Automaker-branded batteries are being adopted in vehicles one after another, and the rivalry goes far beyond just competing with CATL.
"Automaker-branded" batteries are continuously emerging and being installed in vehicles. Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance has launched the Whale Battery, Li Auto has rolled out its Li Auto-branded battery, and on the evening of July 30 not long ago, Xiaomi officially released the Dragon Armor Battery to the public.
Automakers are trying to grasp every technical point of batteries through their own battery brands, so as to seize users' mindshare.
The unified practice of these automotive brands is "penetrating management": automakers take full charge of defining the technical and performance standards from cells to battery packs, even partially participate in the development of cell materials, and intervene in and supervise the whole process of core supply chain and production and manufacturing. In other words, "automaker-branded" batteries are the full implementation of the automaker's own technologies and standards.
"Even the recruitment of core positions in battery factories requires automakers to participate in the interview and check." An industry insider revealed.
This is significantly different from the past power battery cooperation model. According to 36Kr's understanding, for a long time, leading power battery companies such as CATL, relying on their technical strength, often supply relatively mature system-level solutions to automakers. Especially for flagship products such as Qilin Battery and Shenxing Battery, what automakers can usually do is to put forward demands, while the space for customized development is relatively limited.
However, judging from the core indicators of "automaker-branded" batteries, automakers often have more development requirements. For example, the Whale Battery focuses on the thermal protection standard for the full temperature cycle, Xiaomi's Dragon Armor Battery emphasizes 2000 cycles and the 500J bottom impact standard, Li Auto's branded battery also pursues "battery health of no less than 75% after 8 years or 160,000 kilometers", and NIO has also proposed a battery R&D plan with a 15-year cycle life.
In addition, as the core component of electric vehicles, power batteries have long accounted for 30% of the cost structure. In the long run, automakers' control over the whole process of battery development and production can also ensure the stability of the supply chain and the ability to control costs.
Overall, automakers' demand for full-process control of power batteries has destined the current situation where "automaker-branded" batteries are flourishing.
But at the same time, CATL, the leading power battery supplier, is also making every effort to shape consumers' perception of the performance and safety of CATL batteries. In crowded places such as airports, high-speed railway stations, and shopping malls, the advertising slogan "Choose an EV by its battery, pick CATL" can often be seen.
According to 36Kr's understanding, even though Li Auto i6 offers an extra two-year extended warranty for Sunwoda batteries, more than half of consumers who bought the models still chose CATL batteries.
Therefore, when automakers try to bring their own battery brands to the front stage, consumers who have experienced CATL's "Intel Inside" strategy will often raise such a question: can the battery packs independently developed by automakers compare with CATL's products?
To some extent, this seems to be a question that is hard to reach a conclusion at present.
Many people in the battery industry told 36Kr that CATL's moat lies in process control capability and production consistency. Moreover, neither the self-built production lines of automakers nor the second- and third-tier battery manufacturers can catch up with CATL's advantage in a short time, because "only with a sufficiently large production volume can effective screening and trial and error be carried out".
Under normal circumstances, higher consistency means lower probability of range attenuation, abnormal energy replenishment, and even safety accidents. However, the production consistency level of automakers' self-built production lines and second- and third-tier battery manufacturers can also be compensated to a certain extent by means such as adding testing processes.
Moreover, although inferior to CATL in product consistency, "automaker-branded" batteries also have their own advantages.
36Kr learned from some industry insiders that the product definition, design and production of "automaker-branded" batteries are usually fully controlled by automakers. Some automakers that develop batteries independently will even supervise the secondary and tertiary sub-component suppliers of batteries to ensure that the final product performance meets their own high standards.
In addition, automakers are more familiar with the whole vehicle, so the BMS algorithm of "automaker-branded" batteries "may perform better on the application end than that of battery factories". Perhaps for a quite long time in the future, "automaker-branded" batteries will keep pace with CATL.
Production Consistency, CATL's Competitive Moat
After years of development of the power battery industry, the maturity and popularization of power battery technologies and equipment have gradually narrowed the technical gap among various battery manufacturers.
The competition between battery products is increasingly focused on production consistency.
Many industry insiders admit that CATL's cell consistency is ahead of a large number of second- and third-tier battery manufacturers. A relatively intuitive manifestation is: "Among domestic cell manufacturers, the only one that does not classify products into different grades is CATL, because all its products are of the same level."
"Consistency is not easy to achieve". An industry insider told 36Kr that almost all production factors will affect the process control of power batteries, including on-site humidity, temperature, impurities, raw material selection and so on.
And battery manufacturers "must have a sufficiently large production volume to carry out effective screening and trial and error". Therefore, in the short term, the production consistency of second- and third-tier battery manufacturers can hardly catch up with CATL.
