Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 515 A New Storm

When Xu Shenxue was speaking on the stage, a Yun Robot S4 robot had already walked onto the stage. At the same time, a Hailan SR3 supercar also drove onto the stage automatically.

Xu Shenxue’s left hand is a robot and his right hand is a Hailan car!

Xu Shenxue continued: "The technological revolution of batteries has never stopped. After liquid lithium batteries, we developed semi-solid batteries, and then continued to advance on the solid-state battery technology route!"

"At the beginning, our engineering team repeatedly tried three technical routes, namely the oxide solid-state battery technology route, the sulfide solid-state battery technology route and the polymer solid-state battery technology route!"

"However, we found various technical defects during the research and development process. The polymer technology route has low technical difficulty, low cost, good thermal stability, and good air stability, but poor energy density, poor ionic conductivity at room temperature, and short cycle life!"

"The oxide technology route has good stability and is safer, but it has low ionic conductivity at room temperature, poor solid-solid contact surface, and is prone to brittle cracking during mechanical processing!"

"The sulfide technology route has high energy density and good solid-solid contact surface, but poor electrolyte stability and air stability. It is very sensitive to air, so production and processing are more difficult."

"The three common technical routes all have their advantages and disadvantages. Is there a technical route that has the above advantages but no disadvantages?"

"The answer is yes. After years of research and development, our engineering team has optimized and improved the positive and negative electrode materials, made targeted improvements based on the advantages and disadvantages of traditional technical routes, and finally proposed a new technical route of mixed oxide polymers!"

"Compared with the traditional technical route, our newly developed mixed oxide polymer technical route has many new technical features such as high thermal stability, high air stability, good solid-solid contact, good battery rate performance, good ionic conductivity at room temperature, high energy density, and high cycle life!"

As Xu Shenxue was speaking, the large screen behind him displayed the many characteristics of the mixed oxidation polymer technology route one by one!

And all of them are high and good!

In fact, this new technology route of hybrid oxide polymer solid-state battery is not without defects...it's just that Xu Shenxue didn't mention it. For example, the cycle life is actually average. Although it is stronger than the solid-state batteries of the three traditional technology routes, it is actually slightly worse than the previous semi-solid-state batteries.

Another very important point is that because a variety of newly developed new materials are used to prepare electrolytes, positive electrodes and negative electrodes, new materials are very expensive.

At the same time, the production environment requirements are also very high. The brittle nature of oxide solid-state batteries also exists in the production process, which places very high technical requirements on the manufacturing plant and requires a very large investment in the production line.

Ultimately, this leads to higher production costs.

Excluding R&D costs, if we only consider the manufacturing costs, the cost per kilogram is equivalent to twice that of the Hailan semi-solid-state battery... While the energy density has doubled, its manufacturing cost has also doubled.

How to say it, the disadvantage of this thing is actually very obvious, that is, it is expensive!
However, for Zhiyun Group or Hailan Automobile, these cost increases are not very obvious disadvantages, because their products are sold at high prices and have high premiums, which are high enough to support the cost of solid-state batteries.

However, it will be difficult for other car manufacturers to use this solid-state battery because the product price is too low to support the high cost of the solid-state battery.

Many car manufacturers only sell their electric cars for tens or hundreds of thousands of yuan... It's impossible for them to equip such electric cars with expensive solid-state batteries.

Of course, Xu Shenxue did not say at the scene that his own solid-state batteries are expensive. In any case, solid-state batteries will not be sold to the outside world for a long time. This kind of solid-state battery will only be used for Hailan Automobile’s own electric vehicles, Zhiyun Group’s robots, and other mobile phones, notebooks, tablets and other portable devices of other sister companies.

Therefore, there is no need to talk about the cost issue.

Now Xu Shenxue is bragging on the stage about the various advantages of his own new oxide polymer solid-state battery, especially the two biggest advantages of safety and energy density, which he is bragging about very hard.

"For batteries, nothing is more important than safety, and the biggest feature of our oxide polymer solid-state battery is safety!"

"In our rigorous tests, whether it is a needle puncture test or a collision test, our solid-state batteries have withstood the test and there has never been a case of fire!"

"Now, let our staff conduct on-site testing!"

"In order to ensure the authenticity of the test, we directly used the battery on this robot to conduct the experiment!"

While Xu Shenxue was speaking, a staff member came on stage, removed the battery from the robot, and then conducted an acupuncture experiment with a steel needle on the spot!

The staff was seen conducting more than a dozen needle penetration tests on the battery. If it were an ordinary lithium battery, or even the semi-solid battery previously developed by Hailan Automobile, this violent needle penetration test would have caused a fire!
However, this solid-state battery did not react at all. There was no flame, only a faint smoke, and it was very slight.

Xu Shenxue continued: "Our oxide polymer solid-state battery can keep its internal temperature within 50 degrees even if it is subjected to such a destructive and violent experiment. There is absolutely no possibility of fire!"

"The same goes for collision and squeezing!"

