*Author: Feng Jingang
Introduction
The disclosure of BYD’s 811 battery technology indicates that BYD has mastered the technology of high-nickel batteries. Although there are uncertainties about its application effect, it is still a breakthrough compared to BYD’s ternary lithium battery technology. However, from killing ternary lithium batteries before to now secretly embracing high-nickel ternary lithium batteries with more active materials, BYD has been too fast in its speed of self-contradiction, which reflects BYD’s extreme use of marketing to achieve its goal.
On April 13, China’s domestic Mustang Mach-E (hereinafter referred to as electric horse) was officially launched. Compared with the media’s focus on electric horse’s product strength, professionals in the new energy automobile industry are more concerned about the BYD NCM811 battery it uses. Yes, BYD, who has always been fond of lithium iron phosphate batteries and relentlessly criticized ternary lithium batteries, has now self-contradicted and launched the 811 ternary lithium battery, which has surprised everyone.
In the technical roadmap of new energy automobile power batteries, the ternary lithium battery has undoubtedly become the mainstream choice of global leading power battery suppliers, and the 811 battery is a must-have for high-end models. No domestic and foreign brands, including domestic brands such as CATL and EVE Energy, and foreign brands like Panasonic and LGC, are an exception. Only BYD, who has been obsessed with lithium iron phosphate batteries and calls it blade batteries, has not been able to break through the high-end ternary lithium battery technology.
The disclosure of the 811 battery technology indicates that BYD has mastered the technology of high-nickel batteries. Although there are uncertainties about its application effect, it is still a breakthrough compared to BYD’s ternary lithium battery technology.
However, from killing ternary lithium batteries before to now secretly embracing high-nickel ternary lithium batteries with more active materials, BYD has been too fast in its speed of self-contradiction, which reflects BYD’s extreme use of marketing to achieve its goal.
In people’s subconscious, the product strength of Chinese automobiles in the era of the internal combustion engine has always lagged behind foreign products. But in the new energy era, Chinese new energy vehicles are no longer inferior to foreign brand cars, and some excellent products even have advantages, such as last night’s JiKe 001.
The fundamental difference is that China now has excellent power battery suppliers such as CATL and EVE Energy, which have mastered the core technology of new energy vehicles, which is ternary lithium batteries.
Based on this core weapon of ternary lithium batteries, Chinese new energy automobile brands like JiKe, NIO and XPeng have no core components restricted, making it possible for them to rise collectively, and BYD’s marketing tricks cannot stop the development of China’s new energy automobile industry. On the contrary, BYD should reflect on why it, as the “leader of China’s new energy”, has not only failed to keep up with the times with ternary lithium battery technology after taking so many new energy subsidies but has now become an obstacle to the development of China’s new energy.
BYD’s Exhaustion of Its Technical Capabilities Exposed by the Denunciation of Ternary Lithium BatteriesOn March 29th of last year, BYD officially launched the blade battery. The so-called blade battery only looks like a blade on the outside, but its material is still lithium iron phosphate battery, which is the same as BYD’s previous “ferrous battery”. Although the name of blade battery sounds new, because the material is still lithium iron phosphate battery, BYD’s battery technology was questioned by the new energy industry at that time.
At that time, internationally leading power battery brands had already launched the ace 811 battery in ternary lithium batteries, while BYD could only make 523 and 622 batteries, and the application effect was not good. Searching for “BYD e5 spontaneous combustion” on Baidu, the related results reached up to 151,000. Even the most acclaimed lithium iron phosphate by BYD no longer has much dominance. The domestic brand with the highest energy density of lithium iron phosphate is Guoxuan High-tech, and the brand with the largest market share is CATL.
Because of the obvious family management and lack of modernization, and failure to open up to the outside world in a timely manner, BYD with severe internal competition could only improve the structure of lithium iron phosphate, without changing the material, i.e., the blade battery, and did not make timely efforts toward the more advanced ternary lithium battery. This directly led to BYD being defeated by newcomer CATL in 2017 and being sidelined as the champion of China’s power battery. Now, taking advantage of Tesla’s gallop, BYD has even been surpassed by LGC, a latecomer.
BYD’s collapse and decline in batteries were not caused by others, but by Wang Chuanfu’s narrow vision and the company’s difficulty in making a comeback. Although BYD’s battery technology has long been ignored by major battery manufacturers, they could not have expected, based on the spirit of hurting themselves even more while killing the enemy, that BYD would play around with the tests of ternary lithium and lithium iron phosphate cells with needles, and use BYD’s dissemination power on the C-end to massively instill a concept to ordinary consumers: blade battery is super safe, ternary lithium is very dangerous.
The subsequent development is well known, which not only hurt major ternary lithium battery manufacturers, but also embarrassed various new energy brands, which is simply a case of bringing disaster upon oneself. BYD is naturally the only winner through the concept of blade battery being super safe, and the safety concept of the Han EV, which was launched at the same time, was deeply rooted in people’s hearts, with monthly sales directly exceeding 10,000 units. As an important frontline pusher of this campaign, Li Yunfei, the former sales deputy general manager of BYD, was promoted to brand general manager this year.
In the view of insiders in the new energy industry, BYD’s victory in this campaign was not glorious, because the blade battery is still lithium iron phosphate, which is already known for being “relatively safe”, and switching from ferrous battery to blade battery and repackaging a concept, what is the significance? In addition, BYD’s needle puncture experiment is not rigorous enough. A major element of electric vehicle combustion is the thermal runaway of the battery pack after installation, not directly puncturing the battery cell.The reason why ternary lithium can pass global and domestic standards is to ensure sufficient escape time (5 minutes in China) after thermal runaway, and big brands like BMW can even achieve 30 minutes. The formulation of national standards has practical guidance significance and is recognized by BYD and other organizations and brands. Conducting needle prick tests on battery cells has no practical significance.
