One day in 2014, the battery technology research and development department of Ningde era suddenly removed several skinny engineers, and they were immediately formed into a secret team. Soon, this secret team received a confidential task arranged by the headquarters: to develop soft pack batteries.
This made everyone unexpected, because this group of talents spent two full years painstakingly gnawing down the German version of more than 800 pages of power battery production process information provided by BMW. The first few batches of qualified square batteries The product has just completed the supporting of BMW Brilliance's first electric car Zino. The process flow of the only production line at present has not been thoroughly run-in, so why is it suddenly going to be soft-packed?
Four years later, the small coastal factory in Fujian, which was not well-known at the time, became a butterfly and became the world's number one power battery company. This large-scale factory located in a small town in Jiaocheng District, Ningde City, has become the place on earth that produces the most square power batteries. In one corner, a production line is running quietly. The first batch of soft-pack batteries, which are different from the square hard-shell package, rolled off the production line here, and were transported to Dongfeng Nissan’s Guangdong after a thousand kilometers of trek The Huadu factory assembles an electric car called Sylphy.
The global leader in prismatic power batteries has opened the curtain of mass production of soft pack batteries. This is a clear signal and the beginning of a pattern change. Perhaps, as mentioned earlier, the reshuffle has already begun.
Lithium-ion batteries, after two different structural processes of winding or stacking to complete the production of internal tissues, have taken three different paths in terms of the material and shape of the casing package: cylinder, square and soft package. Although the electrochemical principles of the three routes are essentially the same, and the material composition is basically the same, it is the different packaging forms and shape characteristics that determine the fate of the three batteries and the manufacturers behind them.
In 1992, Sony Corporation of Japan invented the lithium-ion battery. Limited by the equipment technology and technical conditions more than 20 years ago, as well as the market demand for notebook computers, Sony finally chose the most reliable and feasible technical solution at that time - 18650 Cylindrical battery. However, after misjudging the development prospects of electric vehicles and being mired in consecutive years of losses, Sony completely sold its lithium battery business at the end of 2016. So unfortunately, the inventor of the lithium battery became the earliest out, and Sony is not the protagonist of this article.
Following Sony, the Japanese electrical giant started research and development of lithium battery technology in 1994. By 1998, the 18650 cylindrical batteries produced by Panasonic had been mass-assembled in notebook computers of many brands in the world, becoming one of the best leaders in this industry. Ten years later (2008), Panasonic acquired Sanyo Electric, which was put down by BYD from China, and has since become the world's largest lithium battery supplier.
In December 1997, at the Toyota factory in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, a first-generation Prius, internally code-named NHW10, slowly rolled off the production line. As the song sang, the global auto industry "entered a new era."
Although it is a weak hybrid model, the power battery is still required. The first-generation Prius was loaded with cylindrical nickel-metal hydride batteries produced by PEVE (Panasonic EV Energy Co), a joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic in 1996 (Panasonic and Toyota hold 60% and 40% of the shares, respectively). This generation of Prius has sold 123,000 units worldwide and has become synonymous with hybrid vehicles and even new energy vehicles. In contrast, the world of power batteries is dominated by cylinders.Please check:https://www.aimeno.com/lithium-battery-pack/196.html
In June 2010, PEVE changed its name to PrimearthEV Energy Co. (PrimearthEVEnergyCo.), the abbreviation is still PEVE. The reason is that Toyota has become the controlling majority shareholder of this joint venture (the stake has risen to 80.5%). In 2013, on the eve of the launch of the second-generation Prius, the cylindrical batteries in its battery pack were replaced with prismatic Ni-MH batteries. The purpose of Toyota's doing this is to optimize the internal space of the battery pack, thereby greatly improving the system energy density.
In January 2017, Toyota announced a world record. The global sales of its hybrid models exceeded 10 million, including nearly 4 million Prius (3.9846 million). In four years, only Toyota (or Panasonic) has completed the installation of tens of millions of prismatic batteries, but the absolute number is not large, because there are only 3~5kWh power batteries in each hybrid car.
