Es ist einfach, "Festkörperbatterien" auf den Markt zu bringen, aber es ist viel schwieriger, sie in Fahrzeuge zu integrieren.

After the "first Chinese GPU stock" and the "second Chinese GPU stock" have set the investment market on fire, now the "first stock" of another hot sector, solid-state batteries, has also emerged.

On December 11th, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced that Weilan New Energy and CITIC Construction Investment have signed a counseling agreement for stock exchange approval, officially starting their journey towards an IPO on the Chinese A-share stock exchange.

This news was like a bombshell, igniting the enthusiasm of the market. After the IPOs of Moore Threads brought an approximate profit of nearly 300,000 yuan per lot on the first trading day and the IPO of Muxi Co., Ltd. even brought nearly 400,000 yuan, no one could resist the temptation of these astonishing profits.

With a company valuation of 18.5 billion yuan and backers like Huawei, Xiaomi, and NIO, Weilan New Energy steps onto the stage like it's "fully equipped". Everyone believes that once it goes public, the show of "lottery win = jackpot win" will be played again.

In the fight for the position of the "first stock in the solid-state battery sector", the market consensus and sentiment are quite positive. But is Weilan New Energy ready with its core product?

The Strength Behind the "First Stock"

Since Weilan New Energy dares to position itself as the "first stock in the solid-state battery sector", naturally the strength lies in the "solid-state batteries".

If you analyze this strength, you'll find that Weilan's background is impressive:

It originated from the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is led by academician Chen Liquan, the "father of Chinese lithium-ion batteries". The circle of investors behind it includes the "top players" in the industry such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Geely, and NIO.

Its "killer product", the in-situ solidified semi-solid-state battery, belongs to the top group of current semi-solid-state batteries.

What does "in-situ strengthening" mean? You can illustrate it with a simple "mortar filling experiment".

A traditional liquid lithium-ion battery is like a cup filled with water, where the electrolyte is liquid. When damaged, it can easily leak and catch fire.

A pure solid-state battery, on the other hand, is like a pile of stones stacked on top of each other. Although it's safe, you've all seen what a pile of stones looks like when they're discharged. The gaps between the stones are very large, which causes the ions to flow poorly.

The genius of Weilan is that it first fills "paste" (liquid monomers) into the gaps between the "stones" (solid electrodes) and then uses in-situ strengthening technology to make this paste dry up and finally form a semi-solid mixture.

In this way, the battery retains both the strength of the "stones" (safety) and the close contact surface like a liquid (fast conductivity).

The main customer for this "mortar battery" is the well-known NIO car.

On December 17th, 2023, NIO CEO Li Bin himself conducted a live show. He drove a NIO ET7 with a 150-kWh battery pack from Weilan starting from Shanghai to test the range.

When the temperature in Shanghai dropped to minus 2 degrees Celsius, Li Bin drove south for 14 hours and 1 minute with the air conditioning on and finally reached Xiamen in Fujian with 3% remaining charge. The measured driving distance was 1,044 kilometers.

This test not only confirmed the ability of the Weilan semi-solid-state battery to "travel 1,000 kilometers on a single charge" but also made this battery pack with an energy density of 360 Wh/kg the "highest value" of energy density for mass-produced passenger cars in China.

If this technology is so powerful, can travel 1,000 kilometers and be mass-produced, why aren't these cars everywhere? Why don't other automakers buy them urgently?

Because this "divine battery" is not only incredibly expensive but also extremely high-maintenance.

Firstly, it's the "heavenly cost". To achieve the extremely high energy density of 360 Wh/kg, Weilan uses not only a semi-solid electrolyte in this battery but also expensive materials such as a nickel-rich cathode and a silicon-carbon anode.

Although there is no official price, NIO executive Qin Lihong half-jokingly revealed that the cost of this 150-kWh battery pack is "equivalent to a NIO ET5"; that is, this battery pack alone could cost about 300,000 yuan.

Secondly, it's the nightmare of the "mass production yield". "In-situ strengthening" sounds simple, but in industrial production, it's an extremely difficult task to ensure that among billions of battery cells, each one has the same "mortar filling" and the same solidification efficiency.

If the yield doesn't increase, the costs can't decrease. This is also the reason why although this battery was introduced in 2021, it could only be delivered in small quantities in 2024.

Finally, it's the "limitation of size adaptation". Currently, this battery is almost "custom-made" for NIO. It has to be perfectly adapted to the NIO car exchange system, and its size, connection, and thermal management system are specially developed for it.

If other automakers want to use it, they either have to redesign the chassis to adapt to the battery or Weilan has to conduct new development. Given the high costs, most automakers will choose the more mature and cheaper batteries from CATL.

