After my recent tweet on SIB, the 400GWh of projects signed in China this year really surprised a lot of people, so I will just talk a little bit about chemistry and BYD
There are basically 3 different SIB chemistries: Layered Oxide, Prussian Blue and Polyanionic
LO has highest energy density, but low charge cycle and higher cost than other two. Many SIB producers pick this chemistry
Prussian has blue low cost, high energy density, but poor conductivity, toxic CN groups & serious gas production fro crystallized water
Polyanion has lowest energy density, but is cheap, has high charge cycles & high voltage.
BYD works with both LO and Poly chemistry
2023 is considered Year 0 from China’s SIB industry, because all the supply chain is forming (see below for cathode/anode/electrolyte/separator suppliers)
There are still problems: Li prices crashed, market hasn't picked the preferred chemistry, High Voltage electrolyte problems not fully resolved
Earlier this year, BYD has recently signed 10B RMB plant with Huaihai for a 30 GWh plant serving micro cars. Likely to serve Seagull later next year.
BYD Expects SIB chemistry for both Poly & LO to dip below LFP next year and then dip even more in 2025. LO will have quite a cost advantage over LFP by then. Similarly, energy density & charge cycles are improving. By 2025, BYD expects LO to achieve 180 wh/kg energy density & 6000 charge cycles. Poly expected to achieve 150wh/kg energy density & 10k charge cycle. That’s likely at cell level
Is it reaching that level, here is a list of cylindrical battery BYD just started producing
The bottom right marked one is SIB chemistry. It stores 15.4Ah at 3.1V (~48Wh) in 400g. Similarly, FC4680P using LFP chemistry achieved similar energy in 330g. LFP works out to be about 150 Wh/kg while SIB works out to about 120. This is at pack level, which would be lower than cell level energy density.
MFC4680 (Lithium Iron Manganese Phosphate) achieves 55Wh in 330g (~168Wh/kg) while LC4665P (Lithium Manganese Oxide) achieves 44Wh in 270g (164Wh/Kg)
So LMFP > LMO > LFP > SIB in energy density
Even so, 120 Wh/kg at pack level is reasonable for a new SIB chemistry at this point. A micro-car SIB factory will likely use next iteration of this chemistry. The 1st gen LFP blade battery achieve bw 140-150Wh/kg at pack level thru great design. If BYD can already reach 120Wh/kg at pack level & 140Wh/kg at cell level, then it’s reasonable to assume it can get to 130-140Wh/kg at pack level for micro cars by Q4 of 2024 when this new factory is likely to start production. Cost likely to be lower than LFP by the time production ramps up in 2025.
I think SIB would be even more popular next year if Lithium prices haven’t fallen this much, but it just shows battery production is not limited. There are many chemistry options that will be explored by battery makers like CATL and BYD. Countries don’t need to corner Li mines like they are hydrocarbon.
You should adjust your writing style a little. Unlike Twitter, Substack doesn't limit the number of characters you can use, so there's less need to abbreviate everything. Your Substack posts would be easier and more enjoyable to read if the sentences were less compressed.