On the evening of May 26th, BYD announced that its BYD Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "BYD Semiconductor") has introduced strategic investors, led by Sequoia Capital, CICC Capital and CIC Innovation, and a number of domestic and foreign investment institutions such as Himalaya Capital have participated in the subscription. Its China Investment Innovation and Himalaya Capital are now shareholders of Byd Company Limited. Himalaya Capital owns a stake in BYD for more than a decade and has tied Buffett to a strategic stake in BYD.

This round of investors valued BYD Semiconductor at 7.5 billion yuan before investment, raised a total of 1.9 billion yuan, and acquired a total equity stake of 20.2126%, with a post-investment valuation of nearly 10 billion yuan.

-Editor's Note

China's two leading power battery companies, BYD and Ningde era, which have been fighting for a long time, have recently staged a wonderful drama of "opposing each other".

The focus of the question is whether the "needle battery" can verify the safety of the battery. BYD strongly supports the acupuncture test, while the Ningde era released acupuncture videos and directly opposed the "abuse test".

At present, the commonly used batteries in the new energy vehicle market are ternary lithium battery and lithium iron phosphate battery. In China, these two kinds of batteries are dominated by Ningde era and BYD respectively. Several analysts told e company that the acupuncture test simulates both internal and external short circuits that can lead to thermal runaway. From this point of view, the two acupuncture tests in the Ningde era really did not simulate the internal short circuit of the battery, but only demonstrated how to prevent adverse factors such as external collisions, and there was indeed the suspicion of "changing the concept".

But at the same time, a number of industry insiders also said that it is unfair to directly compare lithium iron phosphate with ternary batteries, because lithium iron phosphate electric materials have good thermal stability, but their energy density is much lower than that of ternary batteries. The emphasis of the two is different.

BYD and Ningde confront each other in the era.

The antagonism between BYD and Ningde era stems from the acupuncture test at the BYD blade battery press conference at the end of March. Acupuncture is a traditional test method to simulate the internal short circuit of the battery by piercing the battery with a metal needle. simulate the performance of the battery when a short circuit occurs inside the battery.

In the live "needle penetration test" video, ternary lithium battery in the moment of sharp temperature change, the surface temperature quickly exceeded 500℃ and began to burn violently, the battery surface eggs were blown off; traditional lithium iron phosphate block battery no open fire, smoke, the surface temperature reached 200℃ ~ 400℃; "blade battery" in the penetration without open fire, smoke, the battery surface temperature is only about 30 ℃-60 ℃.

At that time, BYD officials told e reporters: "this test results not only show that the BYD blade battery in the internal short circuit will not cause spontaneous combustion." It also means that when the car is invaded by a foreign body and damages the battery, the explosion will not occur, which can effectively protect the safety of the people in the car. "

Wang Chuanfu, chairman and president of BYD Group, confidently declared at the press conference that "blade battery" will lead the global power battery technology back to the right path, completely erasing the word "spontaneous combustion" from the dictionary of new energy vehicles. "

The blade battery that Wang Chuanfu has high hopes for, but Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde era, disagrees, saying that "blade battery" is a kind of structural innovation carried out in Ningde era four years ago.

On May 11, Zeng Yuqun responded at the Ningde Times 2019 results online presentation meeting: it is reported that the blade battery is one of our mass-produced CTP structural innovation concepts in 2016, and we have selected and mass-produced the best CTP structural innovation, such as CTP-0, CTP-1 and CTP-2.

As for the acupuncture test, Zeng Yuqun said directly: "the safety of the battery and the abuse test of the battery are two different things, but some people equate the passing of the abuse test with the safety of the battery."

In the history of lithium electronic batteries, Sony Group Corp's battery could pass all abuse tests in 2005, but Sony Group Corp's lithium-ion battery experienced the largest market safety recall in lithium-ion battery history in 2005. Sony Group Corp's battery never recovered and left the field sadly. Zeng Yuqun said, "We are concerned about the real market safety. our design, production, testing and other safety measures should focus on the full scene, full-cycle, omni-directional, and system-wide safety in the market, such as car collision, car charging, car water intake, car condensation, battery pack design, battery design and manufacturing. "

On the night of the end of the Ningde era press conference, Li Yunfei, deputy general manager of BYD Automobile sales Company, fought back directly: "not convinced?!" Let's prick it, too! Acupuncture is the most difficult, comparable to climbing Mount Everest! If you can climb Mount Everest, you must have climbed all the other peaks! "

On May 22, the Ningde era really "came to prick". A video released by the Ningde era shows that during the acupuncture experiment, the steel needle did not pass through the battery package and was broken by the steel plate packaged outside the battery. Ningde Times said that the ternary battery pack of Ningde era could not be pierced by a steel needle at all.

However, after the video was sent, it also caused dissatisfaction among some netizens. The purpose of the acupuncture test is to let the needle through the plate in order to short-circuit the battery in order to observe the thermal runaway of the battery. The object of the test should be the battery cell, not the externally wrapped battery pack. Some people think that the concept of Ningde era has changed secretly.

