Korean battery giant Samsung SDI recently participated in the InterBattery Expo in Munich and announced its latest progress in lithium iron phosphate batteries (Lifepo4 Battery), nickel-manganese batteries, 4680 batteries and solid-state batteries.
It is understood that Samsung SDI plans to start trial production of LFP batteries and nickel-manganese batteries later this year, and plans to start producing cylindrical 4680 batteries for Tesla’s Model Y cars as early as next quarter.
In terms of solid-state batteries, Samsung SDI hopes to start building a solid-state battery prototype production line with the help of its multi-layer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) manufacturing experience accumulated over the past years. “The company plans to complete all solid-state battery test production lines and start prototype production by the end of this year, and pass multiple tests to ensure the integrity of solid-state battery development.”
In terms of energy storage, Samsung AI demonstrated an energy storage solution called Samsung Battery Box at the expo. The solution uses a high-nickel battery pack system with a capacity of up to 3.84MWh, which can power 400 households every day.
LFP batteries are popular all over the world
New energy vehicles equipped with LFP batteries have spread all over the world. A typical example is that the export volume of cars equipped with BYD blade batteries is becoming larger and larger.
Another phenomenon is that even Japanese and Korean car companies also support LFP batteries, such as Toyota and Hyundai.
In this context, except for Japan’s Panasonic Battery, which has not yet announced its entry into the LFP battery field, the world’s top 10 power battery companies are all deploying LFP batteries.
Samsung SDI is just one of them. However, Samsung SDI’s speed of trial production of LFP batteries this year is not available to other overseas battery companies.
The dynamics of overseas companies’ deployment of LFP batteries that deserve attention are:
In terms of LG New Energy, in September 2021, according to the Korean media THE ELEC, LG New Energy stated that it had begun to develop LFP battery technology at the Daejeon Laboratory in South Korea at the end of 2000, and it is expected to build a pilot line in 2022 at the earliest. .
The latest news is that in February this year, LG New Energy demonstrated LFP batteries and battery packs for the first time at an event; LFP battery for automobiles.
SK On said in an interview with a Reuters reporter on October 5, 2021: “We are considering developing LFP batteries. Although it has a lower capacity density, it has advantages in terms of cost and thermal stability.”
Also in February this year, SK On demonstrated a newly developed prismatic battery model in Japan, and revealed prototypes of cobalt-free batteries and LFP batteries.
On October 21, 2021, Serbian battery developer ElevenEs said in a statement that it will build the first LFP battery super factory in Europe.
On March 15, 2022, according to foreign media reports, a company named American Battery Factory (“ABF”) announced that they will build an LFP battery factory in the United States…
Can 4680 batteries be produced in the next quarter?
LFP batteries distinguish lithium batteries from the technical route, while 4680 is a cylindrical battery, and the way to distinguish lies in the packaging form.
On the Tesla Battery Day in 2020, Musk launched a brand new cylindrical lithium-ion battery-4680 battery. According to reports, the 4680 battery can greatly improve the battery life of electric vehicles and reduce costs.
However, it has recently been reported that Panasonic, Tesla’s main supplier, will delay the production of 4680 batteries for Tesla in order to improve the performance of the batteries.
The current difficulty in mass production of 4680 batteries is that the technology is not yet mature enough, especially the electrodeless design requires high welding technology. In addition, 4680 batteries also face challenges in heat dissipation, because they are too large, and they are not as good as small-sized cylindrical or sheet cells in terms of radial heat dissipation.
Samsung SDI plans to start producing 4680 batteries for Tesla’s Model Y cars as early as next quarter, but how much it can produce is actually unknown.
In addition, although nickel-manganese batteries have the advantages of low cost and good fast charging performance, they also have obvious disadvantages such as short cycle life, unstable materials, poor high temperature resistance, and fast decay. Therefore, what kind of advantages will Samsung SDI’s nickel-manganese batteries have? Performance remains to be seen.
As for solid-state batteries, almost all large-scale battery companies are currently deploying, and the performance of Samsung SDI can be regarded as a standard.
Summarize
Although Samsung SDI still ranks seventh in the world in terms of installed capacity of power batteries, its influence in the international market cannot be underestimated, and the company is known for its ability to produce high-performance batteries.
It will be difficult to walk from the low end to the high end, but it will be much easier to radiate downward from the high end. The competition of LFP batteries will become more and more fierce.