The reason why consistency is important is that it can directly affect the capacity of the battery pack, and even lead to safety accidents. A person in the battery industry said that even for LFP battery packs that are recognized in the industry as having better intrinsic safety, production consistency is also highly emphasized.
The direct indicators for evaluating production consistency are voltage difference, internal resistance difference, size difference and so on.
An industry insider gave an example to explain the impact of voltage difference on battery pack capacity: "Originally the battery pack is designed with a capacity of 100 kWh, but if the voltage of one cell can only reach the level corresponding to 98 kWh, the BMS equalization strategy will convert the extra 2 kWh of the other 100 kWh cells into heat energy to consume during charging, so as to control all cells within the voltage range corresponding to 98 kWh. This will cause the actual capacity of the battery pack to fail to meet the design target of 100 kWh."
36Kr learned that at present, most of the BMS strategies for power batteries in the industry are passive equalization, which can play the above role of "peak clipping", but it is difficult to "fill the valley" — to transfer the power of 100 kWh cells to the 98 kWh cell.
"Filling the valley" requires an active equalization BMS strategy, but the cost of this technology is far higher than that of the passive equalization BMS strategy, so few enterprises in the industry adopt it.
An industry insider gave an example of the commercial vehicle industry: "The quotation for a set of active equalization for commercial vehicles is about 20,000 yuan, and there is no available product on the market even at that price. Active equalization BMS is mainly used on lithium titanate batteries, because the ultra-high rate discharge leads to too large voltage difference, plus the energy density of lithium titanate is inherently low."
This means that the battery pack capacity attenuation caused by cell consistency can hardly be smoothed out through the BMS strategy at the Pack level.
Battery pack capacity attenuation is reflected in the whole vehicle as range attenuation and abnormal energy replenishment. But the impact of cell consistency on the battery pack does not stop there. An industry insider said it will also cause potential safety hazards.
"If a battery pack with 30% capacity attenuation is still in service, it is very easy to be overcharged and overdischarged, and the next step of overcharge and overdischarge is fire." A battery professional emphasized to 36Kr that even LFP with a safer material system follows this rule.
Some people in the battery industry also pointed out that to what extent the impact of production consistency on the performance and life of the battery pack will reach "is a probability problem".
"This involves the enterprise's ability to evaluate the reliability of battery packs." A battery engineer said, "What level of voltage difference is acceptable needs to be calculated through a large amount of statistical data. However, some automakers do not have so many data samples, and can only reason through models, and the accuracy of the models tests the competence of the enterprise's employees."
He gave an example: "If Automaker A thinks that the failure probability at 100mV voltage difference is 10%, and Automaker B thinks that the failure probability at 100mV voltage difference is 1%, then based on this judgment, Automaker B will let the battery pack continue to serve and the enterprise will continue to monitor it, while Automaker A may replace the battery pack. The voltage difference of the replaced battery pack is only 10mV, so the life of the battery pack will naturally be extended. Some automakers will also restrict the use range of the battery pack through remote OTA, which can also reduce the risk of battery pack failure."
How "Automaker-Branded" Batteries Narrow the Gap
Although CATL maintains a leading position in production consistency, "automaker-branded" batteries focus heavily on consistency, hoping to narrow the gap between their products and CATL's products.
A person participating in the independent battery R&D project told 36Kr that the automaker he works for has adopted many strong screening methods to improve cell quality.
He gave many examples to 36Kr: "For example, the porcelain removal process used to remove metal foreign matters in raw materials is usually done twice in the industry, but we do it four times."
"The step-down test used to screen cell consistency is usually only done two or three times in the industry, and we also do it four times."
36Kr also learned from some people in the battery industry that X-ray inspection is also one of the means for battery factories to improve quality.
Some people in the battery industry told 36Kr that the function of X-ray is to penetrate the steel shell, aluminum shell and the outer pole piece to observe whether there are bends of pole pieces and separators, and it can also detect structural defects of lamination or winding inside the battery pack. "For example, if the wound cell is not a normal cylinder, X-ray can see it."
According to 36Kr's understanding, at present, manufacturers such as CATL, Envision AESC, and Sunwoda have all adopted X-ray inspection processes to improve manufacturing control capabilities.
A Sunwoda insider told 36Kr: "Every cell on Sunwoda's trial production line will undergo X-ray inspection, and X-ray will also be widely used on each mass production line. It may be that one cell is inspected for every certain number of cells, or all cells are inspected."
However, it should be noted that some people in the battery industry believe that the extent to which X-ray can make up for the consistency of cells still depends on the capability of battery manufacturers.
X-ray can present explicit characteristics, but how to judge the risk probability of consistency through these characteristics also varies with the capability of the battery factory.
Perhaps the cell-level capability of second- and third-tier battery factories still needs a quite long time to catch up with the leading level, but this cannot be simply equated with the conclusion that "automaker-branded" batteries are necessarily inferior to CATL's products.