In response to questions from netizens, Ningde Times released a new video on May 23, in which the 5-series ternary battery and a certain 8-series ternary battery were tested with good results without open fire and high temperature.

At the same time, the Ningde era also posted documents in the video, and the technology of the Ningde era to pass the acupuncture test was certified by the German test in 2017. Ningde Times also specifically mentioned that "if the battery temperature is 35.1 degrees, the eggs will definitely not be cooked." BYD's previous test was based on whether the eggs were cooked as a reference, netizens said that the saying of the Ningde era was "ironic" to BYD.

On May 24, Li Yunfei, deputy general manager of BYD Automobile sales Company, continued to respond that the core purpose of the acupuncture test is to short-circuit the battery in order to observe the thermal runaway of the battery and formulate a better safety protection strategy. But the battery did not short circuit, in fact, the acupuncture experiment has failed. Acupuncture makes the battery not short-circuited in many ways, and many battery companies have mastered this technology. The video of the blade battery acupuncture experiment shows that the blade battery is short-circuited, but it is safe.

Judging from his response, the implication is that the acupuncture test video of the Ningde era did not short-circuit the battery and was a "fake" acupuncture experiment.

After several "spacious games", on May 25, the Ningde era again issued a response to the battery acupuncture test, which has attracted much attention from the outside world, believing that it is no longer important whether the acupuncture passes or not, but whether the system can control the spread of thermal runaway after the single heat is out of control. In addition, the state has removed acupuncture tests from safety standards. Ningde era also said that acupuncture single cell is similar to ignition test gasoline, diesel flammability, completely ignoring the protective role of the fuel tank.

Which is right and which is wrong?

On May 12, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organized and formulated three mandatory national standards, namely, "Safety requirements for Electric vehicles", "Safety requirements for Electric buses" and "Safety requirements for Power batteries for Electric vehicles", which strengthened the thermal safety of the battery system. It is required that after the heat of the battery unit is out of control, the battery system will not catch fire and not explode within 5 minutes, leaving a safe escape time for the passengers.

At present, there are two main causes of thermal runaway, one is mechanical and electrical inducement (caused by acupuncture, collision, etc.), and the other is electrochemical inducement (overcharge, fast charge, spontaneous short circuit, etc.). After the heat of the battery is out of control, it is transferred to the adjacent monomer, and then spread in a large area, which eventually leads to safety accidents.

In fact, when the steel needle is pierced, the steel needle provides a path of short circuit inside the battery, and the electrical energy of the battery is converted into thermal energy and stored in the battery. The short circuit causes the concentrated burst and release of energy in a short time. In other words, the acupuncture test simulates both internal and external short circuits that can lead to thermal runaway.

A number of analysts told e company reporters that from this point of view, the two acupuncture tests in the Ningde era did not simulate the internal short circuit of the battery, but only demonstrated how to prevent adverse factors such as external collisions. There is indeed the suspicion of "changing the concept". But at the same time, a number of industry insiders also said that it is unfair to compare lithium iron phosphate with ternary batteries directly, because the thermal stability of lithium iron phosphate materials is good, but the energy density is lower than ternary batteries. The emphasis of the two is different.

In the past decade, power batteries have experienced two ages dominated by lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium batteries. Because of the low energy density, the lithium iron phosphate battery dominated by BYD is gradually surpassed by the ternary battery dominated by Ningde era, making the ternary lithium battery become the mainstream of the new energy passenger car market. In 2019, the battery installed in Ningde era reached 31.46GWh, while BYD only had 10.75GWh. The effective catalogue of new energy models announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2019 consists of more than 4600 models, of which more than 1900 models are equipped with power batteries in Ningde era, accounting for about 41.5%.

According to the latest data from research institute EVTank, the installed proportion of lithium iron phosphate battery and ternary lithium battery in China was 49.61% and 44.69% respectively in 2017. In the following years, the market share of ternary batteries has been rising, while lithium iron phosphate has declined accordingly. From January to April this year, the proportion of ternary lithium batteries installed in China rose to 72.87%, while the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries further fell to 22.93%, while lithium manganate batteries (LMO) and other batteries combined accounted for less than 5%.

Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, recently introduced that there are three directions for the development of batteries: "first, the innovation of battery materials and electrochemical systems, for example, from organic and combustible electrolytes to inorganic, non-combustible solid electrolytes. Second, intelligent direction, such as intelligent manufacturing, intelligent control, automatic recycling, etc., make full use of information and artificial intelligence technology to develop intelligent batteries. Third, innovate in design and product engineering, and BYD's blade batteries fall into this category. "

The innovation direction of ternary battery is mainly the first, and the "cobalt-free battery", which both Ningde Times and Tesla, Inc. have stated, is the development direction. However, a number of industry insiders have told e company reporters that although the "cobalt-free battery" technology has emerged, mass production this year is not realistic, equipped with lithium iron phosphate battery is the most direct way to reduce the cost of electric vehicles. According to the understanding of a reporter from Securities Times e Company, Ningde era will begin to supply batteries to Tesla, Inc. in the second half of this year, which is not limited to lithium iron phosphate or ternary batteries.