The sky-high price recall of Hyundai 8 billion electric vehicles has led to a heated discussion on the creation of new energy support and new energy battery safety protection.

Last month, the China Consumer Association released an analysis of the complaints accepted by the National consumers Association in 2020. Last year, the number of complaints against cars and parts ranked second, with 34897, up 1.64 per cent from 2019, according to the report.

In terms of complaints about new energy vehicles, the main problems are: mileage is "discounted", especially when the temperature is low, the battery charge drops too fast, and the charging speed is not in line with publicity; battery quality problems are prominent, battery failures and charging failures are more common; the probability of power loss and vehicle "spontaneous combustion" is low, but the safety is worrying. Fourth, the level of after-sales service is not high, charging failures and other problems can not be completely solved.

In addition, on March 15, the quality Development Bureau of the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration issued a circular on the national automobile and consumer goods recall in 2020, the notice shows that in 2020, the defective product management center of the State Administration of Market Supervision received 1173 reports of new energy vehicle defects provided by consumers, reflecting that problems with power batteries, motors and electronic control systems accounted for 49.4% of the new energy vehicle defect clues.

In terms of automobile recall management, in 2020, China implemented a total of 199automobile recalls, involving 6.782 million vehicles, the number of recalls decreased by 10.8% compared with the previous year, and the number of recalls increased by 3.9%. New energy vehicles were recalled 45 times, involving 357000 vehicles, accounting for 5.3% of the total number of recalls for the whole year, of which 112000 vehicles were recalled due to defects in the three power systems, accounting for 31.3% of the total number of new energy vehicles recalled.

Battery Network noted that the "sky-high price recall of 82000 Hyundai electric vehicles" has also aroused widespread concern both inside and outside the industry. Hyundai Motor recently announced that it will voluntarily recall 81701 pure electric vehicles around the world and replace the entire battery pack because of the risk of fire. Hyundai Motor and LG Chemical have agreed to share the cost of recalling 82000 electric vehicles to replace batteries at 3:7, South Korean media reported on March 5. The recall is estimated to cost as much as 1.4 trillion won (8 billion yuan).

"in the past three years, hundreds of fire accidents of new energy vehicles have been publicly reported. Data statistics show that the proportion of fire accidents caused by charging and after charging is relatively large, in addition, the proportion of unexplained spontaneous combustion accidents is also relatively large." On March 15, Zhang Lilei, general manager of Yantai Chuangwei New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as New Energy), said when communicating with the battery network that the reasons for the safety problems of lithium-ion batteries can be attributed to two major aspects: one is caused by unexpected external events or improper battery application; Second, determined by the characteristics of lithium-ion battery, there are a series of potential exothermic reactions in lithium-ion battery, which is the root cause of battery safety problems.

Zhang Lilei further explained that lithium batteries can easily cause leakage, fire and explosion in situations such as battery quality failure, application temperature exceeding the standard, abuse, external short circuit, battery extrusion, puncture, and damage. As the lithium battery fire has the characteristics of fast burning speed, long fire extinguishing time and difficult to deal with, once a dangerous situation occurs, it is very easy to cause major disasters.

According to Zhang Lilei, according to the hidden dangers and characteristics of lithium battery fire, Chuangwei New Energy has carried out product research and development in three stages: early warning of thermal runaway, continuous fire suppression and complete fire extinguishing by fire control interface. among them, the thermal runaway early warning technology has been applied on a large scale, which has led to the technological progress of the industry. The innovative design of fire suppression products realizes the application of spray strategy that can be used many times and flow control, which strives for a longer guarantee time for external rescue access; the innovation of fire protection interface realizes that when fire rescue arrives at the scene, it can completely solve the rescue problem of battery rekindling.

According to public data, Chuangwei New Energy, founded in November 2015, is one of the major suppliers of safety protection equipment in the domestic new energy industry.

In terms of technology, Chuangwei is the first to initiate the research on lithium-ion battery thermal runaway monitoring and early warning and automatic fire extinguishing technology, and has been focusing on lithium-ion battery thermal runaway monitoring, early warning and protection technology since its inception. It has profound technical accumulation, rich industry experience, complete sales channels, mature management model and excellent market reputation. The company has obtained a number of proprietary core technologies and formed a technical system with independent intellectual property rights.

In terms of products, Chuangchuang's main product, battery box fire prevention and control device, has advanced technology, strong professionalism, relatively mature manufacturing technology, stable and reliable quality, and has been recognized and praised by customers. Since the product was launched, it has been updated and upgraded many times, constantly promoting and leading the development of the new energy security protection industry.

