First details of BYD’s new Blade battery leaked
As the portal CarNewsChina writes, citing an internal source, BYD is working on two variants of its new blade battery. The first variant is said to be a short blade format with an energy density of 160 Wh/kg, a charge rate of 8C and a maximum discharge rate of 16C. In the longer blade format, the battery will have an energy density of up to 210 Wh/kg, a charge rate of 3C and a discharge rate of 8C.
The Blade battery, which was first introduced in 2020, is an in-house development by BYD. The name refers to the unusual format: the cells are very long and therefore resemble a sword blade. The elongated cells 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. What they all have in common is the lithium iron phosphate cell chemistry. At its peak, the current blade battery offers an energy density of around 150 Wh/kg.
BYD has not changed the technology in recent years, which is why the second generation is eagerly awaited. If the insider information proves to be true, there will be batteries with longer or shorter ‘sword blade cells’ in the future. The ‘C’ value given for the charging and discharging rate is an indicator of the ratio of battery size to charging and discharging capacity. At 1C, an 80 kWh battery can be charged with a maximum of 80 kW. At 8C, the same battery can theoretically be charged with eight times the charging power – i.e. up to 640 kW. However, this is just one example; it is not yet known how much energy the future BYD battery will have.
As CarNewsChina writes further, the very fast-charging battery version with ‘shorter blades’ and 160 Wh/kg will be priced “similarly to the current generation blade battery or slightly higher.” The reason for this is that the production of this version is difficult to scale and BYD only has limited influence over the suppliers. The more energy-efficient version, on the other hand, is expected to cost 15 per cent less than the current generation. According to rumours, the new blade battery will be used in the U7 sedan of BYD’s Yangwang subsidiary, among others.
In the Chinese battery market, BYD has achieved a market share of 24.4 per cent in the current year after three out of four quarters. This is according to data from the China EV DataTracker. BYD’s 101 GWh of installed electric vehicle battery capacity represents an increase of 19.4 per cent compared to the same period last year. BYD relied almost exclusively on LFP batteries. In comparison: CATL secured 46 per cent of the market in China with an installed capacity of 183.02 GWh (+45% YoY). CATL’s growth was primarily driven by LFP batteries (+60%), less so by NMC batteries (+28%).
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