The power of lithium battery supply pressure has increased significantly
At the beginning of this year, the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles rose from about 6% to 17.8% in August. Affected by this, powerful lithium-ion batteries are in short supply, and significant battery companies have expanded their production to meet order demands. In this regard, Xin Guobin, the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, recently stated that the powerful lithium-ion battery is faced with the lack of unblocked recycling channels and the protection of lithium cobalt, nickel and other resources and the pressure of rising prices. Market demand.
Great potential for resource recycling
Xu Xingwu said: "If the industry achieves sustainable development, it must have sufficient resource protection capabilities. Otherwise, the raw materials will not be available, or the price will be high. Nickel and cobalt can be recycled, but they must be regulated. Otherwise, it won't be easy to sustain. "
"Although the effective use of decommissioned batteries under the premise of ensuring safety is a big issue, at least the decommissioned batteries can be turned into renewable resources. The technology in this area is mature." Wang Xiaoshan believes. According to calculations by many research institutions, the battery recycling market will reach 100 billion yuan in the next five years.
Zhang Yuping, Deputy General Manager of GEM Co., Ltd., said: "Resources are the core. The development of new energy vehicles in my country has driven the development of power lithium-ion batteries, which drives the demand for lithium, nickel, cobalt and other resources. However, my country¡¯s related resources are scarce and cannot be purchased. Minerals, refining and processing meet the development needs of the new energy automobile industry. Therefore, recycling and reuse will be a breakthrough in improving resource security." He predicts that by 2025, 780,000 tons of decommissioned batteries can be recycled and reused to obtain a 30,000 tons base. Resources, among them, manganese can reach a recovery rate of over 42%, and nickel, cobalt, and lithium recovery can get a higher level.
Resources constrain the sustainable development of new energy vehicles
"The biggest problem facing the development of the industry at present is that resource development cannot keep up with the upstream and downstream market demand. Recently, I have received calls from various customers every day. It is difficult for them to understand why we cannot increase the supply." Jiangxi Ganfeng Wang Xiaoshan, vice chairman of Lithium Industry Co., Ltd., said reluctantly, "There are many restrictions on the new supply. The upstream resource has a long period from exploration to development and construction. Once the downstream market rises too fast, the upstream development speed will be difficult to keep up."
Xie Qiu, general manager of the passenger car business of AVIC Lithium Technology Co., Ltd. "aid: "The transaction price of lithium carbonate has risen from less than 40,000/ton last year to over 200,000/ton at present, an increase of 500%. This is a challenge to resource consumption. It is also harmful to the new energy automobile industry, especially for independent brands, because the bargaining power of independent brands is not strong yet, and the ability to digest costs is still weak."
Xu Xingwu, executive vice president of the Engineering Research Institute of Hefei Guoxuan High-tech Power Energy Co., Ltd., also pointed "out: "This year, not only cathode materials, but also lithium iron phosphate, ternary materials, and anode materials are also very nervous. This exposes one thing. The question is, if the output of new energy vehicles reaches 30 million or 50 million, can resources still support the healthy and stable development of the industry?"
It is understood that the global cobalt resource is about 7.2 million tons, which is very limited. Therefore, many ternary battery companies reduce the cobalt content by increasing the proportion of nickel, but the global nickel resource is about 89 million tons, which is also very limited. Lithium resources are relatively abundant, but the demand is small. In contrast, lithium iron phosphate batteries have significant raw material reserves, including 160 billion tons of iron and more than 60 billion phosphorus. According to Xingwu'sngwu's calculations, cobalt will be used up in 18-20 years, nickel may be used up in about 40 years, and lithium can be used for more than 100 years.
Improving production efficiency can reduce resource consumption
Li Shuhui, deputy general manager of the Great Wall Motor Co., Ltd. Technology Center, believes that in the future, ternary batteries, cobalt-free batteries and iron-lithium-ion batteries will coexist and develop. High-end models with ultra-high endurance and high power will still be loaded with high-nickel ternary batteries¡ªmainly batteries.
Wang Zhikun, executive vice president of Honeycomb Energy Technology Co., Ltd., also predicts that the battery market in the next 5-10 years will still be dominated by three technology routes: lithium iron phosphate, ternary lithium, and cobalt-free batteries, sodium batteries, all-solid-state batteries, and ferromanganese phosphate. Technologies such as lithium-ion batteries need to be innovated and verified, and promoted through large-scale applications. "For battery companies, in addition to strengthening innovation and research and development, they must also improve the supply chain. In the next five years, almost all raw materials will have to increase their output by 5-10 times simultaneously to meet the needs of industrial development."
Xingwu'sngwu's view, from the perspective of effective utilization of resources, is necessary to encourage the development of lithium iron phosphate batteries, mainly to accelerate the increase of battery energy density, to support the follow-up development of the new energy automobile industry.
Of course, no matter what kind of battery is developed, the key is to increase production efficiency without additional investment and new cost injection, reducing energy consumption and upstream resource consumption. Wang Zhikun believes: "Currently, the output of one of our production lines is about 2GWh and 3GWh, which is difficult to meet the requirements of production efficiency, resource consumption, and carbon emissions in the TWh era. The output of a single production line in the TWh era should reach 10GWh or more to achieve efficient production."
