At the beginning of 2024, the wind of large cylindrical batteries is blowing the industry again. Hengtai large cylindrical battery project was put into production
On January 28, China-South Korea (Huizhou) Industrial ParkHengtai's new generation of all-tab large cylindrical battery project was officially put into production。It is reported that the project is currently the second 46 series large cylindrical all-tab battery mass production line in China, and the main products areAll-tab 46135LFP battery, with an annual production capacity of 1GWh. According to the report of Huizhou, Hengtai Technology (full name: Huizhou Hengtai Technology Co., Ltd. is a national high-tech enterprise integrating R&D, design, production and sales of rechargeable consumer tiny lithium batteries, and became the first and only supplier of the Xiaomi generation bracelet in 2014, and became the core of Xiaomi's strategy in 2015, and has delivered smart wearable batteries for Xiaomi so far500 million. At present, the single delivery capacity of small polymer lithium batteries independently developed by Hengtai Technology has reached 3 million per month. In terms of large cylinders, Hengtai Technology began to carry out the R&D, manufacturing and sales of 46 series large cylindrical lithium batteries in 2020. With an investment of about 300 million yuan, this project is the first mass production project of lithium iron phosphate platform system all-tab large cylindrical lithium battery in China. In terms of applications,Its 46135LFP large cylindrical battery can take into account both power and energy storage fields, covering passenger cars, small power, engineering vehicles, special vehicles (ships), robots, user-side energy storage, portable energy storage and other market segments. In addition, another company, Baoli Xin, publicly stated this month that part of the back-end equipment of the company's aluminum shell all-tab large cylindrical battery production line project has been installed in the factory. The above companies' actions at the beginning of the year have undoubtedly pushed the mass production progress of large cylindrical batteries to the front of the stage again. 2023 is the first year of mass production
From the point of view, the large cylindrical battery was "brought on fire" by Tesla in the second half of 2020, and then favored by major mainstream car companies by virtue of its performance, cost and other advantages. Under the terminal demand, battery companies have "active + passive" layout, which in addition to CATL, EVE and other representative enterprises, in addition to some second- and third-tier enterprises to enter the game, in order to achieve corner overtaking. Especially in the two years from 2021 to 2022, the large cylindrical battery has been called high, and it has been crowned by the industry as "the king of the battery industry", "the best battery path for electric vehicles in ten years", and "the ultimate technical direction of power batteries". At the same time, many companies have landed projects and strive to become the first person to mass-produce crabs. But the industry recognized the first year of mass production of large cylindrical batteries-In 2023, after experiencing the first war and overcapacity, it did not bring the expected mass production results to the public.
According to the review of lithium batteries at the starting point, the large cylindrical projects that will be implemented and promoted in 2023 will increase unabated. Among them, the investment in aerospace lithium battery and BAK battery exceeded 10 billion; EVE's 46 series large cylindrical batteries have been mass-produced and loaded, and the energy-saving report of Exxon's Yunnan project has been approved in January this year, and in the same month, the first phase of its energy storage battery project in Zhuhai (the products are 280ah square shell cells and large cylindrical cells) plant was fully capped.
July 2023,BYD Procurement officially issued a recruitment announcement, and intends to implement open recruitment for large cylindrical battery automatic baking line equipment in 2023. However, in addition to the published large cylinder patent, there is no other project information disclosure. September 2023,NIO and SVOLT jointly invested in a trial production line, set the planned scientific research forces to jointly develop large cylindrical batteries. According to sources, the joint venture will mainly do pilot test and development, and plans to mass-produce new large cylindrical batteries in 2025. November 2023,China Innovation AirlinesAt the Global Partner Conference, the company said that the company's 46 series 6C charging rate large cylinder will achieve mass production in the fourth quarter of next year. January 2024,Sunwodasaid that the company's large cylindrical battery is being developed with customers, and is currently at the pilot level, and the subsequent production capacity layout will be gradually carried out according to the needs of customers. However, on the whole, it seems that only a few EVE lithium energy companies have achieved mass production, and other battery company projects have not been put into production, and some companies are even in the pilot stage.
In terms of the end market, except for Tesla, there is no more news about the loading of large cylindrical batteries in the market. China is still in the stage of small batch shipment and sample delivery. It is certain that large cylindrical batteries have not yet achieved mass production in the true sense of the word. The industry's first year of real mass production is likely to be in 2024, or even 2025. Can the wind still blow in the big cylinder?