The worst part is that despite all these efforts, it's still not the "ultimate solution".

For the "fundamentalists of solid-state batteries", the semi-solid-state battery, even the in-situ solidified semi-solid-state battery, is essentially just an "evolved version" of the liquid battery, not the "ultimate version".

The "liquid content" of the battery is the root of all evils.

As long as there is even a single drop of liquid electrolyte in the battery, from a physical perspective, the risk of thermal overload cannot be completely ruled out; even though semi-solid-state batteries are safer than normal batteries, there is still a theoretical possibility of fire.

In the industry, the semi-solid-state battery is more like a walking aid that supports companies in the first hundred meters of commercialization; but what NIO really needs is the liquid-free "pure solid-state" battery.

The pure solid-state battery is regarded as the "Holy Grail" of the new energy era because it can finally eliminate the range anxiety and the fear of self-ignition of "electric cars". Whoever can conquer this Holy Grail first will hold the power in the future automotive industry and even in the energy system.

This fight for the Holy Grail is developing in three directions and has become a strategic tool for the competition between major powers.

The Battle for the Holy Grail

Zeng Yuqun, the head of CATL, once poured cold water on the industry: If you rate the maturity of solid-state batteries from 1 to 9, where 1 is the beginning and 9 is mass production, the average of the entire industry currently lies at most at level 4.

Why is the production of pure solid-state batteries so difficult? Simply put, there are three major hurdles:

Firstly, the "handshake" is too difficult. In a pure solid-state battery, there must be no liquid residue. When two solid substances are in contact, the contact surface is like that between two hard stones, full of air gaps, and the ions can't pass through at all.

Secondly, the materials are too "sensitive". Solid electrolytes have extremely high requirements for the environment. Some production halls have to be as dry as the Sahara Desert, others have to be dust-free and under vacuum like in a space environment.

Finally, it's the "money pit". The material costs are many times those of liquid batteries, and the current production costs are unaffordable for the general public.

To produce a solid-state battery of maturity level 9, the global research scene has divided into three "schools" with different characteristics, and all are betting on who will reach the goal first.

Japan, led by Toyota, pursues the "all-or-nothing" strategy of the sulfide direction.

Sulfide electrolytes have the highest ionic conductivity, are the fastest, and theoretically the most powerful; but as soon as they come into contact with water vapor in the air, they lose their function and can release toxic hydrogen sulfide gas.

Japan is betting on a typical "All-Japan" style of competition. Japanese companies around Toyota started focusing on this sector more than a decade ago. Just Toyota alone holds more than 1,300 patents related to solid-state batteries and is trying to build a perfect patent barrier.

To solve the problem of the "sensitivity" of sulfides, the Japanese government hasn't left the companies alone. Instead, the NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) has set up a "Green Innovation Fund" worth 2 trillion yen (about 90 billion yuan), of which 350 billion yen is earmarked for special battery subsidies.

Driven by national will, Toyota, Nissan, and Honda have unusually joined forces and built an expensive sulfide electrolyte factory in Chiba Prefecture with the oil giant "Idemitsu".

They are betting that if they can overcome the toxic gases and the difficult production processes, the produced batteries can outperform the world in terms of performance.

The American way is more of a "capital parade" - the polymer/mixing direction.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has not only provided billions of dollars in subsidies through the "Inflation Reduction Act" (IRA) but has also supported a number of star companies: such as QuantumScape, in which Volkswagen has invested, and Solid Power, which is supported by BMW and Ford. These companies pursue different technological paths, some develop oxide membranes, others polymers, and they develop freely according to their own capabilities.

But this direction also has a drawback - "cold sensitivity". Many polymer batteries are almost like a useless piece of stone at room temperature and have to be heated to over 60 degrees Celsius to work properly. This greatly limits their practical application.

China, on the other hand, is taking a "steady and steady" approach - the oxide direction.

Chinese companies are focusing on developing oxide solid electrolytes. Although the ionic conductivity of oxide electrolytes is not as high as that of sulfide electrolytes, they are more stable and less sensitive to the environment. For example, companies like Weilan New Energy and Ganfeng Lithium are making continuous efforts in this field.

China has a relatively complete industrial chain and a large market demand, which provides favorable conditions for the development of solid-state batteries. However, in the face of the challenges of high costs and low production yields, China also needs to continuously break through technological bottlenecks.

The battle for the solid-state battery Holy Grail is still in full swing, and it's not yet clear who will be the final winner. But one thing is certain: whoever can first achieve large - scale production of high - performance solid - state batteries will gain an important competitive advantage in the future new energy market.