Nach dem schrecklichen Feuer des Li Auto MEGA, ist das Ende der Lithium-Ionen-Batterien mit Nickel-Mangan-Kobalt-Oxid (NMC) angebrochen?

An explosion without a violent collision caused the Li Auto MEGA, a vehicle with a selling price of over 500,000 yuan and focusing on family safety, to catch fire within 10 seconds and eventually burn down to the empty frame. At the same time, it also ignited the "powder keg" of the electric vehicle industry.

After the incident, middle - income parents who had bought a MEGA began to publicly share the process of teaching their children "how to escape from an electric vehicle", which triggered numerous discussions.

*Image source: Xiaohongshu

On October 31, Li Auto officially apologized and admitted that the coolant of the 2024 Li Auto MEGA series, which comes from the same batch as the accident vehicle, has a defect. Under extreme circumstances, this can lead to a thermal runaway of the traction battery. However, before this happened, the debate about battery safety was already in full swing.

Since the Li Auto MEGA uses a Qilin ternary lithium battery with 5C fast - charging, which claims to have solved an industry problem and is associated with a luxury image, this "strange" accident occurred. The debate between lithium - iron - phosphate and ternary lithium batteries has been going on for many years, and respective application fields have already been formed. Now, an accident has made consumers doubt again.

On the one hand, ternary lithium stands for maximum performance and longer range, but is also associated with higher risks. On the other hand, lithium - iron - phosphate is a symbol of safety and accessibility, but has natural performance limitations. If a first - class product has an accident in a normal scenario, does this mean that the strategy is wrong?

In fact, the question of which side will perform better in the debate about electric vehicles may lose its significance in the near future. Since the characteristics of the two technology strategies are too different, they are driven by time into two completely different future scenarios.

01 "The advertising of automobile manufacturers cannot hide the risks of batteries"

The greatest impact of the Li Auto MEGA explosion incident is that it has very directly overturned the traditional idea that luxury cars are safer. The public first paid more attention to the door problem, but soon found that the battery may be the main cause of this incident.

According to a report by Jiemian News, Li Auto previously did some advertising for battery safety and claimed that the single - cell failure rate of the Qilin 5C battery jointly developed by it and CATL was reduced to PPB (one - billionth), which is three orders of magnitude better than the industry average of PPM (one - millionth).

In addition, Li Auto emphasized that it has a powerful cloud BMS (Battery Management System) that can monitor nearly 10,000 control points in real - time. By introducing big - data models for data analysis, it can react to anomalies in milliseconds.

However, these data advantages are based on the ternary lithium battery. Therefore, numerous comparisons between ternary lithium and lithium - iron - phosphate batteries emerged immediately after the incident.

*Image source: CATL

From a chemical perspective, the chemical property of the cathode material of the ternary lithium battery determines its relatively low thermal stability. Relevant research clearly points out that the ternary lithium battery may start a violent decomposition reaction at a temperature of about 200°C, which can trigger a thermal runaway. In addition, oxygen is released during this decomposition process, which means it is almost like a "self - fuel and oxygen carrier package", and the fire can spread very quickly.

In comparison, the cathode material of lithium - iron - phosphate has to reach a temperature of 500 - 800°C before it decomposes, and no oxygen is released during the process. This naturally gives it a higher safety margin.

Experimental data show that in a nail - penetration test to simulate an internal short - circuit, the temperature of a ternary lithium cell can rise to a peak of 400 - 600°C within 10 seconds, while a lithium - iron - phosphate cell takes about 2 minutes to reach a peak of 300°C. This difference of over a minute can be the difference between life and death in a real accident situation.

Therefore, many companies also publicly answered their strategies for battery development and the safety question after the MEGA fire incident. For example, Gu Jie, the leading director of the drive system of XPeng, explained on Weibo that 99% of XPeng's new vehicles use lithium - iron - phosphate batteries, and thanks to additional safety measures, there have been "no self - ignitions" since the company was founded.

*Image source: Gu Jie's Weibo

Automobile manufacturers invest huge amounts in developing complex BMS and efficient thermal management systems to "tame" the "powerful beast" of the ternary lithium battery. Through real - time monitoring of voltage, current, and temperature, they can nip thermal runaway in the bud or issue a warning.

But in the real world with its complex and sudden operating conditions, can the numerous protective layers of system engineering really solve all problems? This incident shows that accidents may always be inevitable.

