In the era of new energy vehicles, all kinds of new technologies, new applications and new terms emerge in an endless stream, and the game between major new energy brands has also begun to shift from simply comparing products and fighting intelligence to various subdivisions of electrification technology. So in this new round of competition and technological innovation, if you want to achieve both offense and defense, self-developed batteries are undoubtedly an unavoidable development path.
In fact, there are not many car companies in the industry with the strength of self-developed batteries, but the advantages brought by self-developed batteries have emerged. Taking BYD's blade battery as an example, while promoting the rapid development of the lithium iron phosphate battery market in one fell swoop, it also helped its revenue continue to reach a new high. Recently, as a technology-driven scientific and technological innovation company, ZEEKR also demonstrated its latest achievements in the field of core electric power, and released a new battery brand - Golden Brick Battery.
Yipin Auto learned that the gold brick battery can achieve an ultra-fast charging speed of "charging for 15 minutes and a range of more than 500 kilometers", which is not only the world's fastest mass production of lithium iron phosphate batteries, but also the first mass production of 800V ultra-fast charging lithium iron phosphate batteries in the market.
At the press conference, An Conghui, President of Geely Holding Group and CEO of ZEEKR Intelligent Technology, further revealed that the BRICS battery has been officially rolled off the production line on the same day, and will be first equipped on the ZEEKR 007 model that will be launched on December 27, which also means that consumers will be able to drive electric vehicles equipped with BRICS batteries as soon as early January next year.
From ultra-fast charging to long battery life, high safety is the real challenge
It is undeniable that the current demand for new energy models in China's auto market is still at a very strong level, according to the data of the China Automobile Association, the domestic sales of new energy vehicles in November were 9290,000 units, up 117%, a year-on-year increase of 339%。However, even if it is not difficult to see from the sales data that consumers' awareness of new energy vehicles has risen to a new height, how to solve range anxiety is still an important problem that has always plagued the sustainable development of new energy vehicles.
In fact, the theoretical way to break through is also very simple, either to increase the density of the battery to achieve long battery life, or to speed up the speed of energy replenishment, like a fuel vehicle, that is, charge and go. Through the release of the gold brick battery, it can be seen that ZEEKR has chosen both in terms of route, and has carried out technical research around battery material modification and system optimization, continuously improving the energy density of the battery, while breaking through the performance boundary of traditional lithium iron phosphate batteries, pioneering the combination of ultra-fast charging, long battery life and high safety, and continuing to lead the industry technological innovation trend.
First of all, focusing on the improvement of energy density, the BRICS battery is equipped with the global 800V architecture developed by ZEEKR, matched with 800V extreme charging technology, and achieved 83The world's highest volume utilization rate of 7% surpasses all lithium iron phosphate batteries and surpasses the current leading ternary lithium batteries.
At the same time, in order to place more cells in the battery pack, the BRICS battery also adopts a "compact sandwich structure" of cells, upper cover and bottom plate to further release the longitudinal space of the cell compartment, and compared with the traditional design, the total length of the sampling line is shortened by 157 m, the number of core components is reduced by 35%, and the energy density of the battery mass is also increased by more than 10%.
Secondly, in terms of energy replenishment efficiency, which consumers are concerned about, BRICS batteries have also achieved an industry-leading 45C maximum charging rate, maximum charging power up to 500KW. At room temperature, the gold brick battery can increase the battery life by more than 500km in 15 minutes within the fast charging range of 10%-80%.
In addition, ZEEKR adopts an innovative cell structure on the system platform, which provides more uniform heat distribution and more efficient temperature control under supercharging conditions, and can quickly heat to the optimal working temperature range even in a low temperature environment, and can still achieve excellent charging speed in a low temperature environment of minus 10, and its charging speed is at least a quarter higher than that of similar products.
