According to South Korean media reports, Chinese power battery manufacturers such as Ningde Times, Yiwei Lithium Energy and Bick Battery will put into mass production of Tesla 4680 batteries this year. In Japan and South Korea, LG Chemical, Panasonic and Samsung SDI have earlier layouts and have completed sample development of 4680 batteries.
It is worth noting that at Tesla's earnings conference call on January 27 this year, Musk revealed that Tesla is producing Model Y with 4680 batteries at the Austin factory, and the first batch of vehicles equipped with 4680 structural battery packs are likely to start delivery by the end of this quarter.
Industry insiders believe that the delivery of 4680 batteries may further drive the prosperity of the nickel-lithium plate, and it is also expected to open up incremental space for the growth of high nickel.
In September 2020, Tesla released the 4680 electrodeless ear battery on Battery Day, which claims to have a five-fold increase in energy density, a 16% increase in vehicle mileage, and a six-fold increase in electric power compared with polar ear batteries.
Driven by Tesla, a number of battery companies have entered the research and development of 4680 cylindrical batteries. In March last year, media reported that LG Chemical's 4680 core trial production line had begun construction, assembly and plating equipment had been installed, and the goal was to complete the trial production before Panasonic mass-produced the battery.
In August last year, Ningde Times was involved in a cooperation framework agreement with the Shanghai Municipal people's Government to build a factory in Shanghai Lingang to produce 4680 batteries for Tesla.
In February, Hirokazu Umeda, Panasonic's chief financial officer, said the company was revamping some of its facilities and expected to start trial production of 4680 electric car batteries at an undisclosed location in Japan at the beginning of April.
Industry insiders said that compared with square batteries and soft bag batteries, cylindrical batteries have the advantages of redundancy and reliability of multiple units in parallel, the safety of uncontrolled thermal transfer of single units, and the stability of lateral dimensions in charge and discharge, while 4680 batteries compared with 2170 batteries, through structural innovation, not only improve the energy density, but also improve heat dissipation, safety, and reduce direct production costs.
Data show that in 2020, global shipments of cylindrical lithium-ion batteries exceeded 10 billion, a sharp increase of 31.3% over the same period last year. At present, automobile enterprises have a high recognition of large cylindrical batteries, and many domestic battery enterprises have mastered the technology of large cylindrical batteries. Ningde era is speeding up the pace of research and development of large cylindrical batteries' Golden Hoop stick'. LG Chemistry has also developed 4680, 4690 and other large cylindrical batteries one after another, hoping to re-enter Tesla's supply chain.
In addition, with the continuous acceleration of 4680 mass production process, relevant enterprises also step up the layout of materials. In December, Grammy said on the investor interaction platform that the company had carried out research on ternary precursors and cathode materials for 4680 batteries, and that any progress would be disclosed in a timely manner.
Greenmei said that ternary batteries are in line with the development trend of long-life and high-performance new energy vehicles, and we are firmly optimistic about the standard matching of high-nickel ternary batteries to the world's high-end cars.