In terms of customers, Chuangwei new energy bus lithium battery box products have been widely used in many domestic top10 complete vehicle factories, such as Yutong bus, Zhongtong bus, CRRC Electric, BYD, Futian Ouhui, Golden Travel bus, Jinlong bus and so on. In special vehicles, such as airport operation of new energy vehicles, the company has reached strategic cooperation with Weihai Guangtai since 2018. In the field of heavy truck and passenger cars, the company's products have begun to support several new energy vehicle companies and sample production; in the emerging field of electrochemical new energy power station fire protection system, the company has supported a number of demonstration projects such as the first Electroweb side distributed new energy power station demonstration project in China.

The following are the details of the exchange:

Battery Network: from the annual reports and production and marketing data of major listed companies, the automobile industry is greatly affected by the epidemic. What is the situation of our company? What are the main products of the company at present?

Zhang Lilei: in the face of the impact of the nationwide epidemic, compared with the traditional industries, the impact of the company is not particularly great, but it still has an impact more or less.

The company mainly through software and hardware development, the use of independent research and development of detection controller, data concentrator, alarm display, manual start switch and other intelligent equipment, and combined with the existing fire extinguishing devices integrated into lithium-ion battery automatic detection and fire extinguishing system, the formation of early warning and late suppression of lithium-ion battery thermal control prevention and control intelligent equipment and solutions.

At present, the company's main products are lithium ion power battery box fire prevention and control devices for electric commercial vehicles and thermal out-of-control early warning and prevention and control devices for energy storage power stations.

Electric commercial vehicle lithium-ion power battery fire prevention and control device system, can play an effective protective role, in the event of related lithium-ion battery accidents, can play an early warning role. At the same time, the product can restrain the thermal runaway of lithium-ion battery for a certain time, and provide time for passengers of new energy electric vehicles to escape.

The biggest difference between the early warning and fire fighting system of the energy storage power station compared with the traditional fire protection is that the traditional post processing is changed into the advance processing, the early danger signal is monitored and the alarm is given, and the danger is disposed and resolved in advance. Can be small-scale network monitoring, can also be large-scale network monitoring, real-time directional alarm information can be sent.

Battery Network: recently, Hyundai recalled 82000 electric vehicles due to fire risk. In your opinion, what is the most common reason for frequent fire accidents in batteries and new energy vehicles?

Zhang Lilei: the causes of safety problems in lithium-ion batteries can be attributed to two major aspects: one is caused by sudden external events or improper battery application; the other is determined by the characteristics of lithium-ion batteries. There are a series of potential exothermic reactions in lithium-ion batteries, which is the root cause of battery safety problems.

Many international organizations have formulated a number of safety standards for lithium-ion batteries, such as UL1642, UL2054 and UL2575 certification standards of American insurer laboratories, IEEE1625 and IEEE1725 standards of the International Association of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, C18.2m standards of the American Electrical Manufacturers Association, IEC62133 and IEC62281 standards of the International Electrotechnical Commission, PTIIIS38.3 standards of the United Nations, JIS-C8714 standards of the Japanese Standards Association, BASTO-01 standards of the International Battery Safety Organization. And the safety requirements of GB38031-2020 power batteries for electric vehicles, GB38032-2020 electric buses and GB18384-2020 electric vehicles issued by the State Administration of Market Administration and the State Standardization Administration of China.

At present, many standards can not dispel people's concerns about the safety of lithium-ion power batteries. Even the products that pass the above standard test also have safety hidden trouble. in recent years, frequent electric vehicle fires show that the thermal runaway of electric vehicle lithium-ion battery is one of the most serious safety problems. it occurs when the electric vehicle is parked at rest, during charging, after charging, driving, collision and so on.

In the past three years, hundreds of fire accidents of new energy vehicles have been publicly reported. Data statistics show that the proportion of fire accidents caused by charging and after charging is large, in addition, the proportion of unexplained spontaneous combustion accidents is also relatively large.

Battery network: what are the difficulties facing the industry in terms of battery fire prevention and fire fighting? What are the good solutions and innovations for creating new energy?

Zhang Lilei: qualified lithium batteries, in the allowable temperature environment, are not affected by fire, Tackle, etc., on the whole, they are relatively safe. However, due to the poor stability of lithium batteries, especially lithium-ion batteries, lithium batteries are prone to leakage, fire and explosion in the cases of battery quality failure, application temperature exceeding the standard, abuse, external short circuit, battery extrusion, puncture, damage, and so on. Once a dangerous situation occurs, it is easy to cause major disasters.

