The New Battery Technology of Electric Vehicle

Heavy! The new battery is successfully developed, and the price of electric vehicles will be greatly reduced!

As we all know, lithium battery is known as the "heart of new energy electric vehicles", and the development of lithium battery technology directly determines whether the range of new energy vehicles can be improved, and whether the price can be reduced.

In the manufacturing cost of new energy vehicles, the highest proportion is lithium battery, accounting for about 38% of the production cost, which leads to a similar configuration, the price of new energy vehicles is always 30,000 to 50,000 higher than that of fuel vehicles.

Lithium ore has always been an important raw material for the manufacture of lithium batteries. In recent years, driven by the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the global demand for lithium continues to surge, making the price of lithium raw materials skyrocket, which greatly increases the production cost of new energy vehicles.

Although China's lithium reserves are the fourth in the world, second only to Chile, Australia and Argentina, but mainly to the salt lake lithium, low content, difficult to extract, resulting in the current lithium mining and utilization rate are very low, more than 70% of lithium or mainly rely on imports, plus our country demand super exuberant, causing the price of raw materials to soar continuously.

However, when the price of lithium reached hundreds of thousands of yuan per ton in 2023, the global electric car manufacturer Tesla announced three consecutive price cuts, which made people surprised.

A closer examination reveals that it is not Musk who does not want to make money, but the successful development of a new battery technology "CATL announced the introduction of sodium ion batteries and launched on Chery models", which forced Tesla to announce a price cut.

Sodium ion battery is the use of sodium ion instead of lithium ion of a new battery technology, raw materials mainly include sodium, carbon and polymer materials, these materials are widely available, not what scarce resources, only 5000 yuan a ton, compared to lithium raw material prices once as high as 600,000 yuan a ton, the price of sodium battery is extremely beneficial to the people.

In addition, sodium-ion batteries are more sustainable, have greater storage capacity, higher safety, and better economic benefits than lithium batteries, so the era of sodium-ion batteries to replace lithium batteries has officially opened.

In 2021, CATL released the first generation of sodium ion battery. According to the data reported at that time, the energy density of a single unit is as high as 160Wh/kg, although it is lower than the 180Wh/kg of lithium iron phosphate battery and 240Wh/kg of three-way battery, but in the low temperature environment performance and fast charge, it has shown a huge advantage.

At normal temperature, the sodium ion battery only needs to be charged for 15 minutes, the power can reach more than 80%, the fast charging capacity is quite good, and in the low temperature environment of minus 20 degrees Celsius, the discharge retention rate can still reach more than 90%, and the system integration efficiency of more than 80%, can be applied to a variety of traffic electrification scenes, including two-wheeled vehicles.

In November 2022,sodium-ion batteries of CATL can generally meet the needs of models with endurance of less than 400 kilometers, and can reach 500 kilometers with battery system integration technology.

In March 2023, CATL said that sodium ion battery will realize industrialization in 2023, and continue to maintain the product iteration and upgrade, the cooperation with Chery Automobile, began to formally use sodium ion battery, China's new energy vehicles will usher in a new historical change.

Previously, the two main factors restricting the development of our new energy vehicles are chip and battery, chip domestic self-research has been accelerated, can make 28nm chips, solve the chip problem of new energy vehicles.

Now the breakthrough of sodium ion battery technology, in one stroke to reverse the high price of new energy vehicles, completely break the shackles of the development of new energy vehicles in China.

The breakthrough and application of sodium-ion battery technology not only reduces the price of new energy vehicles, but also is an important symbol of the development and upgrading of automobile manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, sodium-ion battery is the main scientific and technological achievement developed by China, which greatly stimulates and encourages the morale of the entire science and technology industry, and is an important milestone in the new era of China's manufacturing industry.