of 160wh/kg, the industry is expected to 2020 standard power battery energy density will reach more than 300wh/kg, this is the lithium iron phosphate batteries are harder to achieve. On the other hand, the actual average energy density of the ternary battery at the current technical level can reach between 180-190wh/kg, and there is also a large room for improvement in the subsequent stage. The policy aspect is also overweight. In February, the ministry of finance, ministry of industry, ministry of science and technology, development and reform commission (NDRC) four ministries and commissions such as post adjusted the new energy automobile finance subsidy policy, improve the pure electric passenger cars, the quick charge pure electric passenger cars, car power battery system energy density threshold requirements. Policy guidance released encourage signal of high performance power battery application, new energy vehicles power battery technology is also the answer to. The ternary battery is expected to begin this year will surpass the lithium iron phosphate battery market capacity become mainstream, and achieve continuous increment of alternative in the future market, dominate. High nickel production layout and production schedule specific to the ternary battery cathode material field, high nickel material with the advantages of high energy density.

Secondly, according to estimates, after using high nickel materials, battery integrated unit costs decline is about 8% above the highest, cost advantage is obvious. Contradiction between supply and demand of cobalt price fluctuation is also helping manufacturers to low to high cobalt nickel products. Cobalt raw materials in the ternary cathode material cost is high, the price rising in 2018, early in the first quarter of 520000 Yuan/ton, compared to April rose more than 20%, as of April 13, cobalt price 674000 Yuan/ton. Under the demand of cost reduction and efficiency increase, the high-nickel ternary NCM811 product with the most advantageous support for the aforementioned 300Wh/kg target debuted with a halo. Although there are still manufacturers claiming that the lithium iron phosphate battery line will remain unwavering, the market for higher energy density battery technology is being actively promoted.

Since 2017, the layout of high nickel products in succession at the anode materials manufacturers, the production capacity is expected to begin in 2018 to market supply, especially NCM811 has been getting a lot of attention capacity and output of the product. For domestic power battery companies, CATL, BYD, Jiangxi Fu Neng, BAK Battery, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Tianjin Lishen, Penghui Energy and other companies have developed and produced NCM811 batteries. Among them, BAK Battery has announced that it has mass-produced NCM811 cylindrical power battery, the energy density can reach 232Wh/kg, and the product of 300Wh/kg is also coming soon. Penghui Energy also revealed that the company's cylindrical batteries using NCM811 materials have been mass-produced and supplied to the relevant OEMs. The research on the venting of the vents leading the industry to shuffle the roots of the real lithium is expected, in the context of the existing policy trends remain unchanged, in 2018 and beyond, the lithium iron phosphate route will gradually withdraw from the electric vehicle market, the market share shrinkage is brought before Enterprises that focus on this technology are facing risk of elimination and must seek transformation. Correspondingly, enterprises that have advanced layout and mastered the advantages of high-nickel R&D and manufacturing will enjoy a first-time bonus. But long-term decisive wins require long-term endurance in terms of continuous technical investment, process upgrades, market development, and so on. It is foreseeable that the high-nickel market will be concentrated in the hands of a few leading companies with long-term accumulation and strength. The companies with lower rankings or SMEs have little chips in the market competition until they are “shuffled”. Although several major constraints on accelerating the volume are generally optimistic, there is still a long way to go to realize the large-scale application of high-nickel NCM811 products in the field of automotive power batteries. At present, there are only a few cases in which NCM811 products are used in new energy vehicles.

In October last year, take part in the national production car performance series of Jianghuai iEV7S carrying BAK battery 18650-2.75 Ah batteries products, become the domestic NCM811 product application on new energy vehicles in the first case. Internationally, Hyundai recently released the KonaEV pure electric SUV, which is powered by NCM811 batteries supplied by LG Chem, but it has not yet been mass-produced. At this stage, there are still the following bottlenecks in accelerating the application of high-nickel products: raw materials are scarce. China's lithium, cobalt and nickel resources are relatively scarce. Domestic high-nickel raw materials are mainly imported at this stage, which is easily restricted by external factors. With the growth of the power battery industry, experts believe that lithium, cobalt and nickel will be in short supply in 2021, 2022 and 2019 respectively, manufacturing capacity constraints. The production process of high-nickel ternary materials is complicated, and the production equipment and environment are highly demanded. The existing production lines cannot be directly used as NCM811 or NCA production lines, and need to be redesigned and constructed, increasing the capital investment. It can be said that the current domestic preparation does not yet have the mature technology and large-scale production capacity, even in the next three years will be a certain amount of output gaps. Security issues are waiting to be resolved.

According to Yulong Zhu, deputy chief engineer of Shanghai Jiexin Power Engineering Department, the higher the nickel ratio, the worse the thermal stability of the cathode material. In the case of high temperature, external impact, etc., high nickel batteries may present a safety hazard. And gas production when the high-nickel battery is charged will cause the battery to bulge is also a problem to be solved. As a key component in automotive products, high-nickel products still require a greater degree of safety in terms of safety. The equipment selection period is long. Vehicle manufacturers are very cautious when applying new technologies and new products to their models. All major auto companies have strict and complicated certification procedures for battery suppliers. Battery companies and products need to be tested and verified with difficulty, need a long time.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.