The one who gets the power battery, gets the new energy vehicle world. This statement is no exaggeration. Because the battery accounts for nearly half of the cost of a new energy vehicle. Among the four main materials of batteries (cathode material, anode material, electrolyte and diaphragm), cathode material not only accounts for 40% of the cost, but also directly determines the energy density of the battery cell. Because of this, most power batteries are named after the cathode material.
1. What route is China's ternary battery taking?
According to the cathode material technology route, power batteries can be mainly divided into lithium iron phosphate, ternary (NCA/NCM) and lithium manganate batteries, which are three categories (you may ask, why Miss Dong's Zhuhai Yinlong lithium titanate batteries can not be classified? This is because lithium titanate is the only power battery named after the negative electrode material).
These three types of batteries have their advantages and disadvantages: lithium iron phosphate battery charge and discharge cycle life is long, but its disadvantage is low energy density, low temperature performance, mainly used in commercial vehicles; ternary materials have the advantage of high energy density, the disadvantage is the cycle life is relatively short, poor safety and high temperature performance, mainly used in passenger cars; lithium manganate battery energy density is low, high temperature cycle stability and storage performance is poor, currently Domestic production and use are rare.
The so-called ternary materials are mainly NCM and NCA, of which NCM materials can be divided into NCM111, NCM523, NCM622, NCM811 and so on. At present, the domestic mainly take NCM materials, mainly NCM523, which accounted for 76% of the production of ternary materials by type in 2016, while NCM111 and NCM622 accounted for 13% and 10% respectively.
With the increase of nickel content, the specific capacity of ternary cathode material will gradually increase, and the energy density of electric core will also increase. Under the dual stimulation of improved range of new energy vehicles and rising cobalt price, NCM811 and NCA materials of high nickel system have become the hot spot of market competition.
However, from the perspective of the current domestic power battery manufacturers' choices, there are many who choose the NCM811 route, and few who choose the NCA route. So is there a big difference between NCM and NCA? Are there any advantages and disadvantages?
2. Do NCA and NCM have advantages and disadvantages?
First, from the point of view of the material production process, NCA is more demanding than NCM
demanding than NCM production process conditions.
According to the research of Haitong Securities, from the molar ratio, the molar ratio of Ni:Co:Mn in NCM is commonly 5:2:3 or 1:1:1, while the molar ratio of Ni:Co:Al in NCA is commonly 8:1.5:0.5, and it is often called binary material because the content of aluminum in NCA is too small. And the substitution of Al (transition metal) for manganese in NCA is actually a modification of lithium nickel cobalt manganate by ion doping and surface coating. ion doping can enhance the stability of the material and improve the cycling performance of the material. However, in the production process, there is a threshold in the production process of NCA material because Al is an amphoteric metal, which is not easy to precipitate.
The second half of the "big trip" found that due to the high technical barriers of NCA materials, the current production capacity is mainly concentrated in Japan and South Korea, and China's mass production is relatively small. 2014 global NCA production was 14,500 tons, accounting for about 8.9% of all positive electrode materials, and in 2015 NCA production was 23,000 tons, accounting for 10.3%. 2016 NCA production in Japan and South Korea was 26,800 tons.
The main suppliers of NCA are Sumitomo Metals (Sumitomo), Nippon Chemi-Con and Toda Chemical (Toda), with a small amount of products sold by Ecopro and GSEM in South Korea. Among them, Toda mainly supplies AESC in Japan and LGC in Korea, Sumitomo mainly supplies Panasonic and PEVE, and Ecopro in Korea corresponds to SDI as its customer.
Secondly, from the perspective of the battery production process, NCA batteries are more difficult to produce. The world can produce NCA batteries are mainly Panasonic, Samsung and AESC, while there are many manufacturers of NCM, including LG and China's major power battery manufacturers.
Tesla's electric car has the longest range journey, and the latest technology can achieve a 20-minute full range of 350 kilometers, which is a deserved global leader, which is inseparable from its use of Panasonic NCA batteries.
Initially, Panasonic launched 18650 type NCA battery, recently and Tesla jointly launched 21700 NCA battery. 21700 battery single energy density is close to 300Wh/kg, about 10% higher than the original 18650 battery 250Wh/kg, which is almost the world's highest energy density of mass-produced lithium-ion batteries.
