199. Chapter 198 Hundreds of billions of layout
Chapter 198 Hundreds of billions of layout
Yan Hui’s speech basically said everything everyone wanted to say.
And if we only talk about the essence of the problem without considering the feasibility, there is really nothing wrong with it.
Kang Chi nodded and said, “In fact, my idea is similar to Dr. Yan’s, but I don’t think it’s necessary to deliberately suppress the battery life.”
”Just like the size of a car’s fuel tank, although to a certain extent, users basically don’t care much, but if you really want a battery life of 300 kilometers, you have to go to refuel every now and then, which is still a bit troublesome.”
”Well, actually I just gave a more extreme example.” Yan Hui couldn’t help but defend himself, and his aggrieved expression couldn’t help but cause a burst of laughter.
“I know. I’m afraid you’ll lead me astray.” Kang Chi also explained with a smile, and then continued,
”In short, although lithium-ion batteries are definitely more powerful than sodium-ion batteries at the same technical level, the raw materials of sodium ions are much more abundant and cheaper than lithium batteries.”
”Plus, their technologies are very similar. I believe that if the technology of lithium batteries reaches a certain level and the performance is excessive, everyone will definitely turn around and use the same technology to make sodium batteries in order to pursue higher cost performance.”
”So we just go for sodium batteries.”
As he said this, Kang Chi walked to the whiteboard and wrote a few big words with a whiteboard pen: 400Wh/kg.
Seeing the numbers written by Kang Chi, everyone’s eyebrows couldn’t help but jump.
Sodium-ion battery with an energy density of 400Wh/kg?
Is it possible? Although the highest energy density of lithium-ion batteries has been pushed to 700Wh/kg in foreign experiments, the condensed state battery being developed by CATL is also claimed to be 500Wh/kg.
But in fact, all the batteries that can be truly mass-produced are liquid lithium batteries.
The theoretical limit of the energy density of liquid lithium batteries is 350Wh/kg.
However, due to mass production technology and safety considerations, the current new energy vehicles are basically using about 150Wh/kg. For example, Tesla, which has a better endurance performance, uses a ternary lithium battery with an energy density of 168Wh/kg, and BYD’s Han EV uses a lithium iron phosphate blade battery with an energy density of exactly 150Wh/kg.
Therefore, even if sodium-ion batteries can achieve 150Wh/kg, they are actually able to compete with lithium batteries.
Not to mention such an exaggerated value of 400Wh/kg.
“Well, this is our goal.” After Kang Chi finished writing, he turned around and asked everyone, “Next, I want everyone to imagine that if we successfully develop a 400Wh/kg sodium-ion battery, what methods should be used to solve the two problems just raised by Yan Hui.”
So everyone began to fall into deep thought again.
In fact, if the sodium-ion battery can achieve the energy density of a lithium battery, the price problem is basically solved, not to mention that it is still 400Wh/kg.
So the core of the problem is still battery swapping.
NIO’s battery swapping station model sounds ideal, but there are reasons why it has not been popularized.
Its shortcomings are almost as prominent as its advantages.
The first is the cost issue.
If you want to build a battery swapping station near each gas station as Yan Hui said, then according to the current nearly 100,000 gas stations in China, you have to build 100,000 stations.
Even if you consider that many gas stations are too dense, you can directly give a 30% discount and calculate it based on 70,000 gas stations.
The average cost for NIO to build a second-generation battery swap station is 1.5 million yuan. If large-scale battery swap stations are laid, the cost alone will be 105 billion yuan.
There will be staff and maintenance fees such as site rental in the future.
More importantly, NIO’s power stations are only for serving NIO car owners, so they are relatively small in scale and do not store many batteries.
If the battery swap model is really popularized, NIO’s battery swap station construction cost cannot be used as a reference, so the cost will only be higher.
However, any issue involving money is not the main problem.
The most critical thing is that new energy vehicles do not have a unified battery industry standard. Everyone does their own thing.
Except for NIO, the batteries of other car companies are impossible toThinking of this, Zhang Qing couldn’t help but raise her hand and said: “If we really have such advanced sodium battery technology, we don’t need the country to take action. Our technical cost advantage alone is enough to redefine an industry standard.”
”Once we can unify the battery size standards and battery replacement methods of new energy vehicles, all the problems of the battery replacement model will be solved!”
