In the packaging form of power battery, square and soft battery have always been in the mainstream, while cylindrical battery is rarely adopted by the majority of automobile enterprises. When the time comes to 2023, this situation may usher in changes.
On January 28, it was reported that General Motors, the global auto giant, was considering changing the soft battery used in its electric vehicle model to cylindrical battery. The latter would probably choose a battery cell similar to Tesla 4680.
Before that, BMW Group also announced that it would use large round batteries in its "new level" electric vehicles from 2025, and would produce processed products in two battery plants in China and overseas, with an annual capacity of up to 40GWh.
In addition, Porsche, Volvo, Stellantis, Jianghuai and other domestic and foreign car companies have also released signals of plans to apply large cylindrical batteries.
"Great breakthrough" of cylindrical battery
Why are more and more car companies turning their attention to cylindrical batteries? It all starts with Tesla's 4680 large cylindrical battery.
Tesla is one of the few automobile enterprises that use cylindrical power batteries on a large scale in the adoption of power battery packaging form, from 1865 batteries used on the earliest Model S to 2170 batteries used on the current Model 3 and Model Y. On the road of car building, Tesla mostly chooses to develop its own core components, including power batteries.
In September 2020, 4680 large cylindrical batteries first appeared on Tesla's "Battery Day", which was called a "great breakthrough" in battery technology by Elon Musk. In terms of naming, 4680 is a large cylindrical battery with a diameter of 46mm and a height of 80mm. Tesla said that compared with the 2170 battery, the single energy of the 4680 battery increased by five times, which could increase the vehicle mileage by 16%. 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%.
Taking Tesla's best-selling model Model 3 as an example, if 2170 cells are used, about 4400 batteries are needed to fill the entire battery pack, and the battery capacity is about 78.3kWh. If 4680 cells are used, only more than 950 cells can fill the entire battery pack, and the corresponding total capacity can reach 130kWh, up 75%.
It can be seen that 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, another advantage brought by the large volume of cores is that the gap between the cores becomes larger and it is easier to arrange the heat dissipation device.
Based on the better heat dissipation performance of the large cylinder, the Tesla 4680 battery uses high nickel positive electrode+silicon carbon negative electrode material, as well as non-pole ear technology, which greatly reduces the risk of thermal runaway of the high nickel battery, and also increases the energy density to 300kWh/kg.
The analysis of Tianfeng Securities pointed out that the advantages of the large cylindrical battery are the ability to deal with heat runaway, and the disadvantages are the low efficiency of the group. The combination of the high nickel ternary battery and the high nickel ternary battery can make full use of the advantages of high energy density and good safety.
The industry is well aware that in the development process of electric vehicles, the importance of power batteries is self-evident. Its range and cost have been important factors that restrict the rapid and comprehensive penetration of the market of pure electric vehicles. And since 2021, the price of power battery raw materials has been increased many times, which has made the demand of vehicle enterprises to increase efficiency and reduce cost more and more intense. It is not surprising that the 4680 large cylindrical battery, which has more advantages in performance, cost and safety, can quickly exit the circle.
Large cylindrical battery has obvious advantages, but it is not without disadvantages.
It is understood that the 4680 battery with electrodeless ear technology faces many challenges in the production process, especially in the aspects of slitting, liquid injection, flattening and laser welding. Among them, in the laser welding link - from the traditional spot welding of two pole lugs to the all-pole lug surface welding, the welding process and welding quantity are increased, the laser intensity and focal length are not easy to control, and it is easy to weld through and burn into the battery or cannot be fully welded. These problems directly affect the improvement of the yield of 4680 batteries.
In July 2021, Musk also admitted that the 4680 battery encountered a bottleneck in mass production. After that, after continuous improvement, at the conference call in the third quarter of 2022, Tesla CEO Musk said: "The company has finally achieved rapid development in 4680 batteries." It is reported that in the first half of 2022, the yield of small batch 4680 cells produced by Tesla's California factory has reached 92%. At present, in the Austin Super Factory in Texas, the weekly production of Tesla 4680 batteries is enough to meet the manufacturing of more than 1000 battery packs.
4680 battery boom in the world
Driven by Tesla, in recent years, the global electric vehicle industry has almost set off a 4680 battery boom.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, not only are more and more automobile enterprises changing from square and soft battery lines to tracking cylindrical battery technology lines, but also more and more power battery enterprises are starting to increase the promotion and layout of large cylindrical batteries.
According to the analysis, 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.
As a battery supplier of Tesla, Panasonic disclosed that the 4680 large cylindrical battery was close to mass production as early as November 2021, and the new 4680 production line was under construction, which was expected to be put into production in 2022.
In June 2022, LG New Energy said that it would invest 582 billion won (about 3 billion yuan) to build new infrastructure in the Ouchang factory in South Korea for the production of 4680 batteries. The capacity of the new production line is 9GWh, which is expected to be put into production in the second half of 2023.
