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set the thames a great coup! The "cake" of housing enterprises entering the new energy car market is big, but there are still many difficulties.

iconSep 14, 2020 09:50

SMM: recently, six models of Hengchi new energy cars launched by Evergrande Group, a famous company in the real estate industry, were born. As soon as the news came out, it immediately became the headline news in the field of new energy vehicles, earning enough attention of the Chinese people. It can be said that it was a blockbuster if they didn't do it, and people began to know Evergrande again in shock. According to media reports, Xu Jiayin, chairman of Evergrande, could not contain his excitement during a visit to the company's new energy vehicle production base and talked freely about Evergrande's dream of building a car: "We want to realize it within three to five years." it is definitely not a dream to build Evergrande into the largest and most powerful new energy automobile group in the world. " Xu Jiayin's words exposed Evergrande's huge "ambition" to seize the global market in the field of new energy vehicles.

Of course, it is good to have "ambition", and the wish is also tempting. Judging from the information given by Evergrande, in order to realize the transformation from real estate to new energy vehicles, Evergrande has done a lot of work in the past two years. It has done a lot of innovation in the industrial chain such as power battery, powertrain, advanced vehicle manufacturing, car sales and smart charging. However, among the many innovations in the whole industry chain of Evergrande, the author, like everyone else, is more concerned about the battery of Hengchi new energy vehicles. "how far can Hengchi run" after a charge is the focus of public attention. it is also the key to whether Hengchi can gain a foothold among the heroes of fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles. Otherwise, if the Hengchi new energy car "can't get far" or "can't run fast", even if it is trumpeted, the Chinese people will not follow suit.

Therefore, to pay attention to new energy vehicles, we must pay attention to new energy batteries, which is the power source of vehicle mileage. People's "mileage anxiety" about new energy vehicles is not only a problem that Evergrande needs to solve, but also a problem faced by all other domestic brand new energy vehicle enterprises. At present, whether domestic or foreign new energy vehicles, the main source of power is lithium battery, which is favored by the industry because of its large capacity, small size, light weight and low self-discharge rate. However, the lithium battery series is subdivided into ternary lithium battery and lithium iron phosphate battery, the former has high energy density and good low temperature performance. According to the relevant industry data in 2019, the new energy vehicles produced by 64 domestic new energy vehicle manufacturers all use ternary lithium batteries as the power source. Compared with ternary lithium batteries, lithium iron phosphate batteries have the best stability and relatively low manufacturing costs. They are mainly used by 38 domestic automobile manufacturers, and the first two account for 98.2% of the entire new energy vehicle market. It can be seen that lithium battery is a recognized power choice for new energy vehicles, and other types of power batteries made of materials such as nickel account for only 1.8% of the total market, belonging to non-mainstream battery types. If nothing happens, Evergrande's new series of Hengchi new energy vehicles should also use lithium electricity as its power source.

Using lithium new energy as the power source has both advantages and disadvantages. The deficiency of ternary lithium battery is its instability and flammability at high temperature, while the defect of lithium iron phosphate lies in its poor energy density, which is not as consistent as ternary battery, especially when the temperature is below minus 5 ℃. It is not suitable to be used in winter in the north. These disadvantages affect the battery capacity and mileage of new energy vehicles, and cause great passivity to the market promotion of new energy vehicles. Industry insiders said that the instability of ternary lithium batteries and frequent spontaneous combustion made it difficult for new energy vehicle companies and consumers, including Tesla, to guard against, and the safety performance of their batteries was questioned by users. As Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: battery is a key factor limiting the development of new energy vehicles at present.

As far as the whole new energy battery industry is concerned, the research and development of new energy battery at home and abroad is almost Synchronize, and there are a large number of innovation highlights, such as BYD blade battery. As we all know, restricted by the physical and chemical properties of lithium materials, lithium battery has always been one of the focuses of research and development in the industry. through continuous innovation, the energy density of lithium battery in China is less than 100Whhand kg in 2015, and the density of lithium battery is only up to 160Wh/kg in 2019. According to the Roadmap of Energy Saving and New Energy vehicle Technology promulgated by China, the energy density target of pure electric vehicle power battery is 300Wh/kg in 2020, 400Wh/kg in 2025 and 500Wh/kg in 2030. Even if the density of new energy batteries this year can exceed 200Whamp kg, or reach 300Whamp kg, it is still a far cry from the goal of the "road map". It is also based on the fact that the battery energy can not be greatly improved, and most of the corresponding new energy vehicles have a driving range of about 300 kilometers, which has almost become the "ceiling" of new energy vehicles. Can you charge 500 kilometers on a single charge? There are many ingredients in the concept of stir-frying. It may be possible to really achieve the goal, but it requires a lot of pre-conditions, which can be said to be equal to nothing.

