BYD & FAW launch series production of blade battery in Changchun

BYD and FAW have started series production at their new battery factory in Changchun. This will initially have an annual capacity of 15 GWh and is to be expanded to 45 GWh. Blade battery packs will initially be produced there for the Hongqi brand.

In the summer of 2023, BYD and FAW announced that the first battery packs were rolling off the production line at their new factory in Changchun, the capital of Jilin province in north-east China. Series production has now started there – somewhat later than originally planned. The partners had started construction of the new production facility in February 2022 and had originally planned to start series production in September 2023.

The joint venture FAW FinDreams New Energy Technology (FinDreams is the BYD brand for third-party business with eMobility components) will manufacture blade batteries in Changchun. When the factory is up and running with the aforementioned 45 GWh, it will be able to supply batteries for “almost 600,000 vehicles”, reports the CN EV Post portal, citing the FAW FinDreams company website. The total investment in the project is expected to amount to 18 billion yuan, or around 2.35 billion euros.

In the summer of 2023, it was still unclear whether FAW and BYD themselves would be the main customers of the joint plant or whether third-party customers would also be supplied. Now it is at least rumoured that the first batch of batteries will be used in Hongqi’s new all-electric vehicles. FAW has already been using BYD blade batteries in the Hongqi E-QM5 for some time, for example.

The blade battery is an in-house development from BYD. The name refers to the unusual format: the pouch cells are very long and therefore resemble a sword blade. The elongated cells, which are produced exclusively using LFP chemistry, are installed in the battery packs at right angles to the direction of travel. However, there are different variants; BYD uses both cell-to-pack and cell-to-body versions of its battery packs in its own electric cars.

cnevpost.com