Full Process Control, the Advantages of "Automaker-Branded" Batteries
36Kr learned that when automakers purchase complete battery packs from CATL, what CATL provides is a "gray box"-like solution.
Some industry insiders said that CATL usually keeps cell processes and material formulas confidential, and automakers cannot participate too much in the control of the production site.
A NIO engineer told 36Kr: "CATL hardly provides anything." This confirms to a certain extent that CATL has a low degree of openness. A person in the battery industry said that what CATL will open to automakers is "mainly some basic cell offline test data, such as capacity, voltage, internal resistance, etc.". Some battery engineers also said that automakers can also access data such as digital model release and cold plate flow channels.
This means that it is difficult for automakers to deeply participate in the full-process management of battery packs, and the quality and performance of batteries can almost only rely on CATL's management.
But CATL's management is not always better than that of automakers. A battery professional from a leading automaker told 36Kr that according to their internal test results, some long-term performance indicators of CATL may sometimes not be the best in the industry.
He explained: "CATL figured out the safety boundary of materials earlier, so it dares to push the boundary to a relatively extreme level." This has triggered an internal game in this automaker: the brand side hopes to carry CATL's products, while the R&D side holds an opposing opinion.
On the contrary, for "automaker-branded" batteries, automakers can carry out all-round and dead-angle-free control over the design, development and production of battery packs. Li Auto's branded battery is a typical case.
An industry insider close to Li Auto told 36Kr that in the cooperation between Li Auto and Sunwoda, "Li Auto basically takes the lead, and Sunwoda provides support. Li Auto has its own personnel for cell development and materials. Li Auto's branded battery is almost designed by Li Auto, and Sunwoda acts more as a foundry."
Li Auto even specially recruited more than ten cell development personnel for this project. 36Kr learned from some industry insiders that until last year, the total number of personnel Li Auto invested in the battery field was about 300.
Perhaps precisely because of Li Auto's all-round control over its branded batteries, some Li Auto insiders told 36Kr that according to after-sales data, the failure rate of Li Auto's branded batteries is similar to that of CATL, and in individual months, the failure rate of Li Auto's branded batteries is even lower than that of CATL.
The Whale Battery of Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance also adopts the idea of all-round control to ensure product quality.
36Kr has previously reported that the Whale Battery follows Huawei's battery development standards and is presented to the public as Huawei's own battery brand. The development standards of the Whale Battery are higher than the general standards of the industry. "For example, for the high-temperature thermal runaway test, Huawei's requirement is that when the battery pack, the whole vehicle and the surrounding environment are very hot and the power is about 100%, the battery pack will not explode after thermal runaway. Few requirements are more stringent than this."
Some industry insiders close to Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance said: "Huawei will participate in the whole process from the chemical system to raw materials, processes and offline testing. But they have a relatively limited number of personnel, so they are more focused on supervision and reliability verification, and sometimes may not participate in cell R&D very deeply." However, Huawei's strict access standards can still bring certain guarantees to the safety of the Whale Battery.
On the evening of July 30, at the Xiaomi Automobile Technology Conference, Lei Jun, Chairman of Xiaomi Group, introduced when releasing the Dragon Armor Battery that this is a power battery systematic solution led by Xiaomi, which is in charge of product definition, leads the design and development of battery packs, participates in cell design and development, and carries out full-process quality control.
36Kr learned from some industry insiders close to Xiaomi that in order to ensure the performance of self-developed batteries, Xiaomi "has invited many top SQE professionals to train its own employees". Last year, Xiaomi invested about more than 100 people in the battery field, "most of whom are BMS personnel". Xiaomi is also recruiting personnel related to system design, "because it needs to do a lot of industrialization work later", and is gradually supplementing its own cell R&D capabilities.
Just like the Whale Battery, the safety standard of the Dragon Armor Battery is also relatively strict. Lei Jun said at the conference: "The safety standard of the Dragon Armor Battery exceeds the national standard." For example, the requirement of "no functional failure after 500J bottom impact" is considered by many industry insiders to be "a relatively high standard", while the national standard requires no leakage, no fire and no explosion after 150J bottom impact.
Some industry insiders also revealed that some automakers that develop batteries independently will even trace back to the secondary and tertiary supply chains of batteries, such as formulating material screening standards for positive and negative electrode materials. At the same time, automakers will also set consistency requirements for second- and third-tier battery manufacturers that are equivalent to CATL's standards.
"Even for the cover plate on the battery box and other components, if the quality does not meet the standards, the automaker's engineers will help these suppliers carry out personnel training, production line transformation and quality improvement, to ensure that their materials can meet the automaker's standards. This is something that few people in the industry have done in the past."
Another advantage of "automaker-branded" batteries is that the BMS team of the OEM "may perform better at the application layer, because there is interaction between controllers, and the OEM knows the vehicle better".
In a short period of time, the power battery supply of the automotive industry may