Therefore, although the "cake" of the new energy vehicle market is big, there are many difficulties. Although the energy density of the battery has increased greatly in the past few years, in the face of the difficult "ceiling" of 300 kilometers, how to break through this "critical point" of the development of new energy batteries, Yang Tao, a new energy battery expert and general manager of Henan Lithium Power supply Company, said: "in the past, we relied on innovation to build a world of new energy power battery industry, giving us a technological hard strength comparable to that of our foreign counterparts." Today, we still rely on innovation, so that we have new energy vehicles like Hengchi that can compete with Tesla, and have the opportunity to show our soft power on the world stage. " He said that it is necessary to implant innovative genes into the new energy battery industry, strive to achieve breakthroughs in the functional materials of the battery, constantly upgrade the process technology, gain support in national policy, and become clearer in the management concept. Only in this way, China's new energy battery industry will blow away the dark clouds, there will be a clear sunny day, and the new energy vehicle industry will be able to lead the world and prosper for a long time.

The breakthrough of materials is the focus of innovation, and the development of new materials with high specific energy is the main way to greatly improve the specific energy of power batteries in the future. Nowadays, the commonly used lithium-ion battery is a mature technology with a history of 20 years. Whether it is ternary lithium material battery or lithium iron phosphate battery, it is basically composed of four key parts, namely, positive electrode, negative electrode, electrolyte and membrane. After years of innovation, lithium batteries composed of these four materials have become the mainstream of new energy batteries. However, according to the performance of the material, it seems very difficult to increase the energy density and achieve industrialization on the basis of the current battery capacity. This road is difficult, but what about other paths? A few years ago, graphene batteries, "lithium-air" batteries, fuel cells and other "shiny debut", but the comprehensive performance is difficult to achieve a breakthrough. If the bottleneck of power battery technology can not be broken for a long time, it will hinder the rapid development of new energy vehicle industrialization. At a time when everyone is at a loss and depressed, recently, the media reported that an enterprise called Chen Fei Technology has invented a copper-based carbon solid-state battery. It is said that the battery has broken through the bottleneck of new energy battery technology in an all-round way. It has the characteristics of high performance capacity, high conductivity, high rate, no heating, no combustion, no explosion, light weight, and can meet the requirements of fast charge and discharge and no need for special charging piles. At a time when people are ready to pay more attention to this type of battery, there is no news of the latest application, which shows that there are still many problems in the commercialization of this type of battery. The greater the difficulty, the greater the challenge, but we should believe that as long as we are not afraid of failure, the final breakthrough of new battery materials and technologies is bound to happen sooner or later.

The innovation of battery process design is also critical to the improvement of energy density. No matter lithium battery or fuel cell, the process design of the battery has been relatively mature. in order to improve the battery capacity, optimization design is also one of the ways to improve the specific energy of the battery. Evergrande, as the "dark horse" of the market, if it does not get rid of the trap of ternary or lithium iron phosphate in materials, optimization design should become its major "selling point". Yang Tao believes that the energy density of new energy batteries is a systematic problem, and material innovation to enhance the energy density of the cell is a direct means, while optimization design is carried out in the aspects of cell layout, circuit planning, shell weight, and so on. it can also improve the energy density of the battery. now Henan Lithium is carrying out the replacement of composite materials on the basis of ensuring the quality of the electric shell, and has been exploring the technical path for many years. The effect is very obvious. BYD, a well-known manufacturer of new energy vehicles, has made a fuss on the shape of the battery, innovating different from the normal "blade battery" and directly integrating the innovative technology of the battery pack without modules, so that the space utilization of the battery package has been increased from 40% to more than 60%. The energy density has been greatly increased. It is reported that as soon as the news came out, it immediately became a bright spot in the capital market, and its shares rose by the limit for a time. Although some colleagues have different opinions on the technological innovation of YD's "blade battery", it also shows that in addition to material innovation, the design and process innovation of new energy batteries is also an important way to improve energy density.

In addition, the innovation of national new energy policy is also very important to promote the innovation of new energy batteries. Over the years, the state has issued a series of policy documents to encourage and promote the development of new energy vehicles and power battery industry, and drive the continuous development of new energy vehicles and power battery industry in China. At the initial stage of the development of new energy vehicles, the state guided the investment in the field of power batteries and creatively provided tax policy support and financial subsidies to entrants, thus opening up a new world of new energy power batteries. In the past two years, on the basis of quantity, with the improvement of national subsidy standards, the state has creatively begun to support the superior and the strong, raising the threshold of power battery production scale and subsidy technical indicators, resulting in new energy vehicles and power battery industry to speed up battery cost optimization and low-end capacity clearance in the competition. According to the development trend of new energy battery, the next step of battery supply is concentrated to excellent enterprises, and the leading effect begins to appear. To this end, the state has long been prepared to promulgate the "Safety requirements for Power batteries for Electric vehicles", which will be implemented early next year. The introduction of this standard means that our new energy battery industry has clear rules and standards. It also means that new energy battery enterprises have new norms and guidelines, and create new opportunities for improving the quality of power battery products and participating in market competition at home and abroad.

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