18650 lithium battery cells

Why is there no breakthrough in 18650 lithium battery cells technology?

If you want a car with a good acceleration experience, the Tesla Model S can definitely satisfy you. Of course, electric cars like this can not only bring a good driving experience, but also do not pollute the environment compared to traditional gasoline cars. However, since the birth of electric cars, they have only occupied a small part of the market share. The main reason is that the batteries of electric cars are expensive and need to be charged frequently. But why has the 18650 lithium battery cells performance not improved?

18650 lithium battery cells technology cannot be commercialized

In the past few years, countless breakthroughs have been made in 18650 lithium battery cells technology research, but few of them can be used commercially to fulfill the promise of low cost and high capacity. For example, A123 Systems, a lithium-ion 18650 lithium battery cells startup founded in 2001, once claimed that it could make the lithium iron phosphate cathode material of lithium-ion batteries into uniform nano-scale ultra-small particles, which greatly increased the discharge power of the 18650 lithium battery cells due to the sharp increase in particles and total surface area, and the overall stability and cycle life were not affected. But it ended in failure in 2012. The reason is that it cannot mass-produce the lithium batteries it describes, nor can it convert electricity safely and effectively.

In 2012, Envia Systems, a 18650 lithium battery cells company based in California, announced at a major conference in Washington that it had developed an energy-dense 18650 lithium battery cells that could store twice as much energy per unit weight as current batteries, and at half the cost. When General Motors heard that Envia could develop such a high-energy 18650 lithium battery cells, it immediately invested $7 million in it, hoping to cooperate in the electric vehicle business. By 2013, Envia had not delivered on its claimed "amazing results," resulting in the loss of funding and General Motors' partnership. In addition, the company was also valued by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). It can only be said that Envia's impressive 18650 lithium battery cells was exciting and disappointing.

Small progress of big companies

In fact, in the 18650 lithium battery cells industry, due to the high threshold of 18650 lithium battery cells technology, it is difficult for start-ups to survive alone. Therefore, the 18650 lithium battery cells industry is generally dominated by large companies. Andy Chu, a former executive of A123 Systems, said:

Energy storage is a game played by "big heads" because the slightest mistake in developing batteries will lead to mistakes. While I hope that 18650 lithium battery cells startups will eventually succeed, the history of the last few years shows that they don’t end well.

We’ve seen “breakthrough” advances in the 18650 lithium battery cells industry over the past decade, but these have been steady, small advances from big companies.

Envia’s 18650 lithium battery cells is a new type of lithium-ion 18650 lithium battery cells, invented in the late 70s and early 80s and commercialized in the 90s. They became portable batteries that people used in electric cars.

Back in the 90s, GM used cheap lead-acid batteries in its electric car EV-1, which not only had a low mileage, but was also very heavy.

In 2008, Tesla introduced electric cars with lithium-ion batteries, which had a better mileage than the EV-1, but were expensive. As a result, automakers such as Nissan and GM built electric cars with lower mileage in order to reduce prices, which actually mainly reduced the number of lithium-ion batteries in electric cars.

Why are there no breakthroughs in 18650 lithium battery cells technology?

18650 lithium battery cells technology is poorly understood

If you change a part of the 18650 lithium battery cells, such as introducing a new electrode, the problems that arise are difficult to foresee. Some problems take years to detect. To meet the expectations of investors and ARPA-E, Envia combined not one but two experimental electrode materials for development. (In fact, Envia was quite hardworking, but that's how it turned out.) In 2006, Envia authorized researchers at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to develop a promising 18650 lithium battery cells material, but a serious problem arose: over time, the 18650 lithium battery cells's voltage changed and it became unusable. Although ANL researchers studied the problem in depth, the reason was still unknown. In addition to this, Envia faced another challenge: the problem of silicon-based 18650 lithium battery cells electrodes. The researchers seemed to have solved the problem: proposing a solution that could not be implemented in practice. This made Envia researchers feel very frustrated.

But as time went on, when all the above problems, big and small, were almost solved, Envia found that small changes in the composite materials in the 18650 lithium battery cells would change the performance of the entire 18650 lithium battery cells. Of course, Envia believes that the final result that could not achieve amazing results is because there are some contaminated materials in their 18650 lithium battery cells material suppliers. Of course, no one seems to know where this contamination comes from.

18650 lithium battery cells progress does not necessarily come from technology

In fact, Envia's story clearly tells us that 18650 lithium battery cells progress, including performance and cost, does not come from breakthrough technology, but from close cooperation like Tesla and its 18650 lithium battery cells supplier Panasonic. Since 2008, Tesla's 18650 lithium battery cells costs have been reduced by half and the capacity has increased by 60%. Tesla did not deliberately change the chemistry or materials of the 18650 lithium battery cells, but improved manufacturing efficiency and production. It also worked with Panasonic to optimize the 18650 lithium battery cells appropriately according to the needs of the car.

Although it is difficult to imagine that Tesla can achieve sustainable development by making minor adjustments to lithium-ion batteries, because the room for improvement of lithium-ion batteries is not very "spacious". Perhaps in the end, it will take a thorough overhaul like Envia to achieve a leap forward in batteries. However, at least Envia tells us that improving 18650 lithium battery cells performance must be closely combined with manufacturing and engineering technology to produce products that are actually used.

Although the above content seems to be a review of Envia's history, it is also a microcosm of 18650 lithium battery cells development. In the past two decades, technology has developed rapidly. Computers have evolved from the era of electronic tube components to today's very large-scale integrated circuits. The clumsy and huge computers of the past are now small enough to fit in our pockets. The 18650 lithium battery cells, however, is more like a latecomer, unable to keep up with the pace of development. Perhaps it is precisely these reasons that have led to the current situation.

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