[annual inventory] Top 10 key words of lithium electricity in 2021! The first part!

SMM survey: what kind of metal do you like most in 2022?

Some people say that since the beginning of the epidemic, time has passed very quickly. I always feel that I haven't done much all year round. I still remember the scene of a family eating a group dinner around the stove at the beginning of the year. In a twinkling of an eye, the hands of the clock on the wall ticked away. Unconsciously, I walked another 31536000 laps, and the time came to the end of the year.

For our colleagues in the lithium industry chain, this year may be destined to be unforgettable and wonderful year, suddenly looking back, driven by policies and global electric trends, this year's new energy industry from mining to the whole industrial chain of vehicles into the Pentium era, since the fourth quarter of last year, terminal demand has increased significantly, the overall efficiency of the industry, prosperity, the market's general expectations for the future have increased significantly. How many enterprises in the industrial chain have finally ushered in the return for their patience and persistence over the years?

In addition to the supply and demand side, a number of battery companies meet technological breakthroughs, new batteries, process optimization and other news emerge in endlessly, the announcement of each new technology will trigger a heated discussion in the market.

However, on the other hand, development and contradictions are always accompanied by a mismatch between supply and demand between the industrial chain, resulting in a surge in demand for battery materials and raw materials, and sharp price fluctuations. Among them, how many people travel all over the country to compete with upstream suppliers for raw materials, or even just to buy enough raw materials?

Maybe 2021 is really the first year of lithium battery explosion? Maybe, so let's review the top ten key words of this year's lithium power industry again at the end of this year.

Tesla's domestic Model Y is officially on sale.

Tesla announced the official launch of the domestic medium-sized SUV model Model Y on January 1, 2021. According to Tesla's official website, the long-lasting version of Tesla Model Y starts at 339900 yuan and the high-performance version of Performance starts at 369900 yuan.

As soon as the price was announced, it caused a public outcry because it was significantly lower than the previous import price of 488000 yuan and 535000 yuan, respectively, by 148100 yuan and 165100 yuan, far below market expectations. At one point, the market even called Tesla a "price butcher".

For a time, Model Y has become the hottest model on the market. During New Year's Day's period, people watching the test drive in stores broke the threshold, and even the market once rumored that, Model Y orders had reached 100, 000 vehicles in just a few days, almost exceeding the total sales volume of model 3 in the domestic market last year, while its main domestic competitor, Weilai, ushered in a large-scale withdrawal tide. Although the above rumors are somewhat exaggerated, it is also enough to see the popularity of the launch of Model Y at that time.

If it is the most sensational event in the new energy industry at the beginning of the new year, there is no doubt that the official launch of Model Y will have a place.

The impact of new technology! Release of Weilai solid state battery

In early January, just after the hustle and bustle of New Year's Day's three-day short holiday and gradually returning to daily work, a blockbuster news detonated half of the lithium ring in Chengdu. On January 9, at the 2020 NIODay, Li Bin not only officially unveiled the ET7, his first flagship car, but also dropped a blockbuster-the 150KWH solid-state battery.

The "solid-state battery" will adopt solid-liquid electrolyte of in-situ curing process, silicon-carbon negative electrode of inorganic pre-lithiation process, and ultra-high nickel cathode material with nano-scale coating process, and the cell density will reach 360 ET7 kg, so that the ET7 mileage of the battery will reach 1000km, more than all electric vehicles on the market. All of a sudden, it won a lot of attention.

As we all know, the four main materials of power battery are positive and negative electrode, diaphragm and electrolyte. At present, the power battery on the market is essentially liquid lithium-ion battery. Compared with the liquid lithium battery, the so-called solid-state lithium battery means that the solid electrolyte replaces and abandons the original liquid electrolyte and diaphragm in the battery structure, which results in almost no liquid in its structure.

Therefore, as soon as the news came out, A shares opened the diaphragm the next day, and electrolyte stocks fell across the board.