Not only that, the BRICS battery adopts an innovative cage structure and is equipped with an exclusive golden high-voltage resistant insulating film, which can withstand 4000V DC high voltage, and the high-voltage resistance capacity is increased by 27%, which is equivalent to a "double insurance" for battery safety. In addition, ZEEKR also controls the global temperature field through intelligent algorithms, creates a real-time fault detection system, and passes 6 serial tests under extreme working conditions, such as overpressure acupuncture test and external fire test, so that the BRICS battery has the ultimate safety level.
From wide layout to hard technology, how to build a supercharging and supplementing system is the key
In the view of "Yipin Auto", with the continuous progress of power battery technology, the comprehensive performance of the battery has been significantly improved, and the future will be oriented to the main battlefield of economy, when new energy vehicle users begin to shift from pioneer users to mass users, how to let more people enjoy the dividends brought by forward-looking technology, will become the next step for car companies to think about the problem.
In fact, it is not difficult to see from the plan announced by ZEEKR that the BRIC battery will be the first to be mounted on the ZEEKR 007 model, and according to the pre-sale ** announced by ZEEKR 007 before, it is obvious that compared with other brands that support 800V ultra-fast charging models, the BRIC battery released this time is more down-to-earth, and the purpose is also simple and clear: ZEEKR is to "fight" with BYD, the sales king in the field of lithium iron phosphate batteries, in the domestic market.
In order to achieve this goal better and faster, ZEEKR will also create the most complete extreme charging and replenishment system from three aspects: layout, technology and experience, so that users can completely bid farewell to mileage anxiety. "Yipin Auto" learned that as of November 30, ZEEKR has built a total of 401 pole charging stations, covering 100 cities across the country, providing 2,261 pole charging piles, and the charging power of each pole charging pile is more than 360 kW. In 2024, the total number of ZEEKR charging stations is expected to reach 1,000 stationsBy 2026, the total number of pole charging piles is expected to reach 10,000, and the charging network layout of "thousands of stations and thousands of piles" will eventually be realized.
In terms of core technology breakthroughs, the world's first mass-produced 600 kW fully liquid-cooled charging pile pole charge V2 developed by ZEEKR was laid out as early as a year ago, and in September this year, the world's highest single-gun output power charging pile pole charge V3 was also officially released. It is worth mentioning that the intelligent power sharing technology that is standard at the pole charging station can intelligently distribute power in real time according to the power reception of each charging vehicle, maximize the use of the power pool, and enable each pile of the pole charging station to achieve 800V ultra-fast charging. As the saying goes, "a good horse with a good saddle", ZEEKR is constantly refreshing the industry's highest standard for ultra-fast charging.
Finally, focusing on the real usage scenarios of users, ZEEKR starts from the basics, through the big data intelligent location model, and with an accurate and intelligent location strategy, to create a "1515 convenient electricity" for users: that is, 15 minutes to find a station, 15 minutes to charge, so that charging is as convenient as going to a convenience store. In the next three years, 1515 convenience electricity will cover more than 90% of ZEEKR car owners, and will be infinitely close to 100%. In addition, at this press conference, ZEEKR also officially launched a 20 kW DC home charging pile, a 100-degree battery, which can be fully charged in as little as 5 hours, and even a 140-degree battery can be fully charged overnight.
In fact, the good user experience is also intuitively reflected in the market performance of ZEEKR. The data shows that in November, ZEEKR delivered a total of 13,104 vehicles, achieving a year-on-year increase for ten consecutive months, so far, it took only 25 months for ZEEKR to achieve a cumulative delivery of 180,000, easily defeating "Wei Xiaoli" to set its own "ZEEKR speed".
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It can be said that after rapid layout and development, ZEEKR has the technical reserves and prerequisites required for self-developed batteries, paving the way for the subsequent large-scale popularization of BRICS batteries. As for whether ZEEKR can threaten BYD and even CATL's leading position in the power battery market by virtue of the performance advantages of gold brick batteries in the future, we will wait and see.