In August of the same year, Cui Xun, the head of Samsung SDI China, announced at the World New Energy Automobile Conference that Samsung decided to develop 46 series batteries, including 4680, 4695 and 46120 types of batteries. According to the plan, Samsung SDI will mass produce 4680 batteries in Malaysia, with a planned capacity of 8-12 GWh.
Ningde Times, a domestic power battery enterprise, has planned 8 production lines with a capacity of 4680 large cylindrical batteries of 12GWh, and announced in September 2022 that it will build 20GWh capacity in China and Europe respectively. It is expected to start mass production in 2024 and officially deliver it in 2025.
Yiwei Lithium released a new generation of 4695 large cylindrical battery in December 2022, with an energy density of 350Wh/kg, which can achieve 9 min ultra-fast charging and 500-1000km range, and reduce the manufacturing cost by 50%. It is reported that the company's 46-series large cylindrical battery project is progressing in an orderly manner as planned. According to the plan, the total capacity of large cylindrical battery of Yiwei Lithium Energy will exceed 100GWh in 2025.
As mentioned above, BMW Group will use cylindrical batteries in "new generation" vehicles from 2025. The cylindrical battery suppliers it seeks are Ningde Times and Yiwei Lithium Energy. It is reported that BMW has awarded more than 10 billion euros (about 73.7 billion yuan) of cell production demand contracts to these two partners.
In addition, the BMW Group also announced that it will cooperate with Vision Power in the growth period, which will provide cylindrical batteries for its new generation of vehicles from 2026. To this end, Vision Power will build a new zero-carbon battery factory in South Carolina to provide products for BMW, with a planned capacity of 30GWh, which is planned to be put into production in 2026.
Honeycomb Energy once exhibited a 23Ah 4680 battery, NCM positive pole, with a planned energy density of 235Wh/kg and a cycle life of more than 1200 times at the Shanghai Auto Show in 2021. It was used for pure electric vehicles, but the mass production time is unknown.
It is worth mentioning that just a few days ago (January 28), Shenzhen Bike Power Battery Co., Ltd. announced that it would sign a strategic cooperation agreement with Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Bike Power will spend 13 billion yuan to build its large cylindrical battery production line in Changzhou, and the capacity will reach 30 GWh after completion.
As one of the first batch of enterprises producing cylindrical batteries in China, BIK Large Cylinders currently have 46 series, 3x series, 26 series and other series, with cell height ranging from 70mm to 160mm. It is understood that in the 46-series with the highest market attention, Bike has successively delivered samples in batches since 2021, and its performance is in line with expectations. According to the different fast charging capacity of 8-15 minutes, the current cell energy density is between 280Wh/kg and 330Wh/kg.
4680 ushers in the turning point of large-scale market application
Based on the layout of domestic and foreign battery manufacturers and the application needs of automobile enterprises, the analysis points out that the 4680 large cylindrical battery is expected to usher in the turning point of large-scale market application in 2023.
It is worth noting that after the mass production of large cylindrical batteries has made progress, Tesla recently announced that it will continue to increase its investment in 4680 large cylindrical batteries.
It is reported that Tesla will invest more than US $3.6 billion to expand the super factory in Nevada, and will build two new factories, one of which is the 4680 battery factory. The planned annual capacity of the new battery factory will reach 100GWh, and will accommodate 1.5 million light vehicles.
In this regard, some analysts pointed out that behind Tesla's move, on the one hand, it hopes to achieve efficiency increase and cost reduction through 4680 batteries, and carry it in a full range of electric vehicles; On the other hand, it is planned to expand the application of 4680 batteries to the field of energy storage (the total installed capacity of Tesla in 2022 will be 6.5 GWh, with a year-on-year increase of 64%). More analysts believe that Tesla's deeper purpose is to lead the wave of large cylindrical batteries and promote other battery manufacturers to choose to stand in line after formulating standards.
Regardless of the reason, a trend that can be confirmed is that the era of large cylindrical batteries is accelerating.
Galaxy Securities released a research report saying that in the post-subsidy era, the performance-price ratio is the king, and the 4680 large cylindrical battery came into being at the historic moment. Through the five aspects of cell design, cell factory, positive and negative electrode materials and vehicle battery integration, the overall cost of the 4680 battery can be reduced by 56%.
In the future, big columns will replace some soft bags and squares in the market share. Except for Model 3, Tesla plans to use 4680 batteries in all models or in part. It is estimated that the sales volume of Tesla 4680 model is expected to reach 1.21 million in 2025, and the corresponding installed capacity of battery is about 178GWh. In addition to BMW and other enterprises, it is conservatively predicted that the installed capacity of 4680 batteries will exceed 200GWh in 2025.
