After the release of CTP Kirin battery, the stock price of CATL reached the daily limit, and many new forces such as Ideal, Nezha and Avita confirmed their cooperation

Image source: Visual China

Reporter | Zhuang Jian

The Kirin battery of CATL (300750.SZ) was finally unveiled last week . One of the core selling points of this new battery product is that it can achieve a long battery life of 1,000 kilometers.

Whether electric vehicles can replace fuel vehicles, the cruising range is one of the hard indicators. At present, the cruising range of ordinary electric vehicles on the market is about 500 kilometers.

Mainstream car companies at home and abroad have listed high battery life as a key performance of new models. In June this year, BYD’s (002594.SZ) new model Tang EV was officially launched. It is equipped with a large-capacity blade battery and has a cruising range of 730 kilometers, which is a new high for its pure electric models. Tesla plans to carry 4680 large cylindrical batteries on the Model Y model, and the industry estimates that its cruising range is expected to exceed 800 kilometers.

The core of increasing the cruising range of new energy vehicles is to increase the energy density of power batteries. Energy density refers to the amount of battery charge per unit weight. The higher the performance index, the longer the cruising range of new energy vehicles equipped with the same weight of batteries.

In order to mass-produce power batteries with higher energy density, players in the new energy vehicle industry have chosen different technical paths in order to solve users’ mileage anxiety.

In addition to the Ningde era, vehicle companies GAC Aian, NIO, and Guoxuan Hi-Tech (002074.SZ), which are also battery manufacturers, have also announced power battery solutions that can achieve a range of 1,000 kilometers. What technology do they use? Where are the advantages?

CATL: Transforming the battery structure

The Kirin battery released by CATL this time is its third-generation CTP (Cell To Pack) technology, which can be understood as an innovation in the field of battery structure.

The traditional battery adopts the assembly mode of cell-module-battery pack, that is, the cell is assembled into a module first, and then the module is installed in the battery pack. The cell is also considered to be the smallest unit that makes up the battery pack.

CTP skips the module assembly step and directly integrates the cells into a battery pack, so it is also called a module-free battery pack.

Since the modules wrapped around the cells are eliminated, the battery pack has more space to arrange the cells, and the energy density of the system can be increased, thereby improving the battery’s cruising range.

Kirin batteries are suitable for different battery chemistries such as ternary and lithium iron phosphate. The cathode materials used by the two are different, which are the two mainstream technical routes of lithium batteries at present. The energy density of ternary materials is higher, but the cost of lithium iron phosphate is lower and the performance is stable.

CATL disclosed that Kirin battery can increase the energy density of lithium iron phosphate battery system to 160 Wh/kg. Under the ternary system, the system energy density of the Kirin battery will reach 255 Wh/kg, enabling the vehicle to last for 1,000 kilometers.

Wu Kai, the chief scientist of CATL, once revealed that the Kirin battery changed the design of the water-cooling plate and placed it in the middle of the battery pack instead of the bottom of the battery pack. This move can save space for water cooling, heat insulation and buffering in the battery pack, and increase the possibility of storing more power for the Kirin battery.

CATL disclosed that, as the third-generation CTP product, the volume utilization rate of Kirin batteries reached 72%, which is 17 percentage points higher than that of the first-generation CTP. At the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show, CATL released the first-generation CTP technology for the first time.

According to the plan of CATL, Kirin batteries will be mass-produced and launched next year. Within a day after the release of this new product, car companies including Lili Auto, Nezha Auto and Lotus Auto announced that they would choose Kirin batteries as the power engine for their models.

GAC Aeon: Update anode materials

Before the release of the Kirin battery, the world’s first mass-produced pure electric vehicle with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers was officially released in January this year. Its manufacturer is GAC Er, a new energy vehicle brand under the GAC Group.

The new energy vehicle, called AION LX Plus, includes four different models, of which the “Thousand-mile version” can achieve a cruising range of 1,008 kilometers.