China's electric vehicle problems

Zhang Gang (a pseudonym) is responsible for the study of Luyuan Electric Vehicles. Recently, in a frequent contact with domestic battery companies, a listed company has aroused his interest. This company is a battery material, originally in the field of lithium batteries for electric vehicles have invested a lot, but later found that more and more can not see the future of electric vehicle batteries, at least 5 years can not be realized in the industrialization, therefore, I also want to propose a restructuring to make lithium battery manufacturers for electric bicycles. However, how can the transition be made with small batteries or large batteries? Is it a lithium phosphate battery or a lithium titanate battery? How do we choose the technical route and how do we change the production line? Let them fall into the tangle.

Entangled in such a situation, not only such a company, in constant contact, Zhang Gang found that on the one hand consumerism does not move, on the other hand, the technical line is uncertain, leading to the current domestic electric car lithium battery production lines are basically in the state of production cuts or shutdown.

Many factory production lines were closed, and workers were advised to take a break. “A large state-owned enterprise has given 5 billion yuan to build a lithium battery factory for electric vehicles. They spent 3 billion to build a demonstration production line, because there are no orders, and they are currently in semi-discontinued state.”

"All manufacturers can't reach a consensus for their own benefit. Just like mobile phone panels, there are almost no two manufacturers using the same battery. Mobile phones and small panels can each be their own team. Car batteries have large capacity and high cost. The cost of a manufacturer is absolutely Unable to bear, and uniform standards have not been formulated, leading to the death of the industry.” An insider pointed out the crux of the problem.

A few years ago, a well-known domestic automobile company "is still a model in the battery industry. Everyone is eager to learn. Now it seems to be behind us." Zhang Gang heard some contacted battery experts said.

In fact, this company once came to Lvyuan to sell lithium-ion batteries that were considered to be new technologies at that time. “Their people came to me and described us to a beautiful vision. After five years, the price of lithium iron phosphate was the same as that of lead-acid batteries. Now that three years have passed, we have only purchased 200 sets of batteries and we can't operate them."

Not only Luyuan, Zhang Gang learned that the company had also promoted the giants of the entire electric bicycle industry, but none of them had been successful. There are many reasons for this. Lithium phosphate batteries are not only less efficient for the first charge and discharge, but they cannot be used for fast charging and fast discharge. They can only be used in slow charging. At the same time, it is easy to cause a large current in a short time, so that the internal temperature of the battery rises, and trigger a series of violent reactions.

At present, most domestic electric vehicles use lithium-phosphoric acid battery technology, which is the main reason that led to the frequent accidents of burning electric vehicles in the past two years in China. Even Chen Qingquan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chairman of the World Electric Vehicle Association, had to admit that "the lithium iron phosphate battery has encountered a bottleneck."

Takeshi Uchiyamada, vice chairman of Toyota, once summed up the three sins of electric vehicles: short range, long charging time, and high cost. Panasonic and Samsung’s batteries are relatively mature, but “If you want to equip an electric vehicle that will last 100 kilometers, both of them will take more than a few hours to charge, and the battery cost is nearly 100,000. The three-year lifespan is already very good. Now.

Lithium batteries are an industry that requires a large amount of capital investment. According to the analysis results of the Institute of Lithium Industry (GBII), an annual production capacity of 20 million Ah production lines requires at least 50 million yuan of investment. This is a game that only rich people can afford, and the key is to see how the prior input costs go in the process of industrialization. The current battery technology has seen the ceiling, and breaking the ceiling can not be completed by a company.

The Vice Minister of Brands and Public Relations of Beiqi Group also stated that it is less reliable for a purely electric enterprise to do its own electric power industry, and it still needs the support of supporting and social resources. The innovation of electric vehicles is not only the innovation of the automotive technology itself, but also the innovation of the operating model. Its technical route is very different from that of traditional automobiles. Therefore, the operating model will also be different from that of traditional fuel vehicles.

A senior person with more than ten years of experience in the new energy battery industry told the reporter that to improve the safety, reliability, and lightness of the power battery system, the focus is on the coordinated operations of battery companies and automakers. “The vehicle manufacturer should make clear its own product requirements, protection needs and time nodes, and both sides should fully negotiate, which can greatly increase the market vitality of the vehicle.”

He praised Zhao Fuquan, Dean of the Geely Automobile Research Institute, for his point: "There are no safe parts, only safe cars." Now the power battery industry is heading in the wrong direction, attempting to create a fully safe, impeccable power battery, and then loading it into a safe electric vehicle. In fact, "only honestly and gradually accumulate through positive development can become a positive result!"

“Because of the interest issue, there have been a number of power lithium battery companies that flickered people in previous years, but there are also some companies that really want to do a good job of power batteries for vehicles. They are over-optimistically anticipating the prospects and trends of electric vehicles.”

There is no curve overtaking of electric vehicles. In fact, the fight is still basic industries. In this regard, the chairman of the World Electric Vehicle Association Chen Qingquan has more say. “Actually, technology is not the most important issue that hinders the development of electric vehicles, but the two major Both the industrial automobile industry and the electric power industry have encountered new problems in the old revolution." From the perspective of the automotive industry, electric cars and traditional cars are different in some places. The industrial chain is different and workers are different. For electric power systems, “electric cars are like a knife. If they are used well, they are good for you. If they are not used well, it is a disaster. For example, in an ordinary community, there are several electric vehicles that are charged slowly. It does not matter. However, if there are two or three electric vehicles that are quickly charged, this community will collapse."

Power battery is not only the depot's business. "In this industry chain, the depot is just a processor, just like Foxconn's in Apple's industrial chain. The automotive industry is not without technology, there is no idea. Over the past 100 years, the past brilliant creation Today's frog."

From this point of view, the appearance of Tesla is an exception for the entire automotive industry.