The dispute over the shape of the power battery is becoming more and more heated. What are the advantages of Samsung SDI's big bet on square?

Samsung SDI plans to invest about $890 million to double the number of square battery production lines at its Hungarian plant by the end of this year and begin building a second battery plant in Hungary to dominate the European square battery market, according to South Korean media ETNews.

It is understood that the Samsung SDI factory in Hungary currently has four production lines, all of which are square batteries. Once the new production line is completed, the factory will have a total of eight square battery production lines, and the production capacity will increase from 30 gigawatt hours to 50 gigawatt hours, which is equivalent to the installed capacity of 1 million electric vehicles a year.

With this investment, Samsung SDI will also become the largest manufacturer of square batteries in Europe. Ningde Times, another square battery giant, is currently building a square battery production plant with an annual capacity of 14 gigawatts in Erford, Germany, which is expected to be put into operation in 2023, mainly producing lithium iron phosphate or NCM ternary batteries.

The report pointed out that for Samsung SDI, such a high investment can be said to be very radical, because in the past few years, compared with competitors, its production expansion rate is relatively more conservative. The strategic change will help the company prepare for more orders from its main customers-Volkswagen, Audi and BMW.

Volkswagen "battery version MEB" want to turn to square head manufacturer layout?

For the power battery industry, Samsung SDI square production line expansion, also means that the power battery cylinder, square, soft bag three forms of the dispute, has officially started the war. In the middle of this month, Volkswagen, a veteran carmaker, sounded the bugle ahead of time through the "battery version of MEB" platform.

Although it is not clear what kind of battery the "Battery version MEB" will use from the news revealed at the press conference, including foreign media Teslarati, and the domestic industry, it is believed that the use of square batteries on the platform is a high probability event.

At the same time, combined with what Volkswagen said, 80% of the company's batteries will be produced from this platform by 2025, most industry media believe that this will usher in a new X factor in the current power battery market, which is dominated by cylindrical and soft package batteries, while square battery manufacturers represented by Ningde era and Samsung SDI will also usher in greater opportunities.

According to the previously released global power battery installed capacity TOP10 enterprise data in 2020, Ningde Times, LG Chemical, Panasonic ranked in the top three, Samsung SDI, SKI ranked fifth and sixth respectively.

Among them, Ningde era focuses on square batteries, but its cylindrical LFP batteries have also supplied domestic Tesla Model 3x LG chemical main soft package batteries, previously mainly for Volkswagen, and its cylindrical NCA811 batteries have also supplied Tesla Model 3gamy, and recently it has been reported that it plans to expand its American cylindrical production line.

In addition, Panasonic is deeply bound to Tesla and focuses on cylindrical batteries; Samsung SDI and SKI focus on square and soft-pack batteries, respectively, and were previously suppliers of Volkswagen electric cars.

The competition between Chinese and South Korean battery factories is fierce behind the dispute between square and soft packages.

From this point of view, South Korean manufacturers represented by LG Chemistry and SKI have more advantages in soft package batteries, while Chinese manufacturers, led by Ningde Times, have taken the lead in square batteries. Auto News reported that Volkswagen's shift from soft bags to squares has had an impact on its South Korean suppliers.

According to the report, one of the reasons Volkswagen decided not to use cylindrical or soft-package batteries is to achieve a large-scale unified battery format. Another reason is to produce CTP battery packs, which can effectively reduce costs and increase energy density. Ningde Times is one of the first manufacturers in the industry to adopt the packaging method of the battery pack.

It should be pointed out that the industry and institutions have pointed out before that the three routes of cylinder, square, and soft package have their own advantages, but the absolute advantages are not obvious at this stage:

The production process of cylindrical battery is mature, and it has advantages in production efficiency and consistency, but there are disadvantages in group efficiency due to the large number of monomers, and square batteries have advantages in group efficiency and strong customization ability. however, due to the close arrangement, there is an inherent disadvantage in safety. Due to the conversion of the shell from metal to aluminum-plastic film, the soft package battery has inherent advantages in energy density and safety, but has disadvantages in consistency and anti-deformation, so the group efficiency is on the low side.

At the same time, from the actual production situation, the car companies do not have a significant preference for the shape of the battery pack, while developing and selling electric vehicles with different shapes of batteries. Even in the same electric model, car companies will use different shapes of battery packs, in addition to Tesla fixed use of cylindrical batteries, other car companies mostly use multi-route parallel.

However, as Volkswagen high-profile "abandon soft into the square", the future power battery market, shape dispute, may open up another battlefield.