This level is not only much higher than the energy density level of 200 Wh/kg of the NCM523 battery, which has the highest utilization rate in China, but also significantly higher than the energy density level of the NCM811 battery, which has just appeared and is the most advanced battery in China, i.e., the highest level of 250 Wh/kg for a single cell and 200 Wh/kg for a system.
Does this mean that NCA batteries are better than NCM? Compared to NCA batteries have been large-scale, mature mass production, and commercially proven, while the high energy density of NCM batteries represented by 622 and 811 has not yet started on a large scale, temporarily a step behind.
Among them, the most technologically advanced NCM811 battery manufacturing domestic just started, mainly from cylindrical power battery manufacturers, while the square and soft pack battery manufacturers are still doing the relevant safety tests within the enterprise.
At present, the manufacturers that have claimed to achieve mass production of NCM811 include BAK Battery and Penghui Energy, whose energy density has room for improvement, and is limited by the quality and safety of NCM811 cathode material, further improvement is not difficult.
There is no public data to compare the energy density, safety and cost performance of NCA and NCM811 in detail, so it is difficult to say which is better or worse. However, academician Chen Liquan of the Chinese Academy of Engineering told "the second half of the big trip" that the performance of NCA and NCM811 is close to each other, and NCM811 is slightly cheaper in terms of price.
Moreover, the NCA system battery is not perfect, if you want to further improve the energy density, you need to continuously make a larger volume on the basis of 21700, and this will pose a greater challenge to battery safety management.
Therefore, although the world's largest NCA battery manufacturer Panasonic is famous for its NCA products, but in fact it is a two-legged approach, in providing NCA for Tesla, but also produce NCM for Volkswagen, Ford and other car companies.
3. can China make mature NCA cells
It is an indisputable fact that in China's local ternary battery supply system, there are almost only NCM products in this route. So, can China's local battery companies produce mature NCA batteries?
Looking at the domestic battery companies, whether it is the first line of Ningde Time, BYD, Lixin, Guoxuan Hi-Tech and other manufacturers, or professional do cylindrical battery manufacturers such as BAK, Wotoma, Tianpeng Energy and Penghui Energy, currently no mass production of NCA batteries.
Among them, most of the battery companies doing square or soft pack are not involved in NCA batteries, and those doing cylindrical batteries, such as BAK, are only in the laboratory research and development, while the old Lixin and the new Tianpeng Energy plan to produce, but their mass production products are not seen in the world, pending the test of the market.
In November 2017, Lixin Chairman Qin Xingcai released the "Lixin Battery Chemistry System Route Plan", which covers NCM811/NCA system, NCM532/622 system, lithium iron phosphate system, solid-state battery, sodium ion battery and fuel cell.
In fact, Lixin had previously produced NCA batteries on a small scale, but this formal inclusion in the long-term plan indicates a desire to go big, but the outlook may not be particularly promising.
However, what is surprising is that Shanghai Delanergy, a company that is not very active in the power battery market, publicly claimed mass production of NCA last year, and more than 286MWh of installed capacity inside the industry in 2017 may have been mainly contributed by it, mainly supplied to Dongfeng's passenger cars.
Whether this company's products are mature or not, the industry evaluation is mixed. 2016 became the major shareholder of Delanergy, Metro Energy (600175), in 2017 acquired Zhejiang New Era Haichuang Lithium Technology Company, which is a company founded by the former Ningbo Jinhe Lithium team, which has certain advantages in the research and development of ternary materials, but also does not have mass production of NCA materials. Whether Delanergy's NCA battery can sustain high volume production is to be further confirmed.
In the analysis of "The Second Half of the Grand Tour", it does not mean that there will not be other mature NCA ternary battery suppliers with high energy density in China's power battery market in the near future, except that the suppliers are not local Chinese companies, but three companies with Japanese and Korean backgrounds
First, the Suzhou plant invested by Panasonic, which may produce NCA batteries in China and will supply them to Chinese car companies.
Second, AESC, acquired by GSR Capital, has already invested in a factory in China, and its main direction has shifted from lithium manganate to ternary batteries, while it has its own production capacity of NAC batteries.
Third, Samsung had supplied NCA batteries in the Chinese market in 2016, but was called off for policy reasons. With the change of policy environment, Samsung may be allowed to sell NCA cells in the Chinese market again.
However, we need to ask why local Chinese battery manufacturers have not mass-produced NCA ternary cells so far, is it because battery factories can't build them or no car companies use them?
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