Today, Toyota is often criticized by people for its stagnant progress in pure electric vehicles, but who would have thought that this company actually began to explore and try pure electric vehicles as early as the end of the last century. In 1997, Toyota launched a pure electric version of the RAV4, the RAV4EV. This generation of RAV4EV is leased and used in a small area in North America. As expected, it uses the cylindrical Ni-MH battery produced by PEVE.
In February 2008, Tesla delivered the first Roadster. 99.999% of people on this earth would never have imagined that new energy vehicles would advance at such a speed in the next time, just like electric vehicles. Terrible acceleration.
Later generations always praised that Tesla selected suppliers from hundreds of battery brands and models around the world, but few people mentioned that Martin Eberhard (Father of Tesla) faced these various The battery factory suffered a lot of closed doors, and finally firmly chose the lithium battery camp. Now it can be clearly said that the choice of lithium batteries as power batteries is historically groundbreaking.
In 2010, after test-driving the Roadster in California, Akio Toyoda made the decision to invest $50 million in Tesla. While solving the urgent need for Tesla, Toyota proposed that Musk develop a lithium battery system for the second-generation RAV4EV.
Detroit giant GM launched a pure electric vehicle EV1 earlier than Toyota in 2006, but was defeated by RAV4EV in the market. So GM simply sold Ovonics, a subsidiary holding patents on nickel-metal hydride batteries, to Chevron, an American oil giant, who immediately acquired the patents of Toyota, Panasonic and PEVE. Although a settlement was reached in the end, the result was that Toyota could not use nickel-metal hydride batteries in pure electric vehicles.
Therefore, Toyota's original purpose was to bet on Tesla's ability to help it solve the problem of applying lithium batteries to pure electric vehicles, although the two ended up breaking up. But Tesla, which received Toyota's investment and factory support, finally made the cylindrical battery emerge suddenly.
two
The cooperation between Panasonic and Tesla makes the road tortuous, but the prospect is bright: they jointly created the era of cylindrical lithium battery application in pure electric vehicles.
From the 18650 lithium cobalt oxide battery on the Roadster in 2008, to the 18650 nickel-cobalt-aluminum battery on the Model S and Model X in 2012, to the 21700 battery on the Model 3 in 2017, Panasonic has been steadily Take the top spot in global power battery shipments.
In 2014, Tesla sold more than 30,000 electric vehicles. Panasonic achieved 2.7GWh of power battery shipments, of which Tesla's cylindrical batteries accounted for 2.6GWh, accounting for 22% of the global power battery market (11.9GWh) that year.
The most fundamental reason why Tesla chooses cylindrical batteries is that lithium batteries in this packaging form have been mass-produced for more than 20 years, and the process is quite mature and the consistency is the highest. However, the disadvantage of cylindrical batteries is also very obvious, that is, the capacity of a single cell is too small, which directly leads to the need for a large number of cells (7000~8000) to form modules and battery packs, resulting in connection loss and management complexity. level increase.
So much so that today, colleagues in China who are engaged in battery packs are feeling that Tesla's battery management technology level is still several years ahead of the country.
In that year, in the global power battery market, cylinders achieved the largest growth rate, nearly doubling from 2013, and achieved a market share of 22%.
In 2014, prismatic batteries occupied the largest share of the global power battery market, accounting for 45%.
Because of the sudden emergence of the Chinese market. In the second half of the year, under the strong stimulation of a series of favorable policies, China's new energy vehicle market broke out suddenly. This year, China's new energy vehicles achieved a jaw-dropping surge, from 17,600 in 2013 to 74,800, which soared 325% all the way. Enterprises lined up at the gate of the battery factory to grab batteries.
But even under such circumstances, China still completed 3.7GWh of power battery shipments. Among them, prismatic batteries occupy almost all of the market share.
This is because China's policy gave the most policy preference to new energy commercial vehicles at that stage, so commercial vehicles contributed the most to power batteries in that year. Major car companies are chasing policy dividends and maximizing production capacity towards new energy buses, trucks and special-purpose vehicles. In 2014, the number of domestic new energy commercial vehicles equipped with power batteries accounted for more than 70% of the total market, which directly led to the explosion of prismatic batteries.