The so-called 150kwh solid-state battery released by Weilai is more likely to be a semi-solid-state battery, which is essentially a combination of the existing liquid battery process and immature solid-state battery technology, by replacing part of the electrolyte with all-solid-state electrolyte and using a compromise product obtained by using pre-lithiated silicon-carbon negative electrode.

But then again, what are the benefits of solid-state batteries?

To put it this way, the theory of traditional liquid lithium-ion batteries (focus) is that the upper limit of energy density is 300-350wh/kg.

What about solid-state batteries? The answer is above 500wh/kg!

Moreover, due to the use of a new system of non-flammable solid-state electrolytes, the overall safety performance of solid-state batteries has been improved, which can make up for the safety shortcomings of some cathode materials to a certain extent.

Because of its high energy density, wide working temperature range and high safety performance, solid-state battery may become the main development direction of power battery in the future. Car power battery "Royal three" Ningde era, LG Chemistry, Panasonic have also disclosed their solid-state battery research and development plans. The age of solid-state batteries seems to have come.

Tesla's "brakes" incident

The incident of protecting the roof rights of Tesla car owner at the April 19 Shanghai Auto Show this year pushed the Tesla brake incident to the forefront of the wind and waves, and quickly became a hot spot in the industry, and its popularity even went out of the circle at one time, causing concern among the whole people about the safety performance of new energy vehicles.

This incident can be traced back to Nanyang, Henan Province, on the afternoon of February 21, when Ms. Zhang and her family were driving Tesla Model3 at a red light, they suspected of having braking problems and rear-ended the car waiting for the red light. Model3 did not stop until Tackle had passed the roadside cement protection pier.

On March 9, after not receiving a positive response from Tesla, the owner and his family stood on the roof of the car causing the accident and shouted slogans to safeguard their rights at the gate of Tesla Center. The whole process was filmed and uploaded to the Internet.

During this period, many mediations between the two sides ended in failure.

On March 24, Ms. Zhang and her family pulled the car to the Zhengzhou Convention and Exhibition Center for public display. In response to Tesla's feedback on April 11th that it was "repaired and promised to sell at a good price", Ms. Zhang said she could not accept the second sale of cars with safety risks.

At noon on April 19th, Ms. Zhang, together with two other Tesla car owners, displayed T-shirts with the words "brake failure" and Tesla logo printed on the first day of the 19th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Expo, standing on the roof of the Model 3 car shouting "Tesla brake failure" and other rights slogans in public. The protection of human rights has shaped the incident. Tesla's tough response has also led to a sharp decline in the company's word-of-mouth.

In addition, the brake door incident also triggered some consumers' mistrust of Tesla's products, and Tesla's overall domestic sales plunged 66 per cent that month. Sales of only 11954 new energy vehicles ranked fourth.

And this is also the first time since January 2020 that Tesla's overall sales have not entered the top three of the monthly auto companies' sales list (key points! Knock on the blackboard! ). Sales of its Model 3 and Model Y3 fell 74 per cent and 46 per cent month-on-month to 6438 and 5516, with Model 3 hitting its lowest level in nearly a year.

The installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate exceeds that of ternary battery.

Ternary battery or lithium iron phosphate battery? This may be the problem that battery companies can't get around over the years, which can be said to hit the soul. . These two technical routes are like two great masters, working together to cut down more than 95% of the market share of the power battery market in recent years.

However, the industry has been debating which of these two technological routes is the final answer.

Prior to this, lithium iron phosphate batteries were continuously suppressed in terms of market share, even falling to only about 20% at one point.

Just when people thought that the dispute over the technical route was about to settle, the lithium iron phosphate battery suddenly came into force. Since January this year, its market share has risen from 38% at the beginning of the year. By July, the market share had reached 51%, surpassing the ternary battery at one stroke, and continued to suppress the ternary battery in the following months.

SMM believes that the gradual increase of lithium iron phosphate batteries on the one hand is due to the gradual decline of the current new energy subsidy policy, and the advantage of ternary batteries in the subsidy side is gradually reduced.

