Big cylindrical batteries to emerge as new engines of electric vehicles

With the global battery supply and demand imbalance worsening, big cylindrical power batteries will emerge as the new engine of electric vehicles, opening a new era, said an industry expert.

Lin Jian, an expert at the Power Battery Application Branch of China Industrial Association of Power Sources and also chief scientist at Shenzhen BAK Power Battery Co Ltd, highlighted the importance of taking advantage of big cylindrical power batteries to tackle the current challenges in the industry.

As reported by the China Passenger Car Association and China EV100 Forum 2024, with accelerated market growth, the penetration rate of global electric vehicles in 2023 reached 22 percent, while that of China was 35.7 percent. China's electric vehicle sales in 2023 totaled 7.7 million units, a year-on-year surge of 36 percent.

However, due to the dramatic expansion of the production capacity of power batteries for such a booming industry, the global power battery market is facing an imbalance of supply exceeding demand. Data from the International Energy Agency showed that in 2023, the global effective demand for power batteries was about 1,600 gigawatt-hours (GWh), while the supply reached a striking 4,400 GWh, and the gap is expected to widen by 2030.

"China is the world's largest power battery producer. Chinese power battery manufacturers, facing such a supply-demand imbalance, should optimize their market layouts and strategies. Specifically, they should explore the overseas market and, as the top priority, develop novel technologies and close outdated production facilities," Lin said during the just concluded China EV100 Forum 2024 held in Beijing.

He noted that compared with prismatic and polymer batteries, big cylindrical batteries are much more applicable for mid and high-end electric vehicles. They are expected to promote the iterative upgrade of power battery technologies and emerge as the new engine of electric vehicles.

However, three major challenges of technique, raw material and carbon reduction are in the way of putting big cylindrical power batteries into mass production.

To address these challenges, BAK Battery has built a new-generation digitalized production base — BAK Battery Zhengzhou No 2 Factory — to accelerate the large-scale mass production of big cylindrical power batteries. The factory implements artificial intelligence-based big data analysis and quality control using BAK Battery's database. Powered by digital technologies, the company plans to manage its big cylindrical battery production capacity to 2.5 GWh by the end of 2024, 15 GWh by the end of 2026, and 30 GWh by the end of 2028.