Recently, a series of electric vehicle accidents have reminded the industry that the safety of power batteries is always the first premise on the road to the rapid development of battery energy density. As the market share of high-nickel ternary batteries is increasing day by day, how to better balance "safety" and "cruising range" and find a balance between the two has become a pain point that the power battery industry needs to solve urgently.
In addition to safety, battery costs and integration with the grid are also challenges for electric vehicles. However, challenges often also mean opportunities. Envision Group, which has just completed the acquisition of Nissan's battery business AESC, hopes to use intelligent means to solve these challenges and help the industry find the "corner" of opportunities.
"Battery safety is the biggest 'grey rhino' in the electric vehicle industry. Envision will continue the ultimate safety of AESC batteries' zero major accidents', and it is expected to reduce battery costs to $50/kWh by 2025. Intelligent IoT operations based on Envision Electric vehicles will become green mobile intelligent terminals, organically integrated with clean energy systems, and provide dynamic balance for fragmented renewable energy networks
Pursuit of ultimate safety
At the 18th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition held not long ago, Envision AESC officially released a new generation of Gen5-811 AIoT power battery products. The product will be officially mass-produced in Envision AESC Wuxi factory in 2020. In the future, the total annual production capacity of Wuxi factory will reach 20GWh, and it is expected to provide power batteries for more than 400,000 new energy vehicles around the world every year. What attracts the attention of the industry is that the newly released Gen5-811 AIoT power battery product will have a high specific energy of more than 300Wh/kg. The higher the energy density of the battery, it also means that a higher level of safety management is required.
Shoichi Matsumoto, CEO of Envision AESC, revealed that as of now, 430,000 electric vehicles have been installed with batteries produced by Envision AESC in Japan, the United States and Europe, and the occurrence rate of major failures such as battery fires is zero. It was this safety record that impressed Zhang Lei and his vision team in the first place.Also read:72v 100ah lithium battery
"The achievement of this result stems from AESC's ultimate pursuit of battery R&D and design. Through years of cooperation with Nissan, we have fully grasped the data of the battery's full life cycle, and fully tested and verified the performance, safety and durability of the product. We are committed to The target data is monitored in real time, and more than 770 quality control items in the production process are strictly controlled, so that the data of the entire production chain can be traced and tracked." Masaichi Matsumoto said.
In Zhang Lei's view, such a safety record is on the surface of good materials and good quality control, but behind it is countless experiments and verifications, and its core is the production process and technology. And this is the core competitiveness of the power battery industry.
Zhao Weijun, executive director of Envision AESC and head of China business, revealed that the global shipment of Envision AESC was about 4.1GWh last year, and the main markets were Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom. Shipments are expected to reach 6-6.1GWh this year.
Redefine power battery
At present, in the global power lithium battery market, Ningde Times, Panasonic, and BYD firmly occupy the top three positions, with a combined market share of more than 50%. In Zhang Lei's view, this market structure is far from finalized, and the industry is still in the early stage of the marathon.
Zhang Lei believes that if the three pain points of safety, battery cost and grid integration are to be truly solved, the entire power lithium battery industry needs to be redefined. And this is the opportunity for Envision AESC to change lanes and overtake. Just like 12 years ago, Envision broke into the wind power field as a dark horse and led the wave of smart wind power. Today, Envision AESC also wants to lead the transformation of the power battery industry.Recommended reading:10kwh lithium battery 48v
So, how will Envision AESC redefine the power battery industry?
Zhao Weijun told reporters that the redefinition is first reflected in security. Based on AESC's years of battery accumulation and vision digitalization and AIoT technology, using sensors to accurately grasp the temperature changes and internal resistance changes inside the battery, collect and process them in real time, and carry out strategic control, so as to achieve the ultimate safety of the battery.
"As an electric vehicle, it may only be running 10% of the time and parked 90% of the time. The battery not only provides power for the car, but is also an energy storage device. In this sense, the whole life cycle of the battery is actually Only 10% of the value has been played. Another meaning of redefining the power battery industry is to truly release the full life cycle value of a battery." Zhao Weijun said.
The release of battery life cycle value also involves the cascade utilization of decommissioned power batteries. In Zhao Weijun's view, decommissioned batteries are directly screened by data without unpacking, and three battery packs can be superimposed to become a building energy storage device. This is the most suitable application scenario for cascade utilization of decommissioned power batteries.
In addition to redefining the battery itself, the relationship between batteries and electric vehicles, between electric vehicles and power grids, and between electric vehicles and people also needs to be redefined. To redefine these relationships, it is necessary to use the capabilities of digitalization, AI, and the Internet of Things.
"In the future, power batteries will be coordinated with the power grid, and tens of thousands of electric vehicles and power batteries will need to rely on the Internet of Things to achieve coordination with the power grid." Zhao Weijun told reporters.
Leveraging digitalization and IoT empowerment
If the previous AESC integrated Nissan's understanding of automobiles and chemical batteries, then today's AESC will incorporate Envision's understanding of energy systems and digital technologies.
In Envision's concept, electric vehicles and power batteries are no longer isolated, but mobile power stations on EnOSTM, the smart Internet of Things operating system, whose value is no less than that of any other power station on the operating system. Fans and any photovoltaic panels. Starting from this concept, Envision AESC will not only be a power battery manufacturer, but also an energy system manager with power batteries as the carrier.
In fact, the low failure rate and high power generation of Envision wind turbines largely rely on digital technology and intelligent technology, as well as data, AIoT platform and analysis capabilities. "Envision Intelligent Business is just such an enabling tool. It originated from the wind power field, but it is not limited to the wind power field. Now it can be used to empower the power battery industry and bring about disruptive changes to the industry." Zhao Weijun said.
Zhang Lei believes that through the empowerment of digital technology and the Internet of Things, the power battery industry can fully realize the management optimization of the whole life cycle, from all stages of research and development, production, installation, secondary utilization, recycling, etc., to manage battery status and fault warning in an all-round way , improve the safety, performance and service life of the battery, reduce the cost of the battery, and thus unlock the full life cycle value of the power battery.