Because commercial vehicles (especially passenger cars) require a large capacity of power battery packs, often hundreds of Ah, cylindrical batteries obviously cannot meet such a large capacity. For the early development of new energy vehicles, there is insufficient experience in battery management and module technology. For many Chinese car companies, the large-scale use of cylindrical batteries is obviously a huge technical difficulty. In the same way, soft-pack batteries are the most likely to leak when they are internally flattened and externally punctured. The safety considerations for battery modules and battery packs are also the most important. It was also the most difficult to use for Chinese car companies at that time.
Therefore, the square power battery became the first choice of Chinese car companies in that era.
In 2014, just supplying its own E6, Qin, Tengshi and K9, BYD shipped 1.3GWh, ranking fourth in the world. The second place is not the Ningde era, because at that time it only supplied BAIC E150 and BMW Brilliance, and its shipments in that year were only 0.3GWh, ranking tenth in the world and fifth in China, ranking behind BYD, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, and AVIC After lithium battery and Lishen. At that time, the top five power battery companies in China were all square-shaped, and their combined market share was close to 70%.Please check:https://www.aminobattery.com/lithium-battery/207.html
The biggest feature of the prismatic battery is that due to its regular shape, the space utilization rate of the battery pack is higher than that of the cylinder. Due to the hard shell (aluminum alloy shell), it is less difficult to group than the soft pack.
While prismatic batteries are making large-scale sieges in China, Samsung SDI, the pioneer of prismatic power batteries, is suffering from stagnant business.
Backed by the super tree of Samsung Group, Samsung SDI entered the battery field in 1999, and began to lay out power batteries in 2000. It can be said that it has a very advanced vision, but it has not found a suitable breakthrough opportunity. Until 2008, BMW began to lay out the research and development of the i-series of new energy vehicles, and investigated and selected suppliers of power batteries around the world. Samsung SDI seized the opportunity to establish a joint venture with Bosch, SBLimotive, a power battery company. Bosch and BMW have a cooperative relationship for more than half a century and are the most important core supplier of the latter. As a result, Samsung SDI has successfully entered the power battery supply chain of German car companies with Bosch as the leader.
After that, Samsung SDI brought Volkswagen (Porsche, Audi) into the supply system. In the BBA, Samsung is unique.
German cars prefer square batteries, which stems from the usual rigor and prudence of Germans. At the beginning of the research and development of new energy vehicles, although the Germans did not know much about various types of batteries, they stuck to a basic bottom line during the trial stage, that is, everything must make way for safety. German car companies believe that to minimize the safety risk of power batteries, they need to use products developed and designed with car-level specifications, and they believe that cylinders and soft bags do not meet car-level specifications. In fact, for a long time afterwards, prismatic batteries were considered to be the most suitable battery design for electric vehicle applications.
In 2009, BMW launched the pure electric car Megacity (the prototype of i3) equipped with Samsung SDI square batteries. After that, i3 became popular all over the world, and only then did Samsung SDI successfully open the power battery market. In 2012, SBLimotive was disbanded, and in the second year, Samsung SDI signed a long-term cooperation agreement with BMW and became a core supplier of BMW.
But what troubles Samsung SDI is that although it has won a luxury brand like BMW, BMW has been reluctant to make too much progress in the field of electric vehicles, so that after many years, the only power batteries that can be used are the i series. Two models. Although it has established a cooperative relationship with Chrysler and India's Tata later, it has not been scaled up.
So until 2014, Samsung SDI only completed the shipment of 0.6GWh. It's just 40% of the volume of another Korean fellow LG Chem.
three
LG Chem is the only battery company in the world today that has both chemicals and materials foundations. Not only can it achieve self-sufficiency in some ternary materials, but its diaphragm technology is even more unique in the world. LG Chem has many years of accumulation in the field of pouch batteries for consumer electronics. In order to make full use of the internal space of electronic devices, it has developed the world's first stepped and hexagonal pouch batteries.