02 "Cost - benefit gain vs. maximum performance: Safety and cost are mutually exclusive"

How do automobile manufacturers choose between the two technology strategies? Why do luxury products tend to choose the more aggressive ternary lithium battery?

To answer these questions, we have to turn back the clock of the electric vehicle market a few years.

In 2016, China's subsidy policy for electric vehicles underwent a decisive adjustment. For the first time, the subsidy amount was strongly linked to the energy density of the battery. Since the energy density of the ternary lithium battery is naturally much higher than that of lithium - iron - phosphate, it was once twice as high. Thus, the ternary lithium battery quickly became the market leader and became synonymous with "luxury" thanks to its long range. In contrast, the market share of lithium - iron - phosphate steadily declined and was only 32% in 2019.

*Image source: China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance

But the times have changed. Since June 2021, when the installation volume of lithium - iron - phosphate exceeded that of the ternary lithium battery, its market share has risen rapidly. Data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance show that its market share has been stably above 70% this year and even exceeded 80% in some months.

What happened in this process? The answer is that the market structure has changed dramatically.

In less than five years, the electric vehicle market has penetrated into the general public and even the lower - end markets. Policy drivers have become market forces, and price competition has become increasingly fierce. Vehicles in the price segment above 100,000 yuan have become the main battleground. An unavoidable problem has emerged - the ternary lithium battery is too expensive. Since the price of lithium battery materials has risen sharply due to the tight supply, the market has to pay more attention to the cost of mass application. In this situation, the cost - effectiveness and longevity of lithium - iron - phosphate were its greatest advantages.

Based on past data from institutions such as GaoGong Lithium, the cost per kilowatt - hour of a ternary lithium battery was about 450 yuan, while that of lithium - iron - phosphate was only about 300 yuan. For an 80 - kilowatt - hour battery pack, the additional cost of the ternary lithium battery is a full 12,000 yuan. This huge price difference can be the decisive factor for the success or failure of a vehicle in the chaotic automobile market.

To this day, there are still vehicles with ternary lithium batteries such as the Changan Qiyuan A07, the Volkswagen ID.4X, and the Zeekr X, which are priced below 200,000 yuan or even close to 100,000 yuan, but these are usually the basic versions. If you want a battery pack of 70 - 80 kilowatt - hours or even a longer range, like the Leapmotor C11, Zeekr 007, and VOYAH Zhiyin, you usually have to spend over 200,000 yuan.

*Image source: VOYAH

In addition, in recent years, there has been an "arms race" in the electric vehicle market, namely the explosion of vehicles with range - extenders or plug - in hybrid drives and large batteries. Thanks to the range - extender, these vehicles can perfectly compensate for the biggest weakness of lithium - iron - phosphate - the performance loss at low temperatures.

Previously, Li Xiang, the founder of Li Auto, directly said that lithium - iron - phosphate was a "disaster" for vehicles with range - extenders because the voltage drops sharply at low temperatures and low charge. But now, Li Auto itself has fully equipped its model L6 with lithium - iron - phosphate batteries. This is undoubtedly the strongest proof of the change in the market direction.

In addition, there is a cycle of "the more it is used - the more research is done - the better it is used" for lithium - iron - phosphate.

For example, the emergence of BYD's "Blade Battery" in 2020 was a turning point in the battery debate. It creatively used the CTP (Cell to Pack, without module) technology and abolished the traditional battery modules. Instead, the elongated "Blade" cells are directly integrated into the battery pack, which has increased the space utilization rate of the battery pack from 40% to over 60%. In a battery pack of the same size, more cells can be accommodated.

This clever approach of "trading space for range" has significantly improved the system energy density of the battery pack without directly changing the chemical composition of lithium - iron - phosphate, so that its range can compete with that of ternary lithium vehicles.

In addition, CATL's Shenxing battery and Zeekr's Gold Brick Battery also use lithium - iron - phosphate technology.

*Image source: Zeekr

It is the synergy between technological innovation and market demand that has finally pushed the once - invincible ternary lithium battery into a corner in terms of market share.

03 "The end - game breaks all assumptions, the two strategies mean two different future scenarios"

Li Yunfei, the director of brand and public relations of BYD, recently explained at the Tokyo Motor Show that many brands may still choose the ternary lithium battery in the next two years, but he hopes people are aware of it.

This results in an interesting dilemma - the current market situation seems a bit split.

At the beginning of this year, the two South Korean conglomerates LG Energy Solution and SK On bought large quantities of ternary materials in China. The A - list listed company...