What should I do if the electric vehicle battery expires?

The “Announcement Concerning Exemption from the Purchase of New Energy Vehicles” issued by the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation and the Ministry of Industry and Information clearly stated that auto companies must enter the Catalogue of New Energy Vehicles Exempted from Vehicle Purchase Taxes. New energy vehicle power battery, motor, electronic control and other key components provide warranty of not less than 5 years or 100,000 kilometers (whichever comes first). What happens after the warranty period of the battery of an electric car, and how can it be solved?

After the power battery enters the market, two major problems cannot be solved: First, after the sale of the battery, consumers are most concerned about the quality of the warranty period, the cost of the battery maintenance replacement is too high and the maintenance of the subject is not clear; second, the battery scrap And recycling, especially in the field of battery recycling, currently lacks corresponding standards. The data shows that a 20-gram mobile lithium battery can contaminate the water of 3 standard swimming pools. If it is abandoned on the land, it can pollute 1 square kilometers of land. About 50 years, a pollution level of about 1 ton battery can be imagined.

On the above issue, the reporter interviewed Prince Dongdong, director of the National 863 electric vehicle major special power battery test center. In his opinion, after the power battery exceeds the warranty period, there will be two cases: First, the individual batteries in the battery pack may have problems. Through the vehicle manufacturers to find battery manufacturers for maintenance; Second, the battery pack completely scrapped, which requires the complete replacement of the battery pack, the battery is no longer suitable for electric cars will enter the cascade utilization state, and finally be recycled.

Maintenance and Cascade Utilization after Maintenance

"The warranty period is not equal to the battery life." Prince Dong told reporters, "In fact, consumers do not have to worry too much about battery performance. Generally speaking, as long as the battery capacity is higher than 80%, electric vehicles can be used normally. If they are in use, In the case of individual batteries, only the corresponding batteries need to be replaced. There is no need to replace the entire battery pack, so the cost will not be too high."

However, due to the uneven quality of batteries in the industry, both private and corporate customers are worried about the performance of the battery after the warranty period. After communicating with several companies, the reporters found that many companies have launched corresponding services for this phenomenon. Entitlement and discount recovery services to eliminate customer concerns.

The staff of the China Eastern Lithium Battery (Luoyang) Co., Ltd., responsible for the domestic market, told reporters, “We have adopted a five-year warranty for public transport customers and signed an extended warranty agreement for paid services. For companies that cannot continue to use batteries, the company will It's discounted."

When communicating with the staff, the reporter learned that due to the different types and capacities of batteries, it is difficult for companies to provide a uniform extended warranty fee standard, which is mostly negotiated and settled on a case-by-case basis.

For power batteries that do not meet the standards for the use of electric vehicles, they should theoretically enter the stage of echelon utilization. The market staff of Guinness Guo'an Gugli told reporters that the batteries replaced by electric vehicles can be used in civilian fields and can continue to be used in energy storage areas such as new energy distributed power stations, street lamps, and communication base stations, as well as in electric field vehicles. , tour buses, golf carts and other low-speed electric vehicles, the use of battery cascades to save costs.

Battery recovery is more difficult than stepping up the battery.

Power battery faces difficulties in recovery

The biggest problem with power batteries in the recycling field is the lack of recycling standards. In Prince Dong’s view, there is also no standard for how to use cascades. “There is no clear standard for how much battery capacity can be used to enter the next ladder. The degree of use can no longer be used for ladders, and there is no clear standard for entry into the recycling program."

In addition to the lack of recycling standards, enterprise qualification has become another bottleneck restricting battery recycling. “As the battery attenuation level deepens, the battery's safety performance is also declining. Recycling companies need to have corresponding means and capabilities, and companies with appropriate qualifications are required. Few.” Wang Zidong told reporters that it is very difficult to do a safe recovery of batteries.

The reality is that there are many types of lithium batteries in the country, and the battery structure is complex and there are no fixed standards, resulting in complex recycling processes and difficult to form industrial operations. Data shows that the cost of recovering lithium carbonate from lithium batteries is still the company's direct production cost. More than 5 times of the time, leading to the lack of recovery enthusiasm of the company, coupled with the lack of government incentives, power battery recycling face great difficulties.