In 2009, LG Chem applied its own pouch battery to Hyundai and Kia's hybrid vehicles, thus officially entering the power battery market.
In 2010, GM officially launched the first mass-produced new energy vehicle, the Chevrolet Volt. The entire GM Group is equipped with LG Chem's pouch battery for this new energy vehicle with high hopes. Afterwards, Chevrolet's Bolt, Ford's Focus electric version, and Chrysler's Grand Caravan electric version all used LG Chem's soft-pack batteries. The entire Detroit Three were almost all captured by LG Chem.
American cars have taken the soft pack route from the very beginning, because Detroiters value the cruising range of electric vehicles most, so they preferred the soft pack form with the highest energy density. The packaging material of the pouch battery case is aluminum-plastic film, and the outer packaging of aluminum-plastic film and cylindrical and square batteries made of aluminum alloy or stainless steel is not a heavyweight player. In fact, due to the absolute advantages of aluminum-plastic film over steel and aluminum shells in terms of light weight, the weight of soft pack batteries is 40% lighter than steel shell batteries of the same capacity, and 20% lighter than aluminum shell batteries. Batteries have inherent advantages in specific energy.
In the same way, the capacity of pouch batteries is 15% higher than that of steel-cased batteries of the same specification and size, and 10% higher than that of aluminum-cased batteries, which has a great advantage in terms of energy density.
In 2014, LG Chem achieved 1.5GWh of power battery shipments, ranking third in the world. But it was not the pouch battery supplier with the most shipments that year, because AESC was in the limelight at that time.
In 2007, Nissan and NEC, another Japanese electrical giant, jointly established the power battery company AESC. In order to realize the fastest loading, this company directly used NEC's soft-pack batteries for mobile phone products to meet the car-grade standards. . In 2010, Nissan Leaf, a pure electric car that was mass-produced in a real sense in the world, became very popular once it was launched. By the beginning of 2014, the cumulative sales volume exceeded 100,000, and by the end of 2015, it exceeded 200,000.
Before 2015, each Leaf was equipped with a 24kWh battery, and then the models sold in Europe and North America were upgraded to 30kWh. In the Ningde era, when the shipment volume was only 0.3GWh, orders of several GWh were often received, and so on. Continuously flying to AESC, this power battery manufacturer has been in the limelight for a while.
This has become the most glorious era of soft pack batteries. In 2014, among the top three in the world, soft pack companies accounted for two seats, and soft packs accounted for 33% of the global power battery market share.
The pouch battery has many advantages such as light weight, large battery capacity, good safety performance, good cycle performance, long cycle life, small internal resistance, high vehicle adaptability, and flexible arrangement. Especially due to the flexibility and variability of volume and shape, it is preferred by plug-in hybrid models. The plug-in hybrid models of GM, Hyundai, Renault-Nissan and Volvo all use soft pack batteries (LG Chemical).
But it's not that he is not good enough, but that his opponent is too strong.
Tesla, which is advancing by leaps and bounds, and China's new energy vehicle market, which is advancing by leaps and bounds, are driving the rapid growth of cylinders and squares.
Four
In 2015, Tesla's sales surged by nearly 60%, with more than 50,000 sales worldwide, which directly drove Panasonic's cylindrical battery shipments to 4.5GWh.
In the same year, sales of new energy vehicles in China surged by 343% year-on-year to 331,100 units, directly driving domestic power battery shipments to surge by 830% to 15.7GWh. BYD shipped 3GWh, directly climbing to the second place in the world, CATL surged 633% to 2.2GWh, ranking from eleventh to second in the world.
Back then, LG Chem shipped 1.4GWh, AESC only 1.3GWh, and another square giant, Samsung SDI, only 0.5GWh, still dormant. This year, the global market proportions of square, soft pack and cylinder are 61%, 14% and 25%.
The soft pack hit rock bottom.
In 2016, Tesla sold 76,000 vehicles worldwide, continuing to maintain a growth rate of more than 50%. Panasonic’s cylindrical battery shipments during the same period were 7.2GWh, an increase of 60%. Coupled with the start of heavy production by several Chinese cylindrical power battery companies, the global share of cylindrical batteries increased to 28% this year.
