In terms of power battery market, China government released the <Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2012 to 2020)>, which sets up the target that accumulative output and sales volume of pure electric vehicle (EV) and plug-in hybrid EV should exceed 500,000 by 2015 and 5 million by 2020. We think that it is difficult to reach the target of national plan by 2015 due to limits of technology and market. But during the period from 2012 to 2015, hybrid EV with mature technology and high market recognition will have a steady development.
<Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2012 to 2020)> also puts forward higher target requirement on performance and cost of LIB that specific energy of power battery module should reach over 150 Wh/kg and cost should be reduced to CNY 2/Wh by 2015. To achieve the goal of reduced cost of lithium batteries, battery material costs must be reduced. To grasp the huge potential market opportunities, for battery material manufacturers, how to improve product performance and enhance cost competitiveness will become the must face challenges.
China’s Li-Ion Battery Industry has Risk of Over-investment
With the wide range of applications in digital products, electric tools, the Li-ion battery has become the mainstream of secondary batteries, which is also considered to be the best choice for Electric Vehicles (EV). Encouraged by the national policies, the Li-ion battery market is expected have a great opportunity and which make a rapid increase of investment in
According to the industrial data, the number of domestic companies involved in Li-ion battery increase to 600+ in 2011 from the 150+ in 2009. Investors from various industries show great interests in Li-ion battery, as well as related materials production.
But with the limits of technology maturity, cost, supporting infrastructure and the habit of consumer, the development of China EV lagged far behind expectation. The need for digital Li-ion battery is stable and in the long run there will be a reasonable growth potential. But to absorb the large scale capacity of Li-ion battery, the substantive growth of power Li-ion battery market in necessary.
The <Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicle Developing Plan 2011~2020> has been reported to the State Council, according to the industrial sources, in the final announced version, the original target in the first draft of 5 million EVs by 2020 will be cancelled.
The large-scale commercialization of domestic EV has not been initiated yet; most battery manufacturers are producing customerized products ordered by car manufacturers, because of the small orders and without scale economy, the production cost is high. Take BAK as an example, it is a leading player in China Li-ion battery industry, the investment of more than $ 100million Tianjin factory, up to now, mainly produced li-ion battery used in electric bicycle, UPS and electric tools but not the power Li-ion battery as original target, the slow development of EV and power Li-ion battery market has formed a huge financial and sales pressure on li-ion battery investor.
In addition, to get the stable supply of high quality Li-ion battery, parts of EV manufacturers tends to invest into Li-ion battery manufacturers. Ford Motor Company shown its Midi EV taxi in
In a long term, EV is expected o become the important part of new energy vehicle and get a rapid development after mature technology and improved supporting facilities. While in the short run, such as 2-3 years, it’s difficult to bring enough market space for the rapid expansion of battery capacity.
The Li-ion battery production enterprises should have an active and pragmatic attitude in their cooperation with EV manufacturers, together work on the R&D of battery system. Once the market becomes mature, they will firstly catch the opportunity in the future. It is must be reminded that blind expansion will bring the capacity idle and the decline in investment return, and China's Li-ion battery and materials industry should learn enough experiences from the wind, solar industry.
In mid Aug. 2011, according to the news from China Securities Journal, Shanghai Automobile Industry Company (SAIC), one of the largest Chinese car manufacturers, plans to start up the power Li-ion batteries in 2012, and the capacity will be 6,000 units/a.
The Li-ion battery system of SAIC is jointly developed with A123 systems (
A123 Systems (
ATBS Co., Ltd. specialize in development, production and sales of vehicle power battery system and provide technical services and other after-sales services. In terms of
In addition, in the field of new energy automobiles, SAIC strategically plans to manufacture EV by the end of 2012.
High Capacity Power Lithium Ion
The major limits of promotion of electric vehicles (EV) include the price, infrastructure, mileage, and safety. Actually, price, infrastructure, mileage issues can be revamped or improved by other ways; while safety, is the most concerned by customers, also the must be solved problem of EV and lithium battery manufacturers.
The safety of electric vehicles is a systematic engineering, is closely related with the design of the EV; while the safety of the battery is undoubtedly very important. safety of power lithium-ion battery itself is also a system engineering, four key materials in the batteries - the cathode, anode, separator and electrolyte, and manufacturing processes as well as the pack and battery management system (BMS) must comply with the safety requirements.
In addition, the timeliness of battery safety should be concerned. With the increase of the cycle in the battery using, the physical structure and chemical composition will be changed, for example, the change in the volume of the electrode and the metal lithium precipitation, etc., the safety of the battery will decrease. So, to secure the safety of power lithium-ion battery, the design and test must be focused.
Improvements of Lithium-ion
The manufacturing of LIB has three main components: design, manufacture and testing, manufacturing is the key aspects that make the design become actual.
For battery producers, introduction of fully-automated production lines does not mean high quality and stable production, in addition to good source of materials, the management of automated production line is more critical. Understanding of the production process for a technical staff, the battery manufacturing control of every aspect, these all will ultimately affect the quality and pass rate. Low-quality batteries couldn’t sell at high prices, for battery producers, pass rate determine the profit margins of company.
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Four key materials used in lithium ion battery (LIB) are cathode, anode, separator and electrolyte respectively. Each of them may cause major impact on the battery performance and cost. However, performance of LIB depends, ultimately and in a large degree, on the mutual complement of these key materials. Shortage in any one material can result performance drop of the battery, while the extra material performance will bring additional and unnecessary cost.
Therefore, delivery of battery material integration solution is becoming a development trend in the industry. Concurrent production of multiple key materials is an approach making battery material suppliers pay attention on performance complement between key materials and thus realize minimum cost under the prerequisite of meeting performance specification. Furthermore, such material Integration Solution can be developed corresponding to different application demands.
In March 2012, Mitsubishi Chemical exhibited the LIB made of all self-produced key materials in
In January 2012, BASF announced to set up a battery material global business division, merging the business from several original departments, including cathode material development formerly under BASF catalyst division, electrolyte formulation from intermediate division, and next generation LIB development for BASF Future Business Group. In April 2012, BASF purchased Novolyte Technologies, an
We consider that for the world leading players, a transformation trend is happening, which is from the single battery material producer to, the multiple battery materials producer, even to the integrated battery materials solutions provider. It can be forecasted that in the next few years, we will see more similar cases
