Electrical Equipment / Components & Telecoms

According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, General Motors is considering replacing the soft battery used in its electric vehicle with a large cylindrical battery similar to Tesla 4680. Previously, BMW Group also announced that it would use large cylindrical batteries in its electric vehicles from 2025. In addition, Porsche, Volvo, Stellantis, Jianghuai and other domestic and foreign auto companies have also disclosed their plans or intentions to apply large cylindrical batteries.

Not only auto companies, but also many power battery companies have begun to increase the promotion and layout of large cylindrical batteries. According to the analysis of the Geshi Automotive Research Institute, Tesla and Panasonic are the two companies that have made rapid progress in launching 4680 batteries in the market. In addition, LG New Energy, Ningde Times, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Bike Battery, Vision Power, Honeycomb Energy and other battery companies are actively following up the large cylindrical batteries including 4680 batteries.

In the field of power battery, square battery and soft bag battery have been in the mainstream at present, while cylindrical battery has been pushed to the edge of the market many years ago, and is rarely used by automobile enterprises. With regard to the sudden rise of the large cylindrical battery, some insiders said that this released a signal of market change. In 2023, it may usher in the inflection point of the large-scale market application of the large cylindrical battery. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.

Of course, there is market logic behind the rise of the large cylindrical battery, but Tesla, a heavyweight pusher, can not make it hot at present. In January this year, Tesla announced that it would invest more than $3.6 billion to expand the super factory in Nevada, and will build two new factories, one of which is the 4680 battery factory. According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, the new battery factory has a planned annual capacity of 100GWh, which will accommodate 1.5 million light vehicles and Semi-electric trucks. This is just the beginning. Tesla said that its long-term capacity target of 4680 battery is 1000GWh, even 2000GWh, 3000GWh, and it plans to expand the application of 4680 battery to the field of energy storage. In addition, Tesla recently announced four new patents in battery technology.

These actions of Tesla give the impression that it will stride forward along the route of 4680 large cylindrical battery. The driving force of this move partly stems from Tesla's independent character, but more from its breakthrough technology and strength in the field of large cylindrical batteries. Because the square battery and the flexible battery can achieve the "seamless" connection between the battery cells and maximize the space utilization, more vehicle enterprises adopt this packaging form. However, Tesla believes that the gap between cylindrical batteries is more conducive to the heat dissipation of the cell and the battery is safer, so it insists on using cylindrical batteries. Tesla must face and solve the problem of relatively low energy density of cylindrical batteries.

According to Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, in September 2020, on the "Tesla Battery Day", Musk released its first 4680 battery, and claimed that the energy density of the battery was 5 times higher than that of 2170 battery, the output power was 6 times higher, the vehicle range was increased by 16%, and the cost was reduced by 14%. In the future, with the improvement of battery materials and vehicle design, the mileage will increase by 56% and the production cost will decrease by 54%. However, although this news caused a sensation in the industry, in the next two years, Tesla has no further information about the 4680 battery. Until recently Tesla disclosed to the outside world that its 4680 cylindrical battery mass production has made a major breakthrough. The factory in California has produced 860000 battery cells, which can support the loading of 1000 vehicles ModelY. The industry has only understood the taste of it. It turns out that Tesla has been trying to overcome the difficulty of 4680 battery mass production in the past two years.

In principle, using 4680 cells with larger monomer volume can reduce the number of packaging materials, reduce the cost of packaging cell shell, and reduce the weight. In addition, the gap between the large volume cores is larger, which makes it easier to arrange the heat dissipation device. Based on this, Tesla 4680 battery adopts high nickel positive+silicon carbon negative material and non-polar lug (also called full lug) technology, which greatly reduces the risk of thermal runaway of high nickel battery, and also increases the energy density to 300kWh/kg. This battery has many advantages, but its disadvantages are also obvious. One of the biggest disadvantages is that it requires very high processing technology. For example, the electrodeless ear technology used by the 4680 battery involves multiple links such as slitting, liquid injection, kneading, laser welding, etc. The problem in any link will affect the yield of the product, while the low yield of the product will directly raise the production cost.

It is amazing that Tesla has solved many technological problems and broken through the bottleneck of mass production through continuous technical research. At Tesla's conference call in the third quarter of 2022, Musk announced that the company had finally achieved rapid development on the 4680 battery, and the product yield rate reached 92%.

Some insiders said that in the development process of electric vehicles, the importance of power batteries is self-evident, and its range and cost have been important factors restricting the rapid and comprehensive penetration of the market of pure electric vehicles. Since 2021, the price of power battery raw materials has risen many times, which has made the demand for efficiency increase and cost reduction of automobile enterprises increasingly strong. It is not surprising that the large cylindrical battery, which has more advantages in performance, cost and safety, can quickly exit the circle. Tesla has made an important breakthrough in the mass production of 4680 large cylindrical batteries, which is really likely to drive the large-scale market application of large cylindrical batteries.

If the era of large cylindrical battery comes, the head car companies like Tesla will make other battery manufacturers choose to stand in line by formulating standards. In this case, it is self-evident who decides how to divide the cake in the electric car market.