Financial Services Association, March 4 (Reporter Liu Yang) Under the ultimate game, solid-state batteries may become the focus of “volume” in the new energy sector in the new year. On March 3, FAW Jiefang announced that the company and Funeng Technology will give full play to their leading advantages in the industry, and are committed to jointly promoting the development of the semi-solid state and solid state battery commercial vehicle market and industrial chain, generating scale effects, promoting battery technology innovation, and jointly building a strategic alliance.

“This cooperation will further enhance the competitiveness of FAW Jiefang's light and heavy truck products in the electrification market.” Ji Yizhi, member of the FAW Liberation Party Committee and deputy general manager, said that the two sides will carry out in-depth cooperation on commercial vehicle semi-solid and solid state battery projects around specific scenarios such as light, medium and heavy vehicle platforms, urban logistics, and municipal engineering, to jointly promote the application of semi-solid and solid state battery technology for commercial vehicles and create new energy vehicle products with market competitiveness and industry-leading technology.

Power batteries have always been known as the “heart” of new energy vehicles, and solid-state batteries have become “the last straw to overwhelm fuel vehicles” with multiple advantages that far surpass lithium-ion batteries in terms of energy density and safety.

“In 2024, semi-solid state batteries are expected to be used in batches in the NEV market, and industrialization will continue to accelerate.” Wang Weiqi, an analyst at Guoxin Securities, said in an analysis. According to the Guoxin Securities Research Report, the global solid state battery (including semi-solid state batteries) market space is expected to be 1.95 billion yuan in 2024, the market space is expected to reach 116.23 billion yuan in 2030, and the compound annual growth rate from 2024 to 2030 is 98%.

Whoever masters advanced battery technology can get a bigger share of the cake. Domestically, NIO, Changan, BYD, Geely, SAIC, GAC, Great Wall, Rantu, Cyrus, etc. are all speeding up the development of solid-state battery technology routes. Among them, Changan Automobile, Guangzhou Automobile Group, etc. plan to launch semi-solid battery models from 2025 to 2026. Dongfeng Motor has already demonstrated the E70 with solid state batteries and the Rantu “Chase” model with semi-solid state batteries. The speed of introduction of SAIC Motor Group's products equipped with semi-solid state batteries and later pricing strategy will affect its sales performance. Overseas, BMW of Germany previously claimed breakthrough progress in solid-state batteries and is expected to achieve mass production in 2028, while the plans of car companies such as Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen are also generally expected to achieve mass production during the period 2025 to 2030.

“At present, the key point of the company's R&D technology breakthrough is that the energy density of all-solid-state batteries based on advanced silicon anodes has been raised from 300wh/kg to a level of 350wh/kg, which can reach three times the power at the same weight, and this 50wh/kg increase helps reduce the weight of the vehicle and improve the battery life of the vehicle.” Li Jin, head of the GAC Haobo Battery R&D department, gave an introduction. Earlier, SAIC Motor said on an interactive platform that starting this year, semi-solid state batteries will be the first to achieve mass production applications in new products such as the Zhiji L6, and the company is stepping up related work to launch the product on the market as soon as possible.

The layout of solid-state batteries by leading car companies is inseparable from the support of power battery companies. Recently, Huineng Technology announced that the world's first solid-state battery production line has been officially put into operation. The solid-state battery produced is a large lithium ceramic battery (LLCB). In terms of performance, it can charge up to 80% of the battery in 12 minutes, and when fully charged, it can achieve a battery life of more than 1,000 km for electric vehicles. Huineng Technology said that samples of solid-state batteries have been sent to major new energy vehicle companies for testing and development modules.

“Currently, most domestic companies are starting with semi-solid state batteries, and the industrialization process will be faster.” Yu Qingjiao, Secretary General of the Zhongguancun New Battery Technology Innovation Alliance, believes that compared to the slow progress of all-solid-state battery research ideas abroad, a gradual domestic technology route focusing on all-solid-state R&D and semi-solid mass production on the other is more practical. In 2023, China has achieved mass production and loading of semi-solid batteries.

In order to encourage technological innovation, in recent years, China has introduced a series of policies to support relevant enterprises to research on all-solid-state battery technology. On January 19, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin specifically mentioned that in the next step, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology should support enterprises to carry out joint innovation, increase technical research on automotive chips, all-solid-state batteries, and high-level autonomous driving, and further enhance product market competitiveness. Subsequently, China's all-solid-state battery industry-university-research collaborative innovation platform was officially unveiled.

“There is now more and more consensus that all-solid-state batteries are recognized as one of the preferred solutions for next-generation batteries. They have been included in the development strategies of major regions such as China, the United States, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, and have also become a key high point of competition for next-generation battery technology.” At the inaugural conference of the “China All-Solid-State Battery Industry-University-Research Collaborative Innovation Platform” and the China All-Solid-State Battery Innovation and Development Summit Forum, Ouyang Minggao, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Tsinghua University, emphasized, “Currently, China is a leading country in battery development. Even if all-solid-state batteries can be industrialized in 2030, it will take 20 to 30 years to replace 50% of the market share of liquid lithium-ion batteries.”