”In addition, I just thought of a problem, that is, the battery replacement station can actually serve as the peak-shaving and valley-filling role of the national power grid.”
”As far as I know, now every wind, solar and other clean energy power station is required by the country to have supporting Build an energy storage station that can generate no less than 10% of the power. However, because the current energy storage batteries are too expensive, the cost of building an energy storage station is more expensive than wasting electricity, so they are basically still using the procrastination strategy, and few actually build energy storage stations. ”
”Suppose we build so many battery swap stations, and then increase the battery reserves of each battery swap station, and only charge the batteries during the off-peak period, we can take on the responsibility of energy storage, and at the same time maximize the use of the peak-valley price difference to earn profits, which also meets the needs of the State Grid for peak-to-valley shifting, so we should be able to strive for some policy preferences and cooperation. ”
Kang Chi nodded, which is the same as his general idea.
”Then the specific business model, please formulate it according to this technical standard, and implement it as soon as possible. If you don’t have enough money, you can take out a loan. ”
Implement it as soon as possible?
Zhang Qing was a little surprised.
What if the battery swap stations are built, but the batteries are not made? This is an investment of hundreds of billions! Yan Hui couldn’t help but suggest: “Boss Kang, isn’t it safer to wait until we develop the battery before taking action…”
Kang Chi smiled: “Why, you don’t believe me?”
”Uh… that’s not the case. It’s mainly because I feel a little guilty about such a big move.”
”It’s okay, just do what I say. Otherwise, it will be too slow to take action after the battery is developed. And you can’t build so many battery swap stations in a short period of time. Maybe I have built the battery, but you haven’t even built 10,000.”
Kang Chi paused and continued, “In fact, what I am more hesitant about is whether to build a factory, acquire it, or license the technology patent after the battery is developed.”
” One advantage of making it yourself is that you can directly set industry standards yourself. However, if you have to build factories and acquire and manufacture each technology in the future, on the one hand, it will require a lot of investment, and on the other hand, it may make the group too bloated. “So I think some technologies can be appropriately patented.” “However, there is also a problem with technology patent licensing. Although it is worry-free to sit back and collect money, and the technology can be quickly promoted, patent licensing means that the technology is semi-public, which is obviously not a good choice in the case of leading technology, unless our strategy is to squeeze the toothpaste slowly, first make 150Wh/kg, and then release 200Wh/kg after foreign competitors have made technological breakthroughs. kg…”
”But this has given rise to two problems. One is the waste of resources, and the other is that there is no direct introduction of blockbuster technology. If we want so many battery factories and car companies to follow the new battery standards we have set, the resistance must be very great…”
”Especially in the battery swap model, all batteries are actually rented to users by the battery swap station, which means we have to buy all the batteries. To put it bluntly, the battery factory is our OEM factory, and patent authorization seems a bit redundant.”
”For example, a large company like CATL will definitely not accept itself as a OEM factory. Even if our technology is more advanced than theirs, it is difficult to convince them.”
”So what we can really choose is actually OEM and self-built.”
”Then let’s combine them.” Zhang Qing immediately suggested, “If you are so confident in making high-performance sodium-ion batteries, then there is no problem in building battery swap stations first.”
”Although it is risky to build supporting facilities in advance, it is indeed very conducive to the promotion of new industry standards.”
”As for battery production, I don’t think it is difficult to solve. In the early stage, we can acquire several small and medium-sized battery factories and make batteries ourselves. At the same time, we can find a car company to cooperate with and let them help us manufacture an electric car as a demonstration.”
”Once they see that consumers have a high acceptance of our model and products, other battery factories and car companies will naturally come to us, and we don’t have to work hard to convince them.”
Kang Chi nodded.Nodding.
If we do this, although it will delay some time and increase the pressure of capital turnover, it can indeed make the promotion of standards more stable.
”Let’s stop here for today’s discussion. Zhang Qing should hurry up and come up with a feasible plan. Yan Hui will lead the R&D department to set up a sodium battery laboratory starting tomorrow.”
So a new energy layout with an initial investment scale of hundreds of billions has begun! For the entire group, this is definitely a commercial gamble.
If it succeeds, it will directly ascend to become a member of the trillion club. If it fails, it will be seriously injured.
(End of this chapter)