My Age of Investment

  Chapter 1048 Lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium battery

  The middle-aged white man with curly hair shrugged, “Users who can afford a Roadster don’t care about this little money. If it’s a big deal, buy another ModelS.”

  Franz said with a smile: "This is, for them, changing a car is as easy as changing a new mobile phone."

  “Users will inevitably still feel dissatisfied. Who wants a car that has just started to be crushed by performance and price.”

Straubel smiled, "But Peter, what you said is right. Tesla really can't let users down. Each of our cars needs to be innovated to bring more surprises to users. This is also to build a brand. A way!"

  Straubel changed quickly. Just now he felt a little uncomfortable because of Peter's words and felt that the other party was a little disappointed, but he quickly adjusted his mentality.

  As a CEO, he needs to learn to look at problems from a higher perspective.

  If there are problems, there is no need to avoid them, just solve them one by one.

  Tesla has been established for almost six years, and it is this way that it has made it step by step.

  As a pioneer of electric vehicles, if you lose your initiative because of fear of trouble, then what are you talking about subverting the auto industry?

  The subtle change in mentality made Straubel feel that he has grown up again.

  Xia Jingxing smiled and watched the three people arguing, focusing mainly on Peter Rawlinson, a middle-aged white man with curly hair.

  This is Tesla who only joined last year and has been working at Jaguar and Lotus before.

  Because of the cooperation between Tesla and Lotus, he realized what a grand plan Tesla is carrying out.

  After the Roadster started to deliver last year, Peter Rollinson resolutely resigned from Lotus and joined Tesla as the vice president of vehicle engineering and the chief engineer of ModelS.

In the previous life, this technical man who has been immersed in the traditional automobile industry for nearly two decades worked closely with Franz, one responsible for the design and the other for vehicle engineering, and jointly completed the ModelS from prototype to pre-order, and then to mass production. The whole delivery process helped Tesla enter a brand new development process.

If the Roadster is Tesla’s pioneering work, then ModelS can be called a small work. It is precisely because of this car that the auto industry has finally accepted Tesla as a car company, and more ordinary people have also adopted this Tesla learned about the new car.

  However, his previous life, Peter Rawlinson, left Tesla when ModelS had just finished mass production and delivery. Some media said that he was not in harmony with Musk, but his own explanation was to return to the UK to take care of his sick mother.

  Xia Jingxing guessed that the other party might be reluctant to say bad things about the former employer. After all, Musk has a bad temper. According to the development trajectory of his previous life, half of the executives present today have already resigned.

  Previous life Peter Rawlinson joined Atieva a year after leaving Tesla, that is, Xia Jingxing invested in the company that exported three-electric system technology founded by former Tesla executive Xie Jiapeng.

After Peter Rawlinson joined the company as the CTO, he immediately adjusted the company’s business thinking and began to build the entire vehicle. He successively received investment from BAIC Group and Boss Jia, but none of them achieved too dazzling results. He has been in PPT manufacturing. Car stage.

However, on the eve of Xia Jingxing’s rebirth, the other party had successfully promoted to the company’s CEO. With the heavy investment of oil tyrants, he created LucidAir, a luxury new energy vehicle brand with a battery life of 837 kilometers and an acceleration of 2.5 seconds at a price of 169,000. The dollar is known as the Tesla killer.

  This endurance performance is based on the US EPA test standard, which is more stringent than the common domestic operating conditions such as NEDC, WLTC, and CLTC.

  If converted according to domestic testing standards, LucidAir has a cruising range of 985 kilometers, which is close to the 1,000 kilometers mark.

  This endurance made Musk unable to sit still. He repeatedly stopped and started spraying. He refused to admit how much Peter Rawlinson had contributed to ModelS. He said that he helped remodel the chassis and did some chores.

  In terms of interior design language, LucidAir did not follow the minimalist style of Tesla, but adopted interior materials that are more in line with the traditional luxury aesthetic. The goal is to compete for market share of rivals such as Mercedes-Benz S and BMW 7 Series.

  Obviously, Peter Rawlinson is definitely an individual talent. His previous life was only because of a slow start, and too much time wasted in financing, mass production, iterating products, etc. As a result, Lucid did not pose a greater threat to Tesla.

  Looking at Peter Rawlinson, who was talking and talking, Xia Jingxing suddenly had a bold idea, do you want to dig this guy into Atieva company (renamed Lucid in 2016)?

  Fuxing Motors is currently building a car team in China and is beginning to explore the research and development of electric vehicles.

  In the future, Xia Jingxing’s plan is to wholly acquire or hold Atieva, merge it with Fuxing Auto, or retain the brand to focus on overseas markets.

  If Atieva has the participation of Peter Rawlinson, coupled with the continuous funding of the Renaissance Industry Holding Group in the future, it should not be too difficult to overcome the difficulties of excessive production and the difficulty of ramping up production capacity.

  Because the previous Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF invested a total of more than one billion US dollars in Lucid before the company went public, which is much less than the billions of US dollars that Boss Jia gave to FF.

  If Boss Jia insisted on AllinLucid, he might have become a new legend in the Chinese business community, and staged a comeback even more legendary than Shi Dazhu!

PIF holds more than 60% of the shares in Lucid. This one-billion-dollar investment has made at least thirty to four billion dollars in book profits. Only one-tenth of it is enough to pay off all the debts of Boss Jia. .

  Xia Jingxing suddenly interrupted: “This issue does not need to be discussed anymore. I believe that with the rapid development of electric vehicle technology, the cost-effectiveness of new cars will be better than that of one generation.

