China, Japan and the United States solid-state battery "battle for the top spot"

February 11, 2023

On January 30, CIC announced that it had completed its investment in Ganfeng Lithium, a subsidiary of Ganfeng Lithium Industry, to support it to increase its investment in solid-state battery research and development.
It is reported that Ganfeng lithium solid-state battery production base has started the capacity construction of 4GWh, and plans to build the largest solid-state battery production base in Chongqing.
Compared with traditional Lithium Battery, solid-state battery uses solid electrolyte instead of electrolyte and diaphragm of traditional lithium battery, which has obvious advantages in energy density, safety, wide working temperature range and so on.
As the key technology to compete for the future discourse power of electric vehicles, major automobile companies and related industrial chains around the world have invested heavily in the research and development of solid-state batteries in the past few years, and have made phased progress.
Among the top 10 power battery companies in China, Guoxuan Hi-Tech 360 Wh/kg ternary semi-solid battery is approaching mass production, and 400 Wh/kg semi-solid battery has prototype samples in the laboratory. Sinovel has completed the development of 400Wh/kg solid-liquid hybrid battery technology, and its life and safety have passed the national standard test. Funeng launched a brand new semi-solid flexible battery last year, which has a 12% higher volume utilization than the 4680. Honeycomb Energy all solid State Battery Lab has developed the first batch of 20Ah sulfur series all solid state prototype cells with an energy density of 350-400Wh/kg, which has successfully passed the experiments of acupuncture and 200 °C hot box.
Among the car companies, Dongfeng Motor fired the "first shot" of solid-state battery loading.
As one of the first car companies to enter the field of solid-state battery independent development, Dongfeng has set up a solid-state battery project team since 2018. In January 2022, 50 Dongfeng E70s equipped with first-generation high specific energy solid-state batteries opened a demonstration operation.
In December 2022, Zuguang, a C-class passenger car under Dongfeng Group's Lantu New Energy brand, opened its pre-sale, equipped with Lantu's self-developed "mica" battery system, of which the 82-kilowatt-hour power battery is also the industry's first mass-produced semi-solid battery.
In addition, Ulai plans to install semi-solid batteries developed by Weilan New Energy in batches on ET7 models by the end of 2022, but the progress is not as expected. Mass production of the battery with an energy density of 360 Wh/kg has been postponed to the first half of this year.
Qingtao Energy, a pioneer of solid-state batteries like Weilan New Energy, built the 10GWh solid-state battery production line in 2022. The liquid content of the first-generation semi-solid-state battery is 5% Lue 15%, and the maximum energy density is 420 Whqqkg. The liquid content of the second-generation product is reduced to less than 5%. It is in the pilot stage and is expected to be mass produced in 2024.
Internationally, the governments of Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea also attach great importance to the research and industrial layout of solid-state batteries. Japan, in particular, fully learns from our country's attitude of "concentrating our efforts on doing great things", betting huge investments and state subsidies on the solid-state battery route, and organizing industry-university-research alliances.
The Ministry of economy, Trade and Industry of Japan and the Japan New Energy Industry Technology Development Institute have organized 23 head automobile, battery and materials enterprises, as well as 15 academic institutions to participate in solid-state battery technology research and development.
Among them, Toyota said it will launch all-solid-state battery hybrid vehicles in 2025 and all-solid-state all-electric vehicles by 2030. Honda announced last spring that it would invest 43 billion yen in an all-solid-state battery demonstration line, which is scheduled to start production in 2024. Nissan unveiled laminated soft-packaged all-solid-state battery (ASSB) cells, which it plans to mass-produce by 2028, reducing battery costs to $75 per kilowatt-hour.
Although South Korea also put forward to attach importance to the development of solid-state batteries in the "K Battery Development Strategy" released in 2021, its actual battery development speed is lower than that of Japan. However, South Korean enterprises have continued their advantages in the research and development of positive and negative materials, and are "one step ahead" in the construction of solid-state battery materials supply chain.
In May 2022, South Korea's Posco Group and Huineng Technology reached a cooperation, the two sides will jointly develop a new generation of battery cathode materials. Prior to this, Posco also established Posco JK Solid Solution to prepare for the study of high-capacity anode materials and silicon anode materials for solid-state batteries.
Different from East Asian enterprises which are mainly based on sulphide routes, the technological path of the United States is mainly polymer electrolytes and oxide electrolytes, and most of the negative electrodes are lithium metals.
And solid-state battery research and development in the United States is led by start-up technology companies, such as Quantum Scape, Solid Power, Polyplus, 24m, Cymbet, SES and so on. These start-ups get sustained financial support through research and development in partnership with large car companies.
Last month, BMW announced that it would launch the next phase of joint research and development of all-solid-state batteries with Solid Power. Solid Power will license battery design and manufacturing processes to BMW to help BMW test the construction of its plant near Munich. According to the plan, the first BMW prototype with all-solid-state battery is scheduled to be launched by 2025 and mass production of all-solid-state battery by 2030.
QuantumScape, another startup, received a cumulative $300m investment from Volkswagen and delivered the first A-sample solid-state batteries to Volkswagen for testing in 2022.
To sum up, the following two observations can be extracted:
1. China has taken the lead in the industrial application of solid-liquid mixed semi-solid battery, but it does not have an obvious advantage in the research and development of all-solid-state battery in a strict sense, and the patent application is close to that of Japan and the United States.
two.. The all-solid-state battery is still in the laboratory stage, and the mainstream technology route has not been determined. Entrepreneurial "new forces" emerging from scientific research institutes have sprung up in both China and the United States, and have frequently received investment from car companies, including traditional car companies with ambitious and deep financial resources.
To sum up, if solid-state batteries are indeed the "ultimate technology" of power batteries, then both the international competition pattern and the market ranking in the industry will face great uncertainty.
Whether it is Japan and the United States, which missed the opportunity in the previous stage, or the new power of batteries, which is still young, or traditional car companies that are temporarily at a disadvantage, it is possible to use solid-state batteries to overtake the existing winners.
Of course, the mass production of solid-state batteries is still a long way off.Whether it is Japan and the United States, which missed the opportunity in the previous stage, or the new power of batteries, which is still young, or traditional car companies that are temporarily at a disadvantage, it is possible to use solid-state batteries to overtake the existing winners.

Of course, the mass production of solid-state batteries is still a long way off. But when the hurricane comes, from positive and negative materials, electrolytes, pre-lithiated materials, fluid collector to the core process of the front, middle and back, the whole industry chain of intelligent manufacturing management will face a revolution.

Keep a crisis mentality at all times in order to reduce the possibility of being eliminated.

Author:

Mr. Alvin

E-mail:

alvin@lr-power.com

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8618620311301