From the current point of view, the world's surveyed cobalt resource reserves are very scarce, only 7.1 million tons. In the long run, cobalt still has the risk of resource depletion. According to industry estimates, the production of a Tesla Model S will consume 13.68 kg of cobalt. If 30% of the global cobalt reserves are used in electric vehicles, it can support the production scale of approximately 170 million vehicles. Based on the annual sales of 5 million vehicles, if there is no new source of cobalt, then the cobalt will be exhausted in about 30 years. .
As of June this year, the price of cobalt is about 350,000 yuan/ton. Although there has been a short-term decline, the future rise of cobalt prices may still be fierce. Some insiders even predict that the price of cobalt will soar to 500,000 yuan/ton and the price of cobalt powder will soar to 600,000 yuan/ton in 2021. In history, the highest price of cobalt has reached a shocking 860,000 yuan/ton.
Southwest Steel Index analysts said that from a capital perspective, factors such as tight supply, fragile supply chains, substantial increase in cobalt demand, and significant strategic reserves may all stimulate a new round of rise in cobalt prices. The agency even believes that within 40 years, cobalt prices can be expected to be endless.
Obviously, the ternary battery is too dependent on "cobalt grandma", and it is not a long-term solution for battery manufacturers after all. How to get rid of the abuse of "Cobalt Granny" is a torture to the soul of battery companies.
The only way to break the game is technological progress. After the three yuan, there is a four yuan.
01 The cost is "a lot less" than three yuan
The NCMA quaternary battery is not a subversion, but it is a joint innovation of NCM and NCA, which can be described as a combination of two technical routes. Although the quaternary battery is only one yuan more than the three yuan, the amount of expensive cobalt is further reduced on the basis of the high nickel ternary, and the lower price aluminum is correspondingly increased; at the same time, it is implemented in the cost price. The yuan battery will be "a lot less" than the three yuan.
According to industry research, the high-nickel NCMA quaternary battery can reduce the cobalt content to less than 10%, which will reduce the battery cost to less than 100 US dollars/KWh (about 650 yuan/KWh). The Zhongtai Securities Report estimates that the current cost of ternary batteries in the market is in the range of 800-850 yuan/KWh. Based on the 60KWh charged bicycle, using NCMA battery bicycles can save 6000-9000 yuan.
More importantly, the cost advantage of quaternary batteries is not limited to ternary batteries. The internationally renowned Roland Berger Consulting Company once stated that the high-nickel battery route is likely to become a new trend in the future. Due to the advantages of its own technical characteristics, quaternary batteries are expected to be used in more models in addition to the cost of ownership of ternary batteries. On the replacement of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
Not only that, in addition to the cost advantage, the energy density of the quaternary battery is also very high. The positive electrode material and the high-efficiency silicon oxide material negative electrode can make the energy density of the battery system reach more than 300Wh/kg. The electric vehicle equipped with this battery can last 650 kilometers on a single charge. In addition, if the advanced thermal management technology is added, the charging speed can be greatly increased, and it can travel nearly 300 kilometers in 5 minutes.
"Quaternary batteries add dopants to ultra-high nickel content batteries, and at the same time reduce the content of high-value rare metal cobalt, increase the battery capacity, but also reduce the cost, which can do multiple things in one fell swoop." Industry insiders concluded.
02 And three yuan, iron and lithium three parts of the world?
In the process of commercialization, Tesla may become the world's first car manufacturer equipped with a quaternary battery. Beginning in July this year, Tesla will use LG New Energy's NCMA batteries on its (Shanghai) Model Y models, with nickel content as high as 90% and cobalt content reduced to less than 5%. The shape of the battery is 21700 cylindrical, and LG currently supplies the NCM 811 21700 cylindrical battery to Tesla (produced in Shanghai).
In addition to supplying Tesla, LG New Energy will also provide NCMA cathode materials for GM's Hummer electric vehicles. In addition to LG, Pohang Chemical announced last year that its NCMA cathode material will increase the nickel content to more than 80%, which greatly increases the battery capacity. At the same time, the aluminum is evenly arranged in the physical structure of the material, and the surface coating technology is used to jointly increase the output power. And stability.
In China, Honeycomb Energy has taken the lead in the industry to successfully develop NCMA quaternary cathode materials, and it is expected to be officially mass-produced in 2021. On the "Honeycomb Battery Day" held in December last year, Honeycomb Energy revealed that the company's quaternary NCMA cathode material can achieve the same energy density as the 811 battery while improving safety. As the proportion of nickel used in quaternary materials has fallen, the cost has been further reduced.
In addition, there are reports that Zhongwei's NCMA precursor material has been mass-produced. Huayou New Energy's NCMA quaternary precursor material project with an annual output of 12,500 tons of Huayou Cobalt has started construction at the end of last year, with a construction period of 2 years. According to GEM, the company's NCMA quaternary precursor products are undergoing customer ton-level certification, and mass production has begun according to customer needs.
In December last year, GEM issued an announcement stating that LG Chem officially placed a bulk purchase order for high-nickel battery precursor products for new energy power batteries, and the company began to fully supply LG Chem with high-nickel battery precursor products. Combined with the report that Tesla will assemble LG quaternary batteries, whether this shows that GEM may be the main supplier of Tesla's NCMA battery precursor products. It is worth pondering.
It should be noted that, as the world's leading power battery leader, CATL has not announced the development of NCMA batteries. However, some people in the industry believe that considering that GEM is one of the suppliers of cathode materials for the CATL, CATL may also be quietly conducting the research and development of NCMA batteries, "when the time is right, it will release big moves."
Under the background and trend of cost reduction and cobalt removal, as more and more industry chain companies flood into the quaternary track, the industry expects that NCMA quaternary batteries will rapidly increase in the next few years. So, will the quaternary battery in the future be the same as the ternary and iron-lithium batteries? We will wait and see!