When it comes to blade batteries, people might first think of BYD, but if you take a closer look at the Short Blade Battery of Honyar Energy, you will find that this product has many unique innovative features and carefully considered application scenarios. Let’s take a look together.
- First of all, short blades are easier to arrange. The battery cells are made to be used, not to be compared in length. No one has stipulated that this long and thin battery cell must be over 1 meter long. According to the data I have seen, the actual length of the L600 is 574mm, slightly smaller than 600. Honyar Energy’s short blade battery cells were publicly displayed at the Shanghai Auto Show as early as 2019. Why this number?
It is slightly smaller than the commonly used 590 module, which can be compatible with the battery pack solutions of existing 590 modules. It can adapt to a wide range of existing electric vehicles without major modifications. Honyar is a supplier under the Great Wall Group, but more importantly, it is a supplier to the entire industry chain. Longer blades may have many benefits, but for Honyar, compatibility is the most important. Just like the Age of Discovery when the sea route to the ocean was found. To be able to effectively reduce costs and obtain better competitiveness, sufficient market capacity is needed. This is particularly important in the era of competition in the electric vehicle industry.
Looking again at the whole package presented by Honyar, two battery cells are arranged horizontally. Of course, this has its limitations. The battery pack cannot fully use the battery cells as structural components in terms of bending and torsional resistance, and additional structural components are needed. But this is completely acceptable, as 99% of battery packs currently do not rely on battery cells as structural components and technology is mature enough. BYD’s main blade has a length of 1120mm and can only be arranged horizontally in one row, resulting in a narrow battery pack with the vehicle’s width not being fully utilized. The width of the battery pack is just right with two battery cells of 1.2m in length for Honyar, which may need to be further increased for longer driving distances.
- Then there is the thermal insulation performance.
The position of the ear of the L600 short blade is on the side, so it can be compatible with two layers of water cooling in the up and down arrangement. Having strong cooling performance, what are the benefits? The battery pack itself can be designed to be relatively “insulated”.Battery packs need to dissipate heat in the summer and retain heat in the winter. Under static conditions, if the battery cells have good heat exchange capability with the external environment, then it is easy to cool down in the summer, but it is difficult to retain heat in the winter. Conversely, if it is well insulated in the winter, it is difficult to ensure heat dissipation in the summer. Engineers often have to balance between the two. As the saying goes, only children make choices, adults have to make both. The structure of the L600 short-blade battery pack supports battery engineers to equip the battery cells with strong cooling capacity, and coupling the use of motor waste heat, to achieve the “low-temperature decay-free technology” promoted by the company. Low-temperature performance in winter is crucial for lithium iron phosphate batteries.
Looking at the achievements of CATL outside the Great Wall system, we can also understand why they attach so much importance to compatibility. In the latest “Recommended Catalogue” released by the MIIT, there are various electric vehicles with CATL batteries, such as the Zero Run T03, the NIO U/V which already has a foothold, the Dongfeng Fengshen E70, and the Ruiyi Xuan EV. Both SAIC and Geely also have plug-in hybrid vehicles equipped with CATL batteries. It should be said that CATL’s development has been recognized by the industry.
As you may have noticed, in various fields, technological development often forms a “best solution”, which opens up a new market characterized by this solution, such as our current smartphones, which have evolved from flip and straight phones in the era of feature phones, to full-screen smartphones in the era of smartphones. In the field of power batteries, there was a time when there were only two choices for electric vehicle batteries: soft pack and square shell. Tesla contributed the cylindrical solution to the industry. Currently, rectangular batteries becoming longer and thinner have become another new trend in the industry, and the blade battery has also become a new product category. Different companies’ different understandings of the blade also bring about different innovative products.
In addition to the L600 short-blade battery cell, CATL has also launched a high-speed stacking process for square batteries, cobalt-free batteries, vehicle-grade AI smart factories, etc. in the past two years. It should be said that CATL is a young but innovative company that dares to innovate boldly, which is very meaningful in promoting the development of the industry and deserves recognition and encouragement.
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.