On the other hand, the current upward trend of a variety of raw materials runs counter to the continuous cost reduction demand of car companies, and the advantage of relatively low manufacturing cost of lithium iron phosphate battery has been highlighted. In order to reduce automobile manufacturing costs, major car companies, such as Xiaopeng and Tesla, have explored the product price range, so they begin to choose more lithium iron phosphate batteries, resulting in a continuous increase in the application proportion of lithium iron phosphate batteries in medium and low-end models. Promote the rapid upstream of lithium iron phosphate battery in terms of installed capacity.

It is worth noting that the high economic situation of lithium iron phosphate batteries has increased the demand for upstream lithium iron phosphate materials to a certain extent, which has led to an upsurge of industry expansion. After the leading enterprises in the lithium iron phosphate industry, some enterprises in phosphorus chemical industry, titanium dioxide and even other industries have also joined the bureau of iron lithium.

And where will the market go in the future? I'm afraid there's only time to prove it.

High-quality replacement of lithium battery! Release of sodium ion battery

In the twinkling of an eye, at the end of July, when everyone was still relieved by the record heavy rainfall in Henan and the retreat of typhoon fireworks, and spent wildly for Hongxing Erke's kind donation, the Ningde era, the global power battery leader, has added some new highlights to the lithium power industry, which has already had ups and downs this year.

On July 29th, Ningde Times officially unveiled its first-generation sodium-ion battery technology at an online video conference. Its energy density will reach an astonishing 160 130wh/kg kg, the highest level in the world, and an increase of about 30% compared with the current energy density of 120-battery in the sodium-ion battery industry. Therefore, as soon as the battery was launched, it caused great repercussions in the market.

But what is a sodium battery?

In fact, the so-called sodium ion battery, as the name implies, even though the electrode material used is mainly sodium salt battery.

In essence, the working principle of sodium ion battery is no different from that of lithium ion battery, which depends on the current generated by sodium ion shuttling back and forth in front of the positive and negative electrodes, which is a kind of rocking chair battery.

According to the Ningde Times press conference data, except for slightly lower energy density, this sodium ion battery is comparable to the current hot lithium iron phosphate battery in terms of fast charge performance, low temperature performance, cycle life, system integration efficiency and safety. it is even better than lithium iron phosphate battery in some aspects.

But do you think it's over? The greatest significance of sodium ion batteries is more than that.

We should know that the crustal abundance of lithium ion is only 0.0065%, and the amount of economically exploitable resources is limited, and there is a great difference between high and low quality. at the same time, there is a serious uneven distribution, in which high-quality resources are mostly concentrated in South America, Australia and other places. This also makes China, as a major consumer of lithium resources in the world, but highly dependent on the supply of imported raw materials, and the price is easily affected by the mine-end prices of overseas suppliers.

This year, the price of lithium salt continues to soar, one of the important reasons is the mismatch between supply and demand after the increase of terminal demand.

In human words, the terminal expansion, the upstream mine end expansion cycle is longer, resulting in the expansion speed can not keep up, and from the current data, the shortage of lithium salt is still a long-term trend in the next few years. In the future, it may become one of the key factors restricting the development of new energy industry chain.

Therefore, the importance of sodium ions can be highlighted.

The abundance of sodium ion in the earth's crust has reached 2.75%, which is much higher than 0.0065% of lithium ion, and it is relatively widely distributed around the world, which also makes sodium ion batteries have more advantages over lithium in terms of raw material costs after the scale of the industry has been formed. in addition, sodium ion batteries, as a high-quality substitute for lithium batteries, once industrialized, will make our terminal and battery enterprises more abundant in choice. It is of great significance to get rid of China's dependence on overseas lithium resources.

At present, although the sodium ion battery is still in the early stage of industrialization, according to the information released in the Ningde era, the advantages of the sodium ion battery are more prominent, although there is still a certain gap between its energy density and the lithium ion battery. Temporarily, it can not be applied to the field of new energy vehicles with high energy density, but it has cost advantages and fast charging performance. Low-temperature performance enables it to achieve differential positioning with lithium-ion batteries, and partially replace lithium-ion batteries in two-wheelers, energy storage, power exchange, and some high-latitude scenarios.

(to be continued)