In the early days, some users may be dissatisfied, saying that we are price butchers, clamoring to return the car and make compensation, but when they get used to the various changes brought about by electric vehicles, they should not be psychologically imbalanced, because the whole industry In this way, there is nothing to complain about. "

  After Xia Jingxing's final decision, the three of them did not entangle on this topic anymore.

  Peter Rawlinson continued to elaborate on his point of view: “Compared with Roadster, ModelS uses a dual-motor and four-wheel drive architecture, and its endurance has not been significantly improved.

  In my opinion, this car must at least reach a cruising range of more than 500 kilometers to be successful. This is a cruising number that is closer to that of a C-class luxury car.

The   Roadster road test has a cruising range of 400 kilometers, but some users have reported in actual use that the battery will run out of 300 kilometers.

  Considering that each user’s driving habits and road complexity are different, even if the ModelS road condition test can reach 500 kilometers, some users may run out of all the power of the car in the actual use process.

  If the battery life of the new car is less than this, it is quite inconvenient.

Our four-door, five-seater coupe wants to enter a more sinking market, and the users it faces are no longer curious rich people and technology enthusiasts, but real car consumers, who value cost-effectiveness more. . "

  Xia Jingxing nodded lightly, "Yes, acceleration performance and cruising range have to be improved. Apart from finding ways to make technological breakthroughs on the motor, what about the battery and electronic control system?"

  Peter Rawlinson smiled and said: "This is what I want to say next. In addition to the technical verification and breakthrough of the motor solution, the other two of the three power systems have the same problems.

  For example, we are still using the 18650 cylindrical lithium battery provided by Panasonic. We plan to use it to build cars with three mass energy density specifications of 60, 70, and 85KWh/kWh.

  From the formula, we can see that the decisive factor of the battery's influence on the vehicle's cruising range is the energy density of the battery system and the overall weight of the battery system.

  In addition, the structural layout of the battery system will also affect the energy density of the battery.

  However, due to the redesign of the car chassis, the battery pack can be laid flat on it, and the volume has been enlarged. At this stage, it has reached the best.

The weight of the   battery system is 0.6 tons, which accounts for more than a quarter of the 2.1-ton weight of the whole vehicle. For the time being, it can be reduced.

  The only place where we can think of ways to increase the energy density is the positive and negative electrode materials of the battery, such as increasing the proportion of nickel in the positive electrode material, and using silicon carbon in the negative electrode material. These are new directions that are being explored in the battery industry.

  Panasonic’s cylindrical battery uses NCA material, that is, nickel-cobalt-aluminum, in addition to nickel-cobalt-manganese NCM material batteries, both of which belong to different research routes under the direction of ternary lithium batteries, but the cathode materials are different.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries are safer, do not use precious metal cobalt, and have lower cost but lower energy density. Therefore, they are more widely used in passenger cars with larger volume and mass. China's BYD has a deeper knowledge in this field. .

  The ternary lithium battery is the best choice for cars with limited space because of its higher energy density. The disadvantage is that it encounters extreme collision accidents, and the short circuit of the battery can easily lead to fire.

  The material of lithium iron phosphate will not burn when it encounters a short circuit. Its high temperature resistance is much better than that of ternary lithium batteries.

  Lithium iron phosphate, we don’t need to think about it. My suggestion is to find a power battery supplier outside of Panasonic and try NCM materials. "

  Xia Jingxing smiled and nodded, “Good suggestion. I have invested in a power battery supplier named Ningde Times in China. Their battery research direction is the direction of NCM materials under the ternary lithium battery.

But I think, after the endurance reaches or even surpasses that of fuel vehicles, the pursuit of battery energy density by electric vehicle companies will be placed second, and the safety and control of batteries will be the first place, and lithium iron phosphate batteries may gain more The space for development of the company is not only used by passenger cars, but also cars and SUVs. "

  Peter Rawlinson smiled silently. He reserved his opinion. The boss thought too far. At this stage, electric car companies have only one goal, which is to do everything possible to increase battery energy density and thereby increase cruising range.

  As for battery safety, fire and other issues, we can only wait for the company to survive before finding ways to improve it.

  Xia Jingxing did consider the long-term. He still remembered that BYD had specially conducted a live broadcast in order to demonstrate the safety of its new product "blade battery" and demonstrated the "acupuncture test" in the process.

  The steel needle is used to pierce the battery cell to simulate a short circuit inside the battery, and the cell using ternary materials will catch fire on site.

  This test caused the Ningde era, which uses ternary batteries as its main product, to fall into passive public opinion.

  In addition, the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries had achieved major technological breakthroughs at that time. Later, the Ningde era also picked up the lithium iron phosphate batteries that were once despised, and used this battery to enter the domestic Model 3 supply chain.

Zeng Qianqun also said: In the power battery market, the market share of lithium iron phosphate will gradually increase, and the proportion of ternary batteries will decrease, but there will still be many high-end models that require battery life and high energy density, so ternary There will still be market space for batteries.

In the Ningde era under the control of Xia Jingxing, he still dare not go to Allin lithium iron phosphate battery at this time, because the country will subsidize new energy car companies based on the mileage in the next ten years. That belongs to the era of ternary lithium batteries. After that, iron phosphate Lithium will usher in a bottoming out.

Therefore, the two major power battery genres, lithium iron phosphate and ternary battery, will show two repetitions of market share "you rise and I fall" in the next ten years, each leading the way for several years.

  　 The second chapter is a bit late, and it’s been too long to check the information.

  (End of this chapter)