Driven by my country's efforts, the sales of new energy vehicles continue to grow rapidly. In terms of the core technology of new energy vehicles - power batteries, China, Japan and South Korea are currently in a tripartite situation. Faced with this huge and important future of the automotive industry, In the field of power batteries, European companies do not want to fall behind and are trying to gain a leading position in new power battery technologies.

　　In our article today, SamGIU, a master of vehicle engineering and automotive electronics from the University of Stuttgart, talks to you from his professional perspective:

　　Is Europe losing the battle for electric vehicle power batteries?

　　Is Europe losing the battle over power battery technology?

　　Cells and power batteries

　　The battery cell is the smallest component unit of the car's power battery pack. Simply put, a battery pack is composed of many cells, plus a battery management and cooling system. In each cell, chemical energy is converted into electrical energy to output current to drive the motor, and the power then drives the car through the transmission system. The batteries currently used in mass-produced electric vehicles are generally lithium-ion batteries (Lithium-ion battery). Lithium-ion batteries were developed by 70-year-old Akira Yoshino in 1985. The Sony Walkman, familiar to those born in the 1980s, was the first product to use lithium-ion batteries.

　　Although the power of lithium-ion batteries has been greatly improved today, their basic working principle has not changed: when the battery is discharged, positively charged lithium ions flow from the positive electrode to the negative electrode through the electrolyte inside the battery, and the opposite occurs during charging. It is precisely because lithium ions maintain mobility for a long time that they basically do not form a crystal structure inside the battery. This working principle ensures that lithium ion batteries can be charged and discharged multiple times.

　　Unlike Europe, Asian electronics companies regard the development of lithium-ion batteries as an important strategic branch of the industry. Coupled with the strong market demand for portable electronic devices, the battery industry has continued to develop in Asia. Today, Asian battery manufacturers have accumulated a lot of knowhow in lithium-ion battery manufacturing and are quite competitive in terms of cell quality and price. Looking around the world, the battery cell suppliers of all major automobile manufacturers are in Asia. Although Tesla has built a battery Gigafactory in Nevada, it still needs technical support from Panasonic Group.

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　　German OEM: Should batteries be bought or manufactured?

　　Facing the electric vehicle industry that is about to explode in the future, German car companies that once had top engine technology are now extremely dependent on Asian suppliers for battery cells. Europeans are well aware that Asia is already far ahead in manufacturing technology for lithium-ion batteries. If the German electric vehicle industry relies on the import of battery cells from Asia for a long time in the future, I am afraid that it will also lose its initiative in formulating industry technical standards. On the issue of whether to invest in building factories to produce battery cells on their own, several major German automobile manufacturers have a more conservative attitude.

　　In fact, German automakers are worried not only about their inability to surpass Asian suppliers in terms of technology, but also about the ultra-high cost of building factories in Germany to make their own batteries. Manufacturing battery cells is an energy-intensive industry. However, Germany's energy prices are extremely high, and it does not have any advantage in raw materials for batteries. In the short term, it will be difficult for companies to make profits from self-made battery cells. Experts predict that it will take at least six to eight years for an automaker to build a factory and become profitable. For listed companies such as Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen, etc., investors will also be unable to understand why the company invests large sums of money into a business that will only see profitability in about ten years.

　　Solid-state batteries: Overtaking in corners with "battery cells made in Europe"?

　　Based on Daimler's "failed" test of building a factory to make battery cells, the German automotive industry seemed to have reached a consensus that it was not cost-effective to build a factory in Germany to manufacture battery cells based on current lithium-ion battery technology. So is there a battery technology that would make this a better deal? Almost all senior executives in the German automotive industry have mentioned a technology that may be mass-produced - solid-state batteries. They believe that when this technology matures, it is very likely to subvert the existing lithium-ion battery structure, and the power battery industry chain will be reshuffled.

　　As the name suggests, solid-state batteries have an electrolyte that is a thin layer of solid material compared to the liquid electrolyte of lithium-ion batteries. The fatal problem of liquid electrolyte is its flammability, especially when the car is exposed to strong sunlight, or the electric car is ignited by the other fuel vehicle after a car accident. In this case, the battery may overheat and eventually ignite the liquid electrolyte. Electrolytes. Therefore, today's battery packs require a cooling and battery management system. The space occupied by this cooling system basically takes away half of the battery capacity of the battery pack. However, solid-state batteries do not require a cooling system due to their working characteristics, and the solid-state electrolyte is also non-flammable, which greatly improves safety. Because of the use of solid electrolyte materials, there is no need to worry about electrolyte leakage, so the size of solid-state batteries is extremely flexible. Solid-state batteries can be very thin and light without sacrificing power density. In short, compared to lithium-ion batteries, solid-state batteries can store more energy with the same weight and volume, achieving very high energy density. In addition, there are almost no toxic and harmful substances in solid electrolytes, which is more environmentally friendly than lithium-ion batteries.

　　Is Europe losing the battle over power battery technology?

　　Another major advantage of solid-state batteries is their wide and variable charging voltage range. Although today's lithium-ion batteries have achieved relatively high energy and power densities, their ability to further increase voltage to shorten charging time is very limited, which limits the possibility of their continued development. In addition, due to the flammability of the liquid electrolyte in lithium-ion batteries, the charging speed must be continuously controlled during the charging process to prevent the battery from overheating and damaging the cells or even causing spontaneous combustion. Solid-state batteries may bring the possibility of "charging for one minute and driving 800 kilometers". In addition, the ultra-long life of solid-state batteries and their theoretical ability to charge thousands of times make the automotive industry full of hope for them.

　　Solid-state battery research: policy support at the German and EU levels

　　As mentioned earlier, Daimler once built a factory to produce its own lithium-ion batteries, which ultimately failed due to economic reasons. Coincidentally, Bosch, the giant auto parts supplier also located in Stuttgart, has also researched and produced solid-state batteries. Bosch acquired Seeo, a Startup company that researched solid-state batteries, in 2015. Over the next three years, it invested hundreds of millions of euros in the development of solid-state batteries. However, in early 2018, it eventually classified the business as "too risky" and terminated the project. Bosch predicts that in order to achieve the desired market share, at least nearly 20 billion euros of investment will be needed, but it is uncertain whether and when this investment will pay off.

　　According to estimates by PwC's automotive consultants, an investment of 800 million to 1 billion euros is expected to be required to build a battery factory with an annual production capacity of 8 gigawatt hours. Based only on the planned delivery volume of Volkswagen Group's electric vehicles in 2025, the required battery capacity is 150 gigawatt hours per year, which means that nearly 20 battery factories with a scale of 8 gigawatt hours are needed in the EU. This is a huge investment for any vehicle manufacturer or parts factory. Therefore, the situation that European manufacturers need to purchase imported batteries will not change in the short term.

　　Although the industry has high hopes for solid-state batteries, German automobile companies have maintained an extremely conservative attitude in the face of high corporate risks in the battery business. Although Daimler and Bosch have been involved in battery R&D and production, they ended up hastily. Although a battery alliance similar to that of Airbus has been established at the European level, and the German government has also vigorously supported solid-state battery research, it has not yet seen a huge breakthrough in technology. I wonder if the future of European electric vehicles still lies in the East?

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