Are Ni-MH batteries still the mainstream technology?

On October 28, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued an announcement to publicly solicit opinions on the 'Regulations for Automotive Power Battery Industry. According to the opinion draft issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, traction battery refers to a device installed in a car that can store electrical energy and can be recharged to provide energy for driving the car. Including lithium-ion power batteries, metal hydride nickel power batteries and super capacitors, etc. (excluding lead-acid batteries). The draft opinion provides regulatory opinions on the automotive traction battery industry from seven aspects: enterprise basic requirements, production conditions requirements, technical capabilities requirements, product requirements, quality assurance capabilities requirements, sales and after-sales service, and standardized management. This year, this is the third time that national ministries have officially confirmed the mainstream status of nickel-metal hydride batteries through official channels. On June 13, the website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced the implementation plan of the 2014 industrial transformation and upgrading strong foundation project. The implementation plan for the nickel-hydrogen battery for hybrid vehicles declared by Hunan Keba Automobile Power Battery Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Corun, is in the public announcement. On July 2, the Ministry of Commerce issued an announcement on the decision of centralized anti-monopoly review, with restrictive conditions to approve the joint venture of Corun and Toyota to be established by Corun, and pointed out in the announcement that the nickel-metal hydride battery technology is mature and the safety is good. , The price is low. At present, about 95% of hybrid vehicles use nickel-metal hydride batteries. Studies have shown that although lithium batteries are the development direction of power batteries in the future, their safety cannot be guaranteed and the cost is relatively high. From the perspective of development trend and speed, only nickel-metal hydride power batteries have the highest degree of industrialization. Because nickel-metal hydride battery technology is the most mature, it will continue to be the mainstream of new energy vehicles for a long time in the future. After that, nickel-metal hydride battery technology will become more and more competitive. Lithium iron phosphate and hydrogen fuel cells divide the world. Battery giants Panasonic and Sanyo also believe that lithium-ion power batteries cannot replace nickel-metal hydride power batteries in the near future. The main reason is that nickel-metal hydride power batteries are cheap and safe and have reached large-scale production. There are still issues that need to be tackled on lithium batteries, such as safety, so commercialization will take time. All hybrid vehicles that have been mass-produced around the world use the nickel-hydrogen battery system. Toyota has always adhered to the mainstream of nickel-hydrogen batteries in hybrid power. Last year, Toyota built a production line with an annual output of 100,000 units, which is still nickel-hydrogen batteries, which fully proves Ni-MH batteries have a strong and long-lasting vitality in the market. There was a period of time when the industry's judgments about 'Ni-MH batteries are backward batteries' were raging. The two most important indicators for considering automotive power batteries are safety and cost. Lithium batteries are the core power battery of pure electric vehicles, but the technical problems faced by lithium batteries have not been able to make substantial breakthroughs. One is safety. The hidden dangers of fire, combustion and even explosion of lithium batteries cannot be completely eliminated at present. Second, lithium-ion batteries need to protect the circuit to prevent the battery from being overcharged and over-discharged. The third is that the production requirements are high and the cost is high. Lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are currently the mainstream technology, still have congenital defects such as large size, heavy weight, slow charging, and short battery life. However, from the perspective of the industrial cycle, nickel-hydrogen power batteries have entered a mature stage, forming large-scale production and having price advantages. Moreover, the nickel-metal hydride battery is also the only power battery in the battery system currently used in hybrid vehicles that has been actually verified and commercialized and produced on a large scale. Hybrid vehicles, including Toyota Prius, the world's highest-selling Toyota Prius, generally use nickel-metal hydride batteries. It can be seen that in the field of energy-saving and new energy vehicles, nickel-hydrogen batteries are still the mainstream of commercialization. According to my country's new energy vehicle plan, the development of hybrid vehicles in the next few years will be an explosive period for hybrid vehicles, which will provide development opportunities for nickel-hydrogen batteries that are more mature in technology and more suitable for hybrid vehicles.