The staff moved the battery to the test bench and used a machine to conduct a violent collision test. Under the huge pressure of the machine, the battery was flattened, but it still did not catch fire, only emitted a faint white smoke.

"It's not just that the solid electrolyte is safer, it's also because we use a brand new negative electrode material. We abandoned the traditional lithium metal material and used a brand new metal-carbon composite material, which has unprecedentedly improved safety!"

"No matter how you treat this kind of battery, there is no possibility of spontaneous combustion in theory!"

Xu Shenxue's commentary on the stage, as well as the various violent tests performed by the staff, left the crowd at the scene stunned!

Many netizens who were watching the live broadcast online were also stunned.

People who have some knowledge of batteries immediately discovered: This is definitely not a traditional lithium battery... The early negative electrode material probably doesn't even contain lithium metal.

Otherwise, when a traditional lithium battery has an internal short circuit, the lithium material that serves as the negative electrode is prone to catching fire... Ninety percent of the reasons why batteries are prone to catching fire can be attributed to the lithium material.

However, the new solid-state battery from Hailan Battery in front of us does not catch fire at all, which is not in line with the characteristics of lithium batteries.

"What the hell did this Sea Blue Battery come up with?"

"Can anyone tell me what this oxidized polymer is? And what is that metal carbon negative electrode material?"

Not to mention netizens, many technical personnel in the battery field at the press conference were stunned.

This oxide polymer solid-state battery completely exceeded their expectations.

At the beginning, many people in the battery industry believed that the solid-state battery developed by Hailan Battery was just one of the three technical routes of solid-state batteries, and in terms of technical difficulty, they speculated that it might be a polymer solid-state battery.

This is also what many people believe, that polymer solid-state batteries are likely to be the first solid-state batteries to achieve commercial mass production.

However, Hailan Battery's solid-state battery does not belong to any of the three existing technical routes, but is an oxidized polymer that has never been heard of.

Just by hearing the name, they guessed that it might be a combination of oxides and polymers, but without seeing detailed technical specifications or conducting detailed technical tests, they didn't know what it was.

As for the "metal-carbon negative electrode material" mentioned by Xu Shenxue, they speculated that it might be some kind of material that combines metal and carbon, but it is difficult to say what it is specifically.

The solid-state battery in front of them does not belong to any of the technical routes they know!
This is very confusing!

When Xu Shenxue was introducing the product on the stage, he did not give too many detailed technical explanations. Instead, he focused on performance indicators such as safety, energy density, and cycle life.

As for how it is made, there is no need to explain, and consumers don’t care... As for what industry insiders think, it’s up to them to think whatever they want.

After undergoing a series of various violent tests, the safety of solid-state batteries was proven in front of countless live audiences and numerous high-definition cameras.

Xu Shenxue continued: "A new solid-state battery must not only be safe, but it also needs to have a very high energy density!"

"When we first developed the lithium iron phosphate battery, the energy density reached 200 watt-hours per kilogram. Of course, this is still the best lithium iron phosphate battery in the world, with many advantages such as high safety, high energy density and low cost. It has been used in many of our Hailan cars!"

"Then we developed a semi-solid-state battery, which is safer and has a higher energy density. The energy density has reached 300 watt-hours per kilogram, which is also the world's top lithium battery. It is installed in many of our Hailan cars and Zhiyun robots!"

"This semi-solid-state battery is also widely used in our Zhiyun mobile phones, computers and other smart terminal devices!"

"But this is still not enough. Even after adopting our semi-solid-state battery, the pure electric range of our Hailan car can easily reach 700 kilometers!"

"But it's still not enough!"

"Our pursuit of technology is endless, and finally we have made a brand new solid-state battery!" "Our latest Poseidon solid-state battery system has an energy density of an astonishing 700 watt-hours per kilogram, and this is not its limit. My engineer told me that the energy density of this oxide polymer solid-state battery can be further improved in the future, and it is possible to reach 1,000 watt-hours per kilogram in the future!"

"The energy density has doubled, which brings huge endurance advantages to our Hailan cars and Zhiyun robots!"

“During our testing, the Hailan SR3 equipped with the Poseidon battery system had a maximum pure electric range of kilometers!”

"This means that if you just drive it on a daily commute, you can even go a month without charging!"

"If you're driving long distances, you can drive all the way from Shenzhen to Jinling without having to charge your car!"

"This will be a major revolution in electric vehicles, and range anxiety will completely disappear!"

"In terms of cycle life, our Poseidon battery system has a cycle life of more than 3,000 times. Coupled with its high energy density, its service life is almost twice that of solid-state batteries of the same weight, which is fully capable of meeting the long-term use of the battery!"

In the past, everyone believed that a major flaw of solid-state batteries was their cycle life. For example, if solid-state batteries using the three traditional technical routes were to be commercially mass-produced, it would be great if they could last a thousand times.

The oxide polymer battery developed by Hailan Battery can achieve 3,000 times, which is a significant lead, and is stronger than the