Market changes brought about by 4680/4695 cells

Market changes brought about by 4680/4695 cells

1. Industry news, BMW?will switch to 4695/90 cylindrical cells on the next generation battery technology platform, this news is a bit sudden for me, because BMW has always been a staunch and loyal fan of square cells, and in the field of electric vehicles, it is almost the spokesperson for square cell applications.

This also means that Tesla's 4680+ CTC/CTP will have a greater impact on the industry than we think. In the field of power lithium batteries, the dispute over the technical route of battery cells has never stopped.

In the field of materials, there are ternary, iron-lithium two heroes to compete, in the cell structure there are cylindrical, soft bag and square Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

2.?The?dispute between the routes in these two latitudes, before 2020, overseas with ternary materials as the main technical route, North America with Tesla's NCA as the main camp (Panasonic's market), part of NCM (General Motors' route, the market of Korean battery companies); In Europe, NCM is the main camp (the market of Korean battery companies), and lithium iron phosphate has almost no application examples; In China, ternary and lithium iron phosphate are trade-offs and evolve interactively;

From 2020, lithium iron phosphate began to invade overseas markets, and the vane of this change is Tesla's large-scale application of lithium iron phosphate on M3/Y as a major material route scheme for subsequent product series, and then Volkswagen and other European automotive groups will use lithium iron phosphate as a main material route when planning future electrification platforms; And this year, South Korean battery companies have successively announced that they will start the development of lithium iron phosphate products.

So far, lithium iron phosphate has opened a fast track for the application of overseas electric vehicles. This is also a landmark turning event for the export of domestic battery technology and industrial applications overseas.

3.?In the dispute over the route of structural form, the country is the "square" of iron, and the "soft package, cylinder" of flowing water. First of all, the domestic battery cell industry in terms of power, has always been soft package weak, square strong, cylindrical battery cells with the rapid rise of Model S applications, the momentum once overshadowed the soft package, but due to overseas OEMs to follow the soft package program more, and in the subsidy era, the pursuit of single cell specific energy has been restraining the OEM and cell companies to choose the program, soft packaging in this period has been more favored.

2017-2019 these 3 years should be the darkest stage of domestic cylindrical cells in the field of power, on the one hand, Tesla's 2170+ large module application, domestic can not follow (technical reasons + OEM willingness level reasons), on the other hand, the standard module is in full swing, cylindrical cells are still using and paying attention to in addition to individual enterprises, and the presence of the industry is very low. Including myself, at one point I felt that the cylinder would be the first to go out, followed by the PK of the soft bag and the square.

4, the?turning point appeared last year, Tesla BATTERY DAY, launched 4680 large cylindrical cells, with PACK integration technology is CTC, which makes the cylindrical cell route raised to a new latitude.

Why do you say that.

In the field of power cells, there is one of the biggest industry issues, that is, standardization. Standardization means scale, it means low cost, it means controlled consistency, it means controllable security.

Standardization is divided into two levels, one is the standardization of individual companies, such as the standard battery cells planned by Volkswagen, which will be applied to its entire group's product range; For example, a certain battery cell of CATL can be supplied to multiple OEM OEMs at the same time; But this is limited to a small range of applications. Volkswagen's standard cell route opts for square, which promotes the further penetration of square cells around the world.

Coupled with the fact that Mercedes-Benz has recently turned to square cells in the Ningde era, the route selection of the German troika is concentrated on the square.

But why did BMW suddenly change direction? In my opinion, one of the most important points is standardization. 4680 can be generalized to the entire industry level, and in terms of size space and overall arrangement, the cylinder has an innate advantage. No matter which OEM, which model, what chassis, cylindrical cells can be easily placed, easy to competent, it can be said that in the arrangement of cells, cylindrical is the engineer's favorite.

Compared with square, BYD's blade a size, can only be applied to its own specific model series, want to supply, you need to develop different sizes, and the blade cell in size, and then want to do long, extremely difficult, which has limited its application, so there are small blades, in size to make small, made into two rows, can be more flexible to adapt to the needs of different models. But the needs of OEM companies are diverse, which means that there will be multiple sizes, and the replacement will also make these cells obsolete faster.

5.?Another point is safety. Although the 4680 is larger than the 2170, it is still a small house for square cells that are hundreds of ampeons at every turn. In terms of individual energy, the 4680 is much safer. In addition, 4680, like the square cell, has an explosion relief valve design, which can also achieve directional discharge of thermal runaway.

6. When CTP?was launched, many companies were still waiting and hesitating, and now CTP is the only way; When the concept of CTC was proposed, many people felt that it was still far away, as highlighted in previous articles, technological disruption is far faster than imagined; Now it is just the lack of a mass production case stimulation, next year when the model equipped with 4680 cells is mass-produced, the speed of domestic companies will catch many people off guard.

7.?Looking at the world, there is both a generation difference in time and space between battery cells and integrated technology

(1) South Korea and North America (mainly GM) are still stuck in the module era, redundant structural parts, and stable PACK design are the main theme;

(2) North America (mainly Tesla), quickly rushing to CTP+CTC, S PLAID and the next generation of MY, pickup truck is the forefront of current technology;

(3) Domestically, BYD Han is the ultimate form of the square cell solution, and CATL will maintain a balance between "square cells" + "blade cells", and other companies are following;

(4) Japanese system, continue fugue and follow.

8,?domestic soft packaging will usher in their darkest era, although it is not yet KO, but basically it is extinguished, as soon as possible to transform, either square or large cylinder, otherwise the last OEM reply heard the most is "we only need square"; Overseas not to say, mainly Korean enterprises, let them fight themselves, SK and LGPK soft bags, Samsung SDI and LG PK cylinder, except for Samsung, other jumps can not reach for a few days;

Domestic cylindrical enterprises, those who are unwilling in front can come to Bo again under the 4680 route, and next, it will be the PK era of 46XX and square blades!