Due to the inherent characteristics of lithium battery, the main characteristics of lithium battery fire are:

1. The burning speed is fast. Because the fire of lithium battery is caused by the failure of internal chemical reaction control, the chemical reaction process is difficult to stop once started.

2. It takes a long time to put out the fire. As the electric vehicle has many internal devices, complex pipelines, and most of them are combustible objects, in the state of free combustion, the ignition temperature quickly reaches 600C to 1000 ℃, which is much higher than that of ordinary gasoline and diesel. In particular, ternary batteries can burn without relying on air, and even if the open fire is extinguished temporarily, it will be reignited. The only thing available for lithium battery car fires is that fire fighting methods that can spray fire extinguishing agents multiple times or keep large doses of water can effectively control the fire.

3. It is difficult to deal with it. In the process of lithium battery combustion, there are a large number of spatter scattered around, and produce a large number of ethers, olefins, alkanes and other substances, some of which are toxic and corrosive, which pose a great threat to the life and safety of rescue workers, which virtually increases the difficulty of rescue.

According to the hidden dangers and characteristics of lithium battery fire, Chuangwei New Energy has carried out product research and development in three stages: early warning of thermal runaway, continuous fire suppression and complete fire extinguishing by fire control interface. among them, the thermal runaway early warning technology has been applied on a large scale, which has led to the technological progress of the industry, and the innovative design of fire suppression products has realized the application of spray strategy which can be used many times and flow control, and solved the difficult problems in the industry. The invention of the fire interface realizes that when the fire rescue arrives at the scene, the rescue problem of the battle can be solved quickly.

Battery Network: what are the main customers of the company? How to integrate high-quality customers?

Zhang Lilei: the company's new energy bus lithium battery box products have been widely used in many domestic vehicle factories ranking top10, such as Yutong bus, Zhongtong bus, CRRC Electric, BYD, Futian Ouhui, Golden Travel bus, Jinlong bus, etc. In special vehicles, such as airport operation of new energy vehicles, the company has reached strategic cooperation with Weihai Guangtai in 2018. In the field of heavy truck and passenger cars, the products have begun to support several new energy vehicle companies and sample production; in the field of fire protection system of the emerging electrochemical new energy power station, it has been supporting a number of demonstration projects, such as the demonstration project of the first Electroweb-side distributed new energy power station in China.

In addition, in the integration of high-quality customers, the company mainly starts from the following three aspects:

First, to provide safe and reliable products: the company is a professional equipment manufacturer for thermal runaway monitoring, early warning and protection of lithium-ion batteries. The independently developed "thermal runaway model" can be a very early warning of battery safety risks. It has successfully warned more than 100 battery thermal runaway accidents, and is currently one of the main suppliers of lithium-ion power battery safety protection equipment in the domestic new energy electric bus industry. Has been highly recognized by the majority of cooperative customers.

The second is to adopt a reasonable sales model to improve the quality of customer service: in the sales model, the company adopts direct sales and distribution, mainly through direct sales to cooperate with customers, according to different types of customers, adopt different sales models to meet their needs.

The third is to make use of the rapid impact mode of orders: the core link of the production of the whole company lies in software development, which mainly requires software developers to test algorithms and provide software system integration of electronic parts. for software development, testing, assembly and other major production links are completed independently; for simple production links, the company directly uses external processing, reasonable production distribution is greatly improved, the impact of orders and the speed of completion.

Battery Network: it is understood that the Fire Intelligent Interface Company launched a new product for the bus field this year, which can completely solve the problem of battery rekindling and ensure property safety to the greatest extent. what is the innovation of this product?

Zhang Lilei: at present, the lithium-ion battery box is designed to have a structure above IP67. There is a fire inside the battery pack. During fire fighting and rescue, it is difficult to spray fire water into the battery box, so the fire can not be extinguished quickly. By setting the external fire protection interface of the battery pack, it can be quickly connected with the fire engine water sprinkler, so that a large amount of fire water can be effectively injected into the battery box to achieve a complete extinguishing effect.

Battery network: in the field of energy storage power stations, what products has the company launched and what is its application?

Zhang Lilei: in the field of fire protection system of the emerging electrochemical new energy power station, Chuangchuang New Energy conducts fire experimental research for different real application scenarios of energy storage, and realizes effective fire detection and identification technology in different scenarios, which not only ensures the effectiveness of detection, but also meets the feasibility in terms of cost. The fire detector used in the battery module introduces a special detector with high performance-to-price ratio according to the fire characteristics of the energy storage battery, and the composite fire detector used in the space of the battery box is equipped with hydrogen sensor through experiments.