The production, use, step utilization, and recycling of power batteries should be a complete closed-loop system. However, due to the lack of corresponding standards, excessive battery types, and lack of recycling capacity in the country, many problems occur in the later use of the power battery, and even produce The use of inefficient and more serious pollution problems, the occurrence of these conditions are contrary to the original intention of the development of electric vehicles, we can see, a healthy industrial ecosystem can not be separated from the government, enterprises and individuals with the cooperation and efforts.

【comment】

Solved the warranty period of power battery issues need to be put on the agenda

The bottleneck of the power battery is a long-standing problem. One is on the production side, and there is a high requirement on consistency. One on the use side cannot be overcharged. In addition to these two issues, there is also a difficult problem: What should I do if I have a battery after the warranty period? At present, I do not see a good solution.

Prior to this, the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the “Announcement on Exemption from Purchase Taxes for New Energy Vehicles” explicitly mentioning that, while the relevant vehicle model technology must meet the national standards, it must also “save power batteries for new energy vehicles, The key parts and components such as motor and electronic control shall be guaranteed for not less than 5 years or 100,000 kilometers (whichever comes first).

The first phase of new energy vehicle demonstration and promotion in China started in 2009. In the first few years, the power battery used in the first few years was short and the quantity was small. There was no uniform requirement for quality assurance. The battery exposed after the warranty period was not so outstanding. . Nowadays, in recent years, the sales of new energy vehicles in China have grown explosively, and the number of power batteries that exceed the warranty period has also shown a geometric progression. Even though the number of batteries running in the first phase is relatively small, it is now over the warranty period. The issue of battery exposure beyond the warranty period has become increasingly prominent.

After the warranty period, the power battery still has 80% of the energy density, but it is not suitable to be used as a power battery, and it is more than enough to send it to other uses. For example, the batteries used in automobiles are used in energy storage or communications. This practice has had a successful precedent in foreign countries. Thanks to continuous recycling measures and increased scale-up effects, the cost of Tesla's 18650 cylindrical battery used on the Model S is reduced by approximately 40%. Tesla's price is always high, and if there is no recycling of batteries, the price will be higher.

However, the recycling of batteries that have passed the warranty period in China is not satisfactory. According to the author's understanding, BYD manufactures and sells electric vehicles as well as photovoltaic power generation and energy storage. The recycling of power batteries is relatively good. Other new energy auto companies are almost monopolizing the production and sales of electric vehicles, and are not so optimistic about the recycling of batteries.

At a seminar on new energy vehicles, the author chatted with an expert in the field of communications. He told the author that they are not very willing to use old batteries that have been eliminated from vehicles at the standby power supply of communication base stations. Used before, it exposed the problem.

The technical level of each lithium battery company is uneven, using different brands of old batteries in the same base station, battery management will be a lot of trouble, some of the shoddy batteries, the attenuation is also very fast in the base station, these batteries are fast Attenuation affects the performance of other batteries. In order to maintain consistency, the same battery should be used in the same base station. However, when the total number is not enough, individual base stations need to be matched with other brands of batteries. The energy storage in the base station is not as demanding as the use of electric vehicles, but it also requires maintenance. After all, it is batteries that have been eliminated from electric vehicles. Maintenance costs cannot be ignored. In particular, some base stations are relatively remote and it is not easy to maintain them. This person said that from the perspective of a single battery purchase cost, the price of the old battery is relatively low, but from the perspective of the whole life cycle, the cost of the old battery is not necessarily dominant.

Solved the problem of the battery out of the warranty period, we should adopt a systematic solution, first, the policy measures in place; the second is to bind the interests of production, use, recovery of several links together.

At present, the auto companies themselves recycle batteries and look for other companies in need. This kind of market economic behavior is understandable. The author believes that at the initial stage, the relevant departments should introduce some encouraging policies. After this system is mature and perfect, let it be seen again. Unseen hands function.

The batteries that have passed the warranty period are used in the field of energy storage or communications. These practices are related to the interests of BYD and they certainly have enthusiasm. Other companies have their own abacus and their enthusiasm is not so high. The author suggests that the battery that is eliminated from the electric vehicle user and meets the detection standard of the communication company can be considered for the owner to have some discounted call charges, or the Internet traffic discount. This can encourage users to drive electric cars properly, and also allows companies and users to return the batteries to regular units for recycling, avoiding blackwork.

The longer the time is drawn, the more batteries will be over the warranty period, and the solution should be on the agenda!