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A few days ago, Jinyang shares investor interactive platform replied that the company began to supply 46 series battery precision structural parts to BYD in small batches in the second half of this year.

This also confirms that BYD 46 series large cylinder battery is really coming.

Photo source: New travel

Battery technology is one of the core technologies of new energy vehicles, which can be divided into square battery, cylindrical battery and soft pack battery from the form, and the three batteries have advantages and disadvantages.

Led by BYD, most new energy vehicles on the market use square batteries, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and other luxury brands use more soft-pack batteries, and Tesla has always been a fan of cylindrical batteries.

Tesla initially used Panasonic 1865 cylinder batteries, followed by 2170 batteries. Until 2020, the 4680 cylinder battery was officially launched. The numbers here refer to the diameter and height of the cell. The smaller the size of the battery, the smaller the energy density, and the more batteries a car needs. This will make the assembly of the battery pack more difficult, and cause the cost to rise.

According to Tesla's calculation, 46mm diameter is the best size for the cylinder battery to improve the vehicle's driving range, and it can also effectively control the cost. Compared with the 2170 battery, the 4680 battery capacity is increased by 5 times, the battery life is increased by 16%, and the charge and discharge power is increased by 6 times. Compared with the energy density of about 150Wh/kg of BYD blade battery, the energy density of 4680 battery reaches 215wh/kg.

4680 also has a significant advantage is that its structure can make it withstand higher voltage, charging to 70% of the power on the 400V platform takes only 15 minutes, if it is 800V will be faster, called natural "supercharged battery".

Tesla has been hyping cylindrical batteries, and at the beginning of this year they announced a major breakthrough in research and development in this field, which can achieve a cost reduction of more than 50%, instantly attracting the attention of the industry. With the investment of Bak Battery 13 billion yuan in Changzhou to build a 30GWh large cylinder battery production line and international research and development center, and NIO Automobile reached cooperation with the Hefei government to prepare for production of self-developed large cylinder batteries, more and more car companies and battery manufacturers to accelerate the layout of large cylinder batteries. In July this year, BYD began to recruit relevant equipment suppliers and officially entered the track.

Previous institutional analysis pointed out that the global cylinder battery market size reached 134.939 billion yuan in 2022, and will reach 558.208 billion yuan by 2028. Another analysis of the Chinese market shows that the size of China's new energy cylinder battery market in 2021 is 746 million yuan, rising to 1.15 billion yuan in 2022, with a growth rate of 54.05%, and is expected to rise to 21.45 billion yuan in 2027, gradually surpassing the square battery, and 2024 will become the first year of the outbreak of large cylinder batteries.

At present, in addition to Tesla, BMW, Volvo, Stellantis, General Motors, Dongfeng Lantu, Jianghuai Automobile, NiO and other domestic and foreign car companies are using or will use large cylinder batteries.

In particular, the BMW Group is also independently developing a new generation of cylindrical cells. According to foreign media reports, BMW plans to use cylindrical batteries in the new generation of electric vehicles launched in 2025, and compared with the 4680, its products have a higher nickel content and lower cobalt content to ensure a more environmentally friendly solution.

In terms of performance, the battery design can increase energy capacity by 20%, thereby increasing the range by 30%, at a cost of 50% lower than its current level.

Data show that as of October 2023, the global large cylinder battery has a layout capacity of more than 450GWh. However, compared with the mass production has been achieved abroad, the domestic is in the stage of small-batch shipment and sample delivery.

At the Munich Auto Show, Yiwei Lithium Energy released for the first time the 46 series large cylinder light battery pack, the company completed in the first half of this year has completed 1 million 46 series large cylinder batteries off the line, to solve the problem of mass production can be productive. As of November this year, its cylindrical lithium iron phosphate battery has achieved a total of about 88GWh of customer intentional demand in the next five years, and the ternary large cylindrical battery is about 486GWh.

However, from the international market, the head company of cylindrical batteries is still based in Japan and South Korea. The combined market share of Japan's Panasonic, South Korea's LGES and Samsung SDI in cylindrical batteries increased from 48.9% in 2021 to 59.7% in 2022. And as more and more Chinese companies end up, the real race may just be beginning.