Although the sales growth rate of China's new energy vehicles dropped sharply to 53%, it still completed sales of 507,000 vehicles. With the best-selling of its various new energy models, BYD has become the world's largest new energy passenger vehicle sales car company for the second consecutive year, and finally counterattacked Panasonic to become the world's leader in power batteries. It shipped 7.3GWh that year, and CATL continued to surge by 210 % to 6.8GWh, ranking third in the world. Samsung SDI was finally able to follow the BMW i series and sold 62,000 vehicles worldwide, and its shipments finally exceeded 1GWh, reaching 1.2GWh. The global market share of prismatic batteries has further increased to 64%.
LG Chem is still tepid, 1.6GWh is not satisfactory. The main reason is that although there are many matching models, they are all in the initial stage of sales. The only one that can be sold is a Chevrolet Volt with an annual sales of 28,000 vehicles, so its shipments have not seen a significant increase. AESC sold 1.7GWh of soft-pack batteries for 52,000 Nissan Leaf and 20,000 Renault Zoe, maintaining its position in the top five in the world.
The market share of soft packs has dropped to 8% of the world. If there is a spokesperson, he will say: "This year is the most difficult year for cylindrical batteries."
In 2017, a lot has changed.
Tesla exceeded 100,000 vehicles every year, and the Chinese market completed 777,000 vehicles.
Ningde Times, which sold 11.85GWh of power batteries, became the world's number one. Just three years ago, its shipments were still hovering after the decimal point, and there were only a handful of customers. Today, Ningde era has so many supporting customers that it can occupy an entire mobile phone screen, and as long as it wants, it can also add another screen.
BYD has been the world's new energy passenger car sales champion for three consecutive years, but it has only sold 7.2GWh of power batteries, and opening up is imminent.Please check:https://www.aimeno-battery.com/products/194.html
With sales of nearly 100,000 new energy vehicles from BMW, a major strategic customer, Samsung SDI has more than doubled its growth rate, scoring 2.8
The shipment performance of GWh.
Panasonic still has no suspense. Tesla, which has a hot sales situation, has contributed nearly 10GWh of cylindrical battery orders to it. With the contribution of cylindrical battery manufacturers such as China's BAK (1.6GWh), the cylindrical battery still maintains no less than 23% of the market. Accounting rate.
The one who deserves the most congratulations is LG Chem. Although it lost the cake in the Chinese market together with its brother Samsung SDI, this year it won the matching orders for the two best-selling electric cars in the world, Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe. The persistent general-purpose series (Chevrolet Volt and Bolt) finally broke through the installed capacity of 50,000, and LG Chem’s soft-pack battery shipments achieved the largest increase in history (nearly 200%) to 4.5GWh, as if it was a turning serf singing .
Wanjia Huanxi and his family are worried about the former soft package giant AESC, which was abandoned by Nissan from the list of exclusive suppliers due to the loss of advantages in the lithium manganese oxide technology route, and life is extremely miserable. But relying on some leftovers from LG Chem, they actually got a 1GWh order.
In addition, in China, the shipments of pouch power battery manufacturers such as Guoneng (1.9GWh) and Funeng Technology (1.3GWh) have risen, and the global market share of pouches has quickly rebounded to 19%.
In stark contrast, Square's market share was challenged for the first time, dropping to 58%.
In the three years from 2015 to 2017, the global power battery market experienced a process in which the square battery first rose and then fell, and the pouch battery first fell and then rose, which is exactly in line with the Chinese market (2015 square 63.19%, soft pack 24.32%; Square 67.65% in 2017, soft bag 11.17%; square 58.92% in 2017, soft bag 12.98%).
The structure of China's power battery market is quietly undergoing some interesting changes.
Carefully study the ranking of domestic power battery companies' shipments in the first eight months of 2018, and you will find some subtle and intriguing changes.
