It only took three years for the Chinese to elevate lithium iron phosphate to the throne.

If you're planning to buy a new energy vehicle, choosing between lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries is almost an inevitable question for everyone.

A few years ago, there was an unwritten hierarchy. High - end cars all used ternary lithium batteries, emphasizing a sense of "prestige". If a flagship car used a lithium iron phosphate battery, it would probably be severely criticized by keyboard warriors.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries were almost synonymous with low - end cars and ride - hailing vehicles. Buying a car with such a battery was like making do, and that was that.

You know, in 2019, the market share of ternary lithium batteries once reached 65% of new car sales. There was a feeling that it was worth the high price, and people gritted their teeth and chose ternary lithium batteries.

After a few years, the times have changed. The installation volume of lithium iron phosphate batteries has exceeded 80%, and ternary lithium batteries have been squeezed to less than 20%.

Now, whether a car is expensive or the brand is prestigious doesn't matter when it comes to using lithium iron phosphate batteries.

Look, the million - yuan Yangwang U8 next door, as well as the standard and Pro versions of the Xiaomi Yu7, have all adopted lithium iron phosphate batteries...

There has even been a situation where people pay an extra 15,000 yuan to "upgrade" from a ternary lithium battery to a lithium iron phosphate battery, which is quite the reverse.

Why has the lithium iron phosphate battery managed to outperform the once - dominant ternary lithium battery in just a few short years?

We did some simple research and found that the path of the lithium iron phosphate battery's comeback is not that simple.

01

To talk about the biggest differences between these two types of batteries, we first need to discuss their origins.

As the name suggests, ternary lithium batteries have three key elements in their cathode materials, usually a ternary composition of nickel (Nickel), cobalt (Cobalt), and manganese (Manganese).

No matter how the formula is changed, these three elements are the main players.

What you may not know is that the global reserves of cobalt are only about 11 million tons, and more than half of them are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, while the main source of nickel is Indonesia.

If there are any problems with these two key elements, the whole world will be affected.

Naturally, its price is much higher than that of the ubiquitous phosphate and iron ore. And a large part of the cost of electric vehicles is concentrated in the battery.

So, it seems that lithium iron phosphate batteries come with a cost - saving advantage from the start.

Now that the competition in the domestic new energy vehicle market is so fierce, it makes sense that people prefer to use lithium iron phosphate batteries to save costs.

Then why didn't car manufacturers think about saving costs before?

At the beginning, the domestic subsidy policy for new energy vehicles was related to the battery's energy density. Although ternary lithium batteries are more expensive, they do have better performance. Moreover, they can get subsidies based on this performance.

Car manufacturers used the subsidies to make up for the cost issue and gritted their teeth to use ternary lithium batteries.

When the subsidies gradually decreased in 2022 and car manufacturers had to pay out of their own pockets, the situation changed.

Some people may say, being cheap is not enough. What electric vehicle owners care most about is the range!

This is indeed true. Even today, the performance of ternary lithium batteries is still better than that of lithium iron phosphate batteries.

For example, ternary lithium batteries have a high energy density, so in the same model, a larger battery pack can usually be installed.

If the battery packs are of the same size, ternary lithium batteries can store more electricity.

Moreover, ternary lithium batteries are very resistant to cold. At minus 20 degrees Celsius, ternary lithium batteries can theoretically release more than 70% of their electricity, while lithium iron phosphate batteries can only release more than 50%.

At that time, owners of cars with lithium iron phosphate batteries felt like they were opening a blind box when going out in winter. The range on the dashboard dropped faster than the temperature on a thermometer. They were even afraid to turn on the air - conditioner.

So, at that time, the idea was that cars with ternary lithium batteries could travel farther.

But gradually, people later found that this wasn't entirely true.

Due to the active chemical properties of ternary lithium batteries, the high energy density comes at the cost of being very delicate.

Once over - charged or over - discharged, it is easy to release oxygen atoms, which can damage the internal structure and cause an explosion.

You know, the explosion speed of ternary lithium batteries is 5 kilograms per second...

So, to avoid these extreme situations, car manufacturers usually deliberately limit the usage of ternary lithium batteries through the battery management system (BMS). They also recommend that owners don't wait until the battery is completely dead to charge and that charging to 80% - 90% is enough.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries are different. Thanks to the stable olivine structure inside, they are heat - resistant, resistant to over - charging, and have a very long cycle life. They are very durable.