According to the research on the function subdivision of the linkage actuator of the energy storage power station, the host of the fire linkage alarm controller adds the linkage configuration interface corresponding to different scene fire early warning and early warning levels, and realizes different scenarios and different alarm levels. The linkage of the corresponding executive agencies can not only achieve the effective reduction application under the fire hidden danger, but also prevent the fire accident from becoming serious in time, and achieve the purpose of safety protection and safety operation.

In addition, the design of the fire protection system for the new energy storage power station is more changeable and flexible, realizing the fire control of different fire protection zones, such as battery modules, battery clusters, battery cabins and electrical cabins. at present, it has been used in hundreds of electrochemical energy storage power stations.

Battery network: since the beginning of this year, the battery new energy industry-related raw materials have risen, whether there is an impact on the company, in terms of cost control, how has the company changed in the past three years?

Zhang Lilei: the rise of raw materials has a certain impact on the company, but opportunities and challenges coexist. At the enterprise level, the rise of raw materials has more advantages and competitiveness in product prices for those enterprises that are more scientific, lean and efficient in management. the rise in raw material prices can be said to be an opportunity for such enterprises. On the contrary, it is a nightmare for enterprises whose management is still extensive. For those enterprises whose products have technical barriers, are not easy to copy and are unique, the rise in the price of raw materials has little impact. Therefore, at the industry level, the rise in raw materials will indeed be a challenge in the short term, but in the long run, price increases are expected to lead to differentiated operations and product innovation, which is not an opportunity.

In terms of cost control, Chuangwei has always regarded cost reduction and efficiency as an important source of enterprise development, and has really established its own cost control system, such as implementing supply chain cost management, establishing a cost management system, seeking new supply channels, changing procurement methods, finding substitutes, adjusting product structure, specifying consumption quotas, and reducing waste loss. There is to enhance the cost awareness of employees, the company has made remarkable achievements in cost control in the past three years.

Battery Network: do you have any suggestions for the safety of batteries and new energy vehicles?

Zhang Lilei: in view of the fire hidden danger characteristics of lithium battery safety, the fire prevention and control technology of electric vehicles is mainly considered from two aspects: one is passive fire prevention and flame retardant; the other is active fire prevention and flame retardant.

Passive fire prevention and flame retardant means that when designing a power battery system, the components of the battery system should choose materials with high flame retardant grade or non-burning as far as possible, so that even if extreme conditions occur in the battery box (fire, explosion), these components will not aggravate the reaction, or even delay the occurrence of extreme situations.

For example, the plastic parts inside the battery system can reach the UL94-V0 flame retardant grade as far as possible; the high and low voltage wiring harness selects materials with high flame retardant grade, and fireproof materials are used around the internal box of the battery box; flame retardant and thermal insulation materials are used between the battery monomers to prevent heat spread accidents caused by the single heat out of control, and so on.

There are two main considerations in active fire prevention and flame retardant design: one is to realize the parameter measurement of daily operation and maintenance of battery through the battery management system to realize the identification of abnormal electrical parameters; the other is to realize the fire prevention and control through the early warning of thermal runaway and fire extinguishing equipment.

The three national standards of "Safety requirements for Electric vehicles", "Safety requirements for Power batteries for Electric vehicles" and "Safety requirements for Electric buses" require that the rechargeable energy storage system should provide a thermal event alarm signal 5 minutes before the thermal diffusion caused by the thermal runaway of a single battery, which leads to danger in the member cabin. In order to identify the safety incidents of power batteries, including electrolyte leakage, thermal runaway and thermal expansion, the safety of thermal accidents of lithium-ion batteries can be measured and controlled.

The monitoring and early warning technology of thermal runaway is an important means to identify the hidden danger of thermal accident. Early monitoring of battery electrolyte leakage and battery thermal runaway can find the hidden danger of battery quality early, and the leakage of electrolyte is subtle and slow. it takes months or even longer to start a fire from leakage to thermal runaway.

The thermal runaway monitoring technology aims at the detection of the electric fire in the battery box and the thermal runaway of the single battery, when the single cell is out of control, it is in the form of injection, combustion, explosion, accompanied by toxic and harmful gases. the occurrence of thermal runaway can be identified by monitoring the gas, smoke and temperature inside the box.

The fire extinguishing equipment can restrain the initial battery fire in the battery box, and the fire extinguishing agent can partly restrain the battery fire or restrain the battery fire for a period of time. The Fire Protection Product conformity Assessment Center of the Emergency Management Department is required to effectively restrain the fire prevention and control device of the lithium-ion power battery box of electric passenger cars for 30 minutes.