New energy vehicles to replace the traditional fuel vehicles just opened the curtain, the competition has been very fierce. In the face of this blank field, everyone is feeling the stones across the river, no one knows whether the road they are taking is definitely right, they are constantly trying and making mistakes. As we all know, the three most important components of a pure electric vehicle are battery, electronic control and motor. Whoever can lead in these three technologies has a good chance to become the industry leader. But none of these three systems is easy to work out. They are all made by countless researchers, day and night, using experiments and data. But in my opinion, the most difficult of the three is the battery system.
First of all, the electric motor was developed very early, about forty years before the oil engine. In more than 100 years of development, the motor technology has long been mature, the same quality of motor and fuel engine compared, no matter in the work efficiency/life, or energy consumption/stability, the motor is better than the generator, and the price is cheaper, the maintenance cost is also lower.
But electric cars have a fatal drawback: batteries. For example, a car with low fuel consumption only needs 60-70 liters of fuel to run 1000 kilometers, weighing less than 50 kilograms, and refueling takes only 5 minutes. The current range of electric vehicles is basically 300-500 kilometers, and more than 500 are rare. This involves carrying a 600kg battery pack back and forth and recharging it three times, each time for at least three hours. This undoubtedly directly hinders the development of electric vehicles.
So what is the current status of battery systems?
First of all, the current battery is divided into four major categories: hydrogen fuel power battery, zinc air battery, flywheel battery, lithium ion battery.
Hydrogen powered cells are being built around the world, but they are not yet in use. It is the most expensive, and the materials are so rare that it can triple the price of a car. And hydrogen, the fuel for hydrogen-powered cells, is hard to store, transport and explode. So it's still working on it.
Flywheel battery For those of you who may not know it, it is composed of an internal motor that rotates at high speed and an energy storage battery. The Porsche 918 has a flywheel battery system, which is good at energy recovery to improve acceleration and power performance. The advantage is that there are no chemicals in it, so it's purely physical and it doesn't have to blow up. But the cost is too high, only 918 this excellent supercar can be used, so it is not considered at present.
Zinc-air batteries do not mix well with car batteries. Its range is comparable to that of a lithium-ion battery, and its price is so low that it has no friends. But it is helpless that it can provide too little instantaneous energy, so that the electric car carrying it can not keep up with the rhythm when climbing and accelerating, just like a car stuck in first gear, and can not go dry.
So for now, it's the lithium-ion battery camp. It is divided into three lithium ion battery and iron phosphate lithium ion battery (iron battery). Tesla uses ternary lithium-ion batteries because of their high density, light weight and good endurance. Its biggest disadvantage is that the safety and stability is slightly poor, but also unconventional, more important is that it is easy to fire, explosion. If you have an extreme collision, you can only pray to God when you explode. The Tesla Model is equipped with Panasonic's latest lithium-ion battery, which uses software to solve safety problems in charge and discharge, which is the biggest advantage of Tesla. But even then, it has the lowest security. The result is that everyone sees ~
Car companies such as BYD use iron batteries, which have the advantage of balanced price, power density, performance and other aspects, and are cheap to build. But it's still heavy, and in extreme cases (winter), the battery wears off quickly, but for now it's the mainstream battery.
In general, the development of hydrogen fuel power cells and zinc air batteries is not mature, and a complete industrial chain needs to be established before they can be commercialized. Flywheel batteries are so expensive that only supercars can afford them; Lithium-ion batteries will be the mainstream for a long time in the future, in which ternary lithium-ion batteries have strong performance and high density, but high cost and weak safety. Iron batteries are balanced in all aspects and safe, making them the most promising batteries at present.
Therefore, many people say that Tesla's use of Panasonic's ternary lithium ion battery is a symbol of conscience, while BYD's use of iron battery is to steal space and reduce material, which is wrong. Batteries still have a long way to go, and the jury is still out on who is good and who is bad