Therefore, electric vehicles with lithium iron phosphate batteries don't have to worry about fully charging and discharging, and the charging speed can be increased significantly.

For example, CATL's second - generation Shenxing battery and BYD's megawatt flash charging technology can achieve a range of 400 kilometers with just five minutes of charging.

In this way, for a ternary lithium car with a nominal range of 600 kilometers, the daily usable range may be 50% of the total, which is 300 kilometers. For a lithium iron phosphate car with a nominal range of 500 kilometers, the owner can use it from 100% to 10%, and the actual usable range is nearly 450 kilometers.

Then, when both cars enter a super - charging station, the lithium iron phosphate car can be fully charged and drive home, while the ternary lithium car may still be struggling to recharge.

In comparison, in actual use scenarios, lithium iron phosphate batteries are not inferior to ternary lithium batteries in terms of range and recharging, and may even outperform them...

Even more interestingly, manufacturers of lithium iron phosphate batteries have come up with some tricks to make up for the lack of natural advantages.

For example, BYD has developed a pulse self - heating technology. Through high - frequency pulse current, the cells inside the battery heat themselves, just like people rubbing their hands when they're cold. In just a few minutes, the battery can be heated to the optimal working temperature, which effectively overcomes the shortcoming of poor low - temperature range of lithium iron phosphate batteries.

Even for the problem that lithium iron phosphate batteries are too heavy, manufacturers like CATL have adopted the CTP (Cell - to - Pack) technology. They have optimized the traditional three - level structure of "cell - module - battery pack" by removing the module and directly integrating the cells into the battery pack.

By eliminating the heavy and space - consuming shells and parts, the weight of the entire battery pack is reduced, and the space utilization rate is increased, which indirectly improves the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries.

02

However, lithium iron phosphate batteries also have some limitations.

For example, for cars equipped with lithium iron phosphate batteries, manufacturers often recommend that you fully charge the battery regularly to help the BMS calibrate the battery level. Otherwise, the battery level may not be accurately displayed.

But we found that the comeback of lithium iron phosphate batteries doesn't seem to be just a technical issue.

Have you noticed that the new technologies for lithium iron phosphate batteries are mostly developed by BYD or CATL, while established battery manufacturers like LG and Panasonic are just watching?

It's true. They can only pick up the scraps. This is another key factor in why lithium iron phosphate batteries can outperform ternary lithium batteries. It's because they have ridden on the wave of China's new energy development technology.

Although lithium iron phosphate batteries were discovered in 1996 by Professor John Bannister Goodenough of the University of Texas at Austin, foreign countries have never thought highly of them.

As mentioned before, lithium iron phosphate batteries have a limited energy density and poor low - temperature performance. They were considered the "poor and short" ones.

On the contrary, the excellent paper data of ternary lithium batteries have excited foreign car manufacturers and scholars. Overseas battery giants like LG, Samsung, and Panasonic have all placed their bets on ternary lithium batteries, and even on solid - state batteries and high - nickel batteries with higher energy densities.

They were focused on making breakthroughs in chemical materials to improve ternary lithium batteries, thinking that this was the future direction. They believed that high - end new energy should use high - end materials.

But China has keenly realized that instead of blindly pursuing a range increase of a hundred or so kilometers on paper, the range of lithium iron phosphate batteries is sufficient. Moreover, using lithium iron phosphate batteries can lower the car price, making it affordable for more people, which can better promote the development of new energy vehicles.

After a few years, the "technological explosion" that overseas manufacturers were expecting never came. Instead, Chinese engineers have managed to elevate the "poor and short" lithium iron phosphate batteries to a high - end level through structural innovation and system integration. Lithium iron phosphate batteries have successfully made a comeback.

By the time they realized what was going on, they were stunned.

Because the entire lithium iron phosphate battery industry chain, from the upstream cathode and anode materials, to the mid - stream cell manufacturing, and then to the downstream patent technology, is almost entirely dominated by Chinese companies.

Currently, China's production of lithium iron phosphate batteries accounts for more than 95% of the global market share.

Looking closer at the supply chain, almost 100% of the cathode materials for lithium iron phosphate batteries are produced by Chinese companies. In key technology fields such as battery structure innovation and thermal management, Chinese companies also lead in patent layout.

So, foreign companies have been investing heavily in building lithium iron phosphate battery factories in the past two years.

For example, Ford planned to build a lithium iron phosphate battery factory in 2023, and LG just won a lithium iron phosphate battery order worth more than 30 billion yuan from Tesla last month.