Speaking of the core competitiveness of Yinlong New Energy, lithium titanate battery is definitely the core of the core. In fact, the negative electrode material of this power battery has never been widely known, and it is now known as 'Silver Titanium'. A loud name, it took only one year. For this company and its technology development prospects, Dong Mingzhu highly praised: 'Lithium titanate battery and Yinlong are gold buried in the sand. If all of China With the new energy battery of Yinlong, the haze weather can be less than half. '
Compared to graphite, alloys and silicon-carbon composites, lithium titanate has many advantages:
First, lithium titanate batteries have a longer life. In the process of charge and discharge, lithium ions have little effect on the mechanism of lithium titanate material during embedding and deintercalation. This phenomenon is called 'zero strain material'. This feature greatly improves electrode performance and reduces The battery's specific capacity is greatly attenuated, thus prolonging the battery life. Research data shows that after the lithium titanate battery is charged and discharged 25,000 times, the remaining battery capacity is still over 80%, much higher than the current ternary battery and iron phosphate. lithium battery.
Secondly, the lithium titanate battery is safer and more stable in low temperature environments. Due to the chemical properties of the material, it is difficult to form lithium crystal on the surface of lithium titanate in the normal voltage range, which avoids the possibility of lithium crystallization causing short circuit inside the battery. This reduces the risk of thermal runaway of the battery and makes the lithium titanate battery better. High temperature resistance, will not easily explode. At the same time, this type of battery also has better performance in low temperature environment. Even in the environment of minus 40 degrees Celsius, lithium titanate battery can release more than 60% capacity.
Finally, the lithium titanate battery has a faster charge and discharge rate. The chemical diffusion coefficient of this material is an order of magnitude higher than that of the carbon negative electrode, so it has faster and more cycle charge and discharge capability. Today's Yinlong new energy bus has a large access. The current can quickly charge more than 90% of the capacity in 5 minutes after charging the pile.
Energy density and operating costs become the biggest shortcomings
Although lithium titanate has obvious advantages over other negative electrode materials, its short board is also very prominent. Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Academician of the Royal Academy of Engineering Chen Qingquan pointed out that lithium titanate has low energy density and high cost is its most deadly disadvantage. .
In terms of material structure, the specific capacity of lithium titanate is only 170mAh/g, which is much lower than 300mAh/g of graphite negative electrode. Therefore, a new energy vehicle equipped with the same quality power battery uses lithium titanate as the negative driving range. Only about half of the other car.
The price factor has also become a roadblock for blocking the large-scale application of lithium titanate batteries. Compared with the price of graphite materials of 2-6 million yuan per ton, the price of lithium titanate is as high as 13-15 million yuan per ton.
Therefore, the current lithium titanate battery can only be used on high-priced buses. In fact, the main models of Yinlong New Energy are commercial buses of more than 6 meters.
However, from the perspective of business operations, the operating costs of Yinlong New Energy products are much higher than those of new energy buses equipped with ternary batteries or lithium iron phosphate batteries. Experts who have worked in energy research at the State Grid. Zhang Ming (a pseudonym) told Yiou Automobile that the main profit point of the current new energy bus is to use the peak-to-valley electricity price to charge the vehicle, which is impossible to achieve with a new energy bus using lithium titanate battery as energy.
'The average electric mileage of ordinary electric buses in first- and second-tier cities will be around 200 kilometers per day. At present, most new energy buses can meet. ' Zhang Ming said, 'But in order to reduce the price at the factory as much as possible, Yinlong New Energy The product will reduce the power battery and reduce the driving range. ' In his view, although the passenger car of Yinlong New Energy can use the driver's rest time to quickly charge, but this also makes the team unable to enjoy the advantage of peak and valley electricity price. The difference in electricity price from nighttime is about 5 cents, which is a big cost for bus companies with economies of scale.'
25,000 cycles of life: Skills in the dragon?
In many publicity activities in the past, the battery cycle life of lithium titanate battery up to 25,000 times is considered to be the most deadly killer of Yinlong. Dong Mingzhu has repeatedly said that the high number of cycles can make the car owners feel at ease. The car is used to scrap.
However, this kind of performance is placed under the use scenario of new energy buses. It is suspected to be an over-design. Assuming that the bus of Yinlong New Energy is charged and discharged up to four times a day, then the number of battery cycles in a year is also Just 1300 times, then the cycle life of 25,000 cycles is enough for 20 years. Currently, the replacement cycle of buses is about 6-8 years, and the lithium titanate battery of a Yinlong New Energy Bus is in its vehicle life. It can't be used in the cycle. It can only be handled separately after the vehicle is scrapped.
High to this level of cycle life, is the car owner really needed?
Even in the field of energy storage, the market prospect of lithium titanate battery is not optimistic. Zhang Ming told Yiou Automobile that the peak-to-valley storage of the power grid does not require fast charging and discharging of the battery, and the conventional lithium battery can satisfy And lithium titanate batteries are more to meet the emergency storage needs of the grid. 'The market share of this part of demand will not exceed 5%, the total is very low.'
In addition, the energy storage battery has a lower number of replay cycles per unit time, and the cycle life of 25,000 cycles is sufficient for the battery to be used for several decades. However, Zhang Ming said that the life of the components such as the connection between the energy storage units is not so long. , the replacement of the entire energy storage unit life cycle. The process is complex, the cost is not low.
It can be seen that the unique advantages of Yinlong's lithium titanate technology are also the biggest obstacle to its commercialization. Dong Mingzhu's optimism about Yinlong and lithium titanate batteries may have reasonable factors behind it. From the perspective of technology and operation mode, the prospect of this road is really not bright.
