NIO's Promising Battery Technology Exposed
At NIO’s launch event a week ago, NIO founder and CEO Li Bin's statement sent the company's market value into the 100 billions. But industry reactions that followed show that Li's so-called solid-state battery was only a brag.
NIO's Solid-State Battery Hype
"Our mass-produced solid-state battery technology can achieve an ultra-high energy density of 360wh/kg, and the range will exceed 1,000km."
On January 9, Li Bin's words "mass-produced solid-state battery" shocked the industry.
But the "face slaps" soon followed.
Xu Xingwu, executive vice president of Hefei Guoxuan Gaoke(gotion.com.cn), said though there are several domestic manufacturers actively engaged in solid-state battery research and development, large-scale production and application is only expected to happen in 2025, "For now, solid-state batteries can only apply to certain applications, the current industry chain structure will not change much within 10 years."
Xiong Boqing, chairman of Guolian Automobile Power Battery Research Institute(glabat.com), said solid-state batteries will not be commercially available so soon. "Total-solid-state battery is still far from commercialization, and it is still very difficult to even do a demonstration. It is quite difficult to completely overcome all the problems of total-solid-state batteries in 10 years, at least these 5 years are out of the question anyway."
So the press was curious and inquired which company had the strength to provide solid-state batteries for NIO.
Some industry insiders initially speculated that it was Qingtao Energy.
Qingtao Energy(jsqingtao.com), which is deeply involved in solid-state lithium battery technology, has a core team founded by Tsinghua academician Nan Zewen. Nan Zewen became a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at the age of 49 and has been researching solid-state lithium batteries for many years, and his team has claimed that the energy density of mass-produced solid-state lithium batteries is as high as 400Wh/kg.
However, on January 10, the general manager of Qingtao Energy responded in Wechat Moment that "Qingtao has no such plan" (referring to the cooperation with NIO).
Others speculate that the supplier will be the battery giant CATL. CATL, the largest supplier of liquid lithium batteries in the world, has also been researching areas such as solid-state batteries.
However, CATL subsequently said that its total-solid-state batteries under research will not be available until 2030 at the earliest.
Yu Qingjiao, secretary-general of Zhongguancun New Battery Technology Innovation Alliance, also pointed out that what NIO will use is not a solid-state battery in the pure sense, and that it will take time to mass-produce and be installed in vehicles.
The industry's reaction is that Li Bin is deliberately misleading consumers by saying that the solid-state battery technology has matured and can be applied to EVs.
Solid-State Battery
How far are we from the solid-state battery?
Now, whether it is a cell phone or an electric car, lithium batteries are used on a large scale. A lithium battery is composed of a positive electrode, negative electrode, liquid electrolyte, and diaphragm. When the battery is charged and discharged, the lithium-ion will swing back and forth between the positive and negative electrodes, and the liquid electrolyte is the medium for the lithium-ion to go back and forth.
The solid-state battery, on the other hand, turns the liquid electrolyte into a solid-state. Solid-state electrolyte thus has higher energy density and better safety. Whoever is equipped with a mature solid-state battery first will have superior performance.
The day after the launch, Li Bin, who was questioned by the media, admitted that NIO's upcoming application is not an total-solid-state battery, but a semi-solid-state battery with a small amount of electrolyte.
China Merchants Securities(cmschina.com) believes that the semi-solid state battery is an innovative technology compared to the existing batteries, but is not a disruptive breakthrough (the total-solid-state is), and its impact on the current market is limited.
Anxin Securities also pointed out that the semi-solid-state lithium battery is only a transitional product, not the final solution, and its impact on the existing material system is small.
Suspected letter approval violation
Many industry leaders and research institutions have proven that NIO does not have "solid-state battery technology", but only semi-solid state battery technology.
Duan Yongping, a famous Chinese investor, once said, "Right is right, wrong is wrong", "Integrity means not cheating people, doing what you should do, earning the money you should earn. ...... A smart guy can definitely cheat money, but a wise guy knows that this method of deception can never get big money, so we preach integrity".
On stage, Li Bin states solid-state batteries, but off stage, he admits that it is only semi-solid. Obviously, he does not understand this reasoning.
Although industry insiders pointed out that total-solid-state technology is currently not up to commercial use, NIO's stock price still opened nearly 10 points higher on Monday, which already points to misleading information disclosure.
When it comes to information that could cause share price fluctuations, public company officials should not release it in any public channel (including private areas such as WeChat Moments) before the company announcement. If the information is released before the announcement, it is a violation of information disclosure.
WindData shows that NIO opened Monday, Jan. 11 with a 6.42% jump to $66.99, already creating greater share price fluctuation.
NIO has a stage lead in China's electric car trio, but that lead is an extremely slim one, and Li Bin has adopted a strategy of bragging to the public in an extremely short-sighted move to consolidate NIO's advantage.
As of press time, the SEC has yet to respond to NIO's information disclosure. But no matter what, Li Bin's move has left consumers with an extremely poor image. After all, which consumer would pick a company whose owner likes to brag and mislead consumers?