It is a fact that the development of large cylindrical batteries is not as expected, but the market and enterprises still maintain a positive attitude towards it.
Starting Point Lithium believes that the reason for the slow progress of large cylindrical batteries in 2023 mainly lies in two aspects.
On the one hand, there is overcapacity in the entire battery link. Large square batteries are still the mainstream products in the current domestic and foreign markets, in the overcapacity, sluggish demand atmosphere, the focus of major enterprises is to improve capacity utilization, accelerate destocking and so on. The push for large cylindrical battery products will inevitably be affected. On the other hand, process difficulties remain, especially in the improvement of efficiency and yield. In addition to the production line needs to be transformed and upgraded accordingly, a large number of technical process parameters need to be adjusted to ensure the consistency of battery product performance. Sunwoda said at the investor relations event in September last year that the current difficulty of large cylindrical batteries lies in the process, which is mainly reflected in the manufacturing efficiency of all tabs and the first-pass rate of products, which is the key to whether large cylindrical batteries can be mass-produced. According to the head lithium battery equipment company Hymson said, in terms of large cylindrical batteries, we are still in the stage of accumulation, there is no real production capacity, there are still unsolved problems, even if we want to mass produce large cylindrical batteries, but the risk is still very large. It is understood that at present, enterprises on the equipment side are breaking through the technical bottleneck, and some companies have launched solutions for problems such as all-tab molding, pole welding, and winding alignment. For example:YH TechnologySince 2021, it has delivered batches to customers to meet the key equipment for the production of 4680 large cylindrical batteries; United Win LaserReleased the self-developed 4680 high-speed turret welding technology for large cylindrical batteries, which can help large cylindrical battery customers completely solve welding and automation problems; Chengtai TechnologyThe first large cylindrical 60 series sodium battery production line will be officially delivered in 2023. Material end,Dangsheng Technology, Beiteri, Shanshan Co., Ltd., Putailaiand other leading material companies have laid out relevant production capacity, and some production capacity has been put into production. Under such a development trend, the starting point lithium battery believes that the pace of industrialization of large cylindrical batteries is expected to accelerate, and the status of "darling" is still the same. Large cylindrical batteries will be the first to be used for energy storage
Due to factors such as battery life, cost, and mass production schedule, the current large cylindrical battery has no advantage over prismatic batteries in the field of new energy vehicles.
Industry analysts believe that large cylindrical batteries based on lithium iron phosphate systems are expected to be the first to be applied in large quantities in the residential energy storage and industrial and commercial energy storage markets. The main reason lies inThe domestic cylindrical battery technology is the most mature, and the industrial materials are perfect, which has always been one of the mainstream routes for household storage lithium batteries. According to statistics, there are currently more than 10 companies that have laid out large cylindrical energy storage batteries, mainly including:Times United, Zhongbi New Energy, Penghui Energy, Far East Battery, EVE Lithium Energy, Topband Lithium Battery, Aerospace Lithium BatteryWait. Among them, Times United focuses on the R&D and production of large cylindrical energy storage batteries, and its large cylindrical battery technology experience has accumulated more than 13 years, and is the earliest company involved in large cylindrical batteries in China, and is also one of the only enterprises in China that mass-produces large cylindrical 60 series and above batteries. Times United large cylindrical energy storage battery overcomes the production problem of double aqueous battery, adopts all-tab technology, and configures low-pressure safety valve system, which has more advantages in high safety, high rate, environmental friendliness, etc., and has been widely used in industrial and commercial user side energy storage, grid side frequency modulation energy storage, household energy storage and other fields. It is understood that Times United has shipped more than 1,000 sets of energy storage systems for industrial and commercial users. Penghui EnergyThe electrodeless large cylindrical battery has been launched with lithium iron phosphate material, and its self-developed 40135 large cylindrical product has been applied to household energy storage, portable energy storage and other scenarios. Automotive-grade large-capacity cylindrical battery enterpriseChina-Belgium New EnergyThe 32 series large cylindrical all-tab battery has been recognized by the overseas residential energy storage market and portable energy storage head enterprises. Starting Point Lithium believes that with the continuous growth of the domestic and foreign energy storage markets in 2024, the penetration of large cylindrical batteries in this field will continue to increase. It is worth mentioning that in 2023, sodium-ion batteries will be used in the field of two-wheeled, low-speed vehicles and energy storage. At present, many sodium battery companies have launched large cylindrical sodium batteries, which will help large cylindrical batteries to "conquer the city" in the field of energy storage.