To promote green economy, Asia supplier provides solution for the North American automotive battery industry.

 

The annual Advanced Automotive Battery Conference (AABC-2009) is still on-going in Los Angeles. Influenced by the policy of “One million electric vehicles for America”, this year’s conference attracts the attention of all industry players more than ever before. Asian participants are the focal points of this event for their role in this emerging supply chain.

As the only LFP cathode material supplier that participates this important event, Aleees provides its suggestion to the North American counterparts to promote the fast development of this battery technology and healthy growth of this emerging energy storage industry.

From the industry point of view, Aleees the related players in the Li-ion automotive battery industry should solve their present problems of inferior performance and high cost. The industry players can not avoid this obligation by expecting government subsidy with taxpayer’s money. This problem should be resolved through the joint efforts of all the participants in this supply chain. Aleees feels that the automotive battery industry did not pay enough attention to forge reasonable cost structure, which is the major concern of the consumers. The battery pack of a PHEV-40 might cost $20,000 at present. The enthusiasm of eco-concern consumers will be extinguished by such a price tag. Aleees believes that the price of Asian automotive batteries will fall to $1 per Amp-Hour within the next two years. Such a price adjustment will reduce the cost of battery packs for over 50% and make PHEV-40 an affordable, eco-friendly product. But it will take a long way for the North American automotive battery makers to get to this point. Aleees suggests that the related companies should set aside their dispute for the moment and work toward the common interest of the global electric vehicle supply chain. This goal could be achieved through cross-licensing and joint-venture production in the shortest time span.

For a technical standpoint, although LFP material has been considered as the answer to the safety and cost issues for the automotive industry, this cathode material is not widely used because of some problems. The level of +2 charged Fe cation and other impurities are difficult to control, which affects the energy density of the cells. The particle size makes it hard to handle, which results in low yield factor. Solving these problems is the key to achieve the desirable $1/AH cost level for LFP cells. As the only Asian LFP manufacturer that attends AABC, Aleees believes these problems should be resolved through the cooperation of related companies. For the past decade, patent related issues were the major roadblocks that hindered the growth of this technology. Now that such issues are about to be cleared, all the LFP material makers should work together so that downstream batter makers will get high quality and low cost material supply, and this “One million electrical vehicles for America” target can be achieved.

Aleees announced a new Olivine-structured LFP-NCO cathode material on June 9th. Its patented co-crystalline technology of LFP and metal oxides can improve electron conductivity, product uniformity; reduce iron-ion precipitation and material costs. Through that effort, Aleees will provide the ideal cathode material for automotive batteries, so its downstream cell manufacturers and OEM makers can come up with high quality and low cost electric vehicles, so the customers will not be paying extra cost to preserve our environment.