Actually, ternary lithium can pass the needle prick test, but it requires increased cost, which is not conducive to the development of the new energy industry. Setting the national standard for 5 minutes escape time is the best result balancing battery technology and cost.
Obviously, BYD, as one of the standard-setting participants, has benefited from this standard and produced series 523 and 622 ternary lithium batteries, yet still chose to conduct this controversial test. The purpose is clear, to attack ternary lithium and promote their own lithium iron phosphate batteries. This marketing tactic is not clever and reflects the endless anxiety BYD has after losing its leading position in the power battery market.
By pursuing their own interests and interfering with the development of China’s new energy industry, BYD has become the main obstacle which impedes China’s new energy development. If it’s just a small dispute between BYD’s sales companies, it can be understood. However, Wang Chuanfu, as a representative figure of China’s new energy industry, personally participated in this conflict, which completely reveals the small-mindedness of big figures. BYD is doomed to only exist in the hearts of some fans, and will never stand proud on the global stage like Geely and Great Wall, becoming a respected Chinese car brand.
The status of ternary lithium industry is not to be obscured, and BYD’s tricks should come to an end.
Where should future power battery technology develop in the new energy industry? This issue has not been settled. In the past few years, due to subsidies, ternary lithium batteries have been dominant. Nowadays, with the subsidy declining, lithium iron phosphate batteries which have lower cost have returned to dominate.
According to the data released by the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, in March, China’s power battery installed capacity was 9.0 GWh, up 224.8% year-on-year and 61.3% month-on-month. Among them, ternary lithium installed capacity was 5.1 GWh, up 129.0% year-on-year and 53.1% month-on-month, while lithium iron phosphate installed capacity was 3.9 GWh, up 627.9% year-on-year and 73.7% month-on-month.
From January to March, China’s cumulative power battery installed capacity was 23.7 GWh, an increase of 308.7% year-on-year. Among them, ternary lithium installed capacity was 13.8 GWh, accounting for 59.5% of the total installed capacity, up 219.6% year-on-year, and lithium iron phosphate installed capacity was 9.4 GWh, accounting for 40.4% of the total installed capacity, up 603.3% year-on-year.Simply put, due to cost advantages and the strong rebound in the micro-car market, installation of lithium iron phosphate is rapidly increasing. Additionally, lithium iron phosphate batteries will not only occupy a place in the new energy vehicle market in the future, they also have a considerable potential in the low-speed, two-wheeled vehicles, and energy storage markets.
Based on this logic, lithium iron phosphate has a bright future. Since lithium iron phosphate is so good, does this mean that there is no market for ternary lithium? Obviously not.
From a market perspective, the current growth of lithium iron phosphate batteries in the new energy passenger car market comes mostly from the rebound of the micro-car market with a market share of about 40%, and is slowly penetrating the mid-size car market such as the Model 3.
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in March, the market share of Class A0 pure electric vehicles reached 39%, a year-on-year increase of 860%. The cumulative market share for this year was 41%, a year-on-year increase of 1002%. Whether it is in March or in total, the Class A0 pure electric market is one of the fastest-growing sub-sectors.
On the other hand, the other fastest-growing sub-sector is the mid-to-large-sized luxury car market.
Data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows that in March, the market share of Class B pure electric vehicles was 34%, second only to the Class A0 sub-sector, while the market share for Class C vehicles was 1.8%. It is worth noting that the year-on-year growth rate for these two sectors were as high as 316% and 3421%, respectively, indicating that the mid-to-large-sized pure electric vehicle market has released a good growth potential signal.
For the mid-to-large-sized pure electric car market, performance is the primary product indicator, followed by cost, and, as luxury brands, their users have more demands for range (such as the popularity of the NIO with 100kW/h range).
From a technical perspective, lithium iron phosphate is not superior in terms of specific energy, and its material development has reached a peak, while ternary lithium still has a lot of room for exploration. Last month, Funeng Technology’s ternary lithium battery energy density reached 330 Wh/kg, which means mid-to-large-sized pure electric vehicle range can easily reach up to one thousand kilometers.
As for the safety of ternary lithium batteries, this is actually a false proposition.To put it simply, most electric car fires are caused by low-end models with substandard batteries, either from unknown brands or poorly designed by manufacturers. For example, NIO, which uses ternary lithium batteries throughout its entire lineup, experienced a fire due to a battery pack design issue in 2019 but has not had another incident in the two years since then.
The topic of battery safety is extensive and will not be discussed further here. Generally speaking, ternary lithium batteries have great potential in both the market and technology for high-end models, now and in the future.
As long as technology continues to advance, and this irreversible process is inevitable, ternary lithium batteries might become the dominant force in the passenger car market. BYD is aware of this trend, so the release of the 811 battery, which seems surprising, is entirely logical.
However, the Internet has a memory. Yesterday’s criticism of ternary lithium batteries could harm BYD’s marketing campaign today, and its selfish behavior could have jeopardized the success of China’s new energy sector.
At the beginning of this year, Wang Chuanfu once again called for needle stabbing tests on ternary lithium batteries to be included in national standards. Has BYD conducted these tests on the 811 battery? For such a pointless move, Wang Chuanfu is always sparing no effort. As a representative of China’s new energy, his narrow vision and selfish behavior are utterly unacceptable.
Perhaps the appearance of the 811 battery contradicts BYD’s previous value of killing ternary lithium batteries completely, so the company has remained exceedingly low-profile.
Interestingly, when an electric power journalist recently asked a BYD insider about the 811 battery, he was surprised to find that he had no idea such a product even existed. BYD’s research and development on the 811 battery has been kept confidential to promote the blade battery made of lithium iron phosphate. Everything is systematically arranged and serves a purpose.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.