Some second-tier or even second-tier companies that can’t even rank in the second tier have achieved a certain degree of counterattack on the tragic battlefield of the giants in less than a year: the latest installed capacity of domestic power battery companies In the TOP20 list, Funeng Technology rose from No. 6 at the end of 2017 to No. 4, and its market share expanded from 3% to 5%. Squeezed in and took the 13th position.
In China's power battery industry, both the market and the resources of all parties are increasingly concentrated in a very small number of leading companies, which is already a foregone conclusion. I thought that in this increasingly harsh market, after a fierce battle, there would be a lot of mourning, but I didn't expect that some companies that were once unknown began to glow with vitality.
On August 10, Yiwei Lithium Energy announced that it had formally signed a "Supply Agreement" with Daimler Group, and will supply soft pack power batteries to the world's largest luxury car giant until December 31, 2027. This No. 7 power battery company has become the second Chinese power battery company to enter the Daimler supply chain system after CATL. Whether it is for the entire Chinese power battery industry or EVE Lithium Energy, the huge positive significance behind this is self-evident.
It is particularly worth mentioning that on April 10 this year, Yiwei Lithium Energy's Huizhou plant with an annual production capacity of 1.5Gwh of soft-pack power batteries was officially put into operation, and it entered Daimler's supply chain system four months later. At the beginning of the year, Daimler was reported to have intensively visited and inspected many power battery companies in China, and the final result was that it chose EVE Lithium Energy. At the same time, Daimler has also become an international car company that adopts the soft package route after Renault-Nissan, GM, Hyundai, Ford and Volvo.
On September 14th, at Shanghai Fosun Art Center, Guo Guangchang, who had not shown his face in public for a long time, unexpectedly attended in formal attire. Fosun announced its official investment in Tianjin Jiewei, and the latter even shouted the goal of "entering the top three domestic power batteries within five years" at the scene. For Jiewei, whose shipment volume is only 0.2GWh, just squeezed into the top 20 in China, the father of Fosun, who has a net worth of trillions, expressed his opinion on the spot: "full support!"
On July 19, Yonhap News Agency reported that LG Chem will invest about US$2 billion in China to build a new power battery factory in Nanjing, China. The plant will start construction in October this year and be put into operation in October next year. After that, production will gradually increase until it expands to an annual output of 32GWh in 2023.
This is the second power battery factory built by LG Chem in China. The first Nanjing factory was sold to China's Geely two years ago. The latter transferred all equipment to Jinhua, Zhejiang to build a power battery with an annual output of 2GWh It is reported that Geely will expand two production lines in the future. What is certain is that the soft-pack batteries that adopt the LG technology route will still be produced, which will be used for all its new energy models including Lynk & Co and Volvo.
There are indications that, starting this year, the wind direction began to turn. The soft-pack battery suddenly began to exert its strength, which was directly reflected in the ranking of the top 20 domestic power battery companies with installed capacity in the first eight months: In this list, the number of power battery companies that purely make soft-pack products rose to 7. If you count the already The 5 companies that have started to increase their soft pack production lines and transform their soft pack routes, the soft pack power battery manufacturers can already account for 60% of the TOP20.
For example, Funeng Technology, which only makes soft packs, was unknown in the industry three years ago. It took only three years to become the fourth largest power battery company in China after Ningde Times, BYD and Guoxuan Hi-Tech. At the end of last year, BAIC BJEV gave Funeng Technology the largest single purchase order in the field of new energy vehicles in China so far: in the next five years, the former will purchase power batteries for up to 1 million electric vehicles from the latter.
Three years ago, only a few companies in China, such as BAIC New Energy, JAC and Chery, used soft-pack batteries. Today, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Geely, Great Wall, Zotye, Zhidou, Jiangling, Changan, and Changhe have also joined the soft-pack camp. , Shaanxi Auto Tongjia and other passenger car companies, as well as Yutong, Foton, Zhongtong, Nanjing Jinlong, Dongfeng, Hubei Xinchufeng, Hunan CRRC Times, Chery Commercial Vehicles, Ankai, Xiamen Jinlong, Sunlong, Jiangling Holdings, Qingdao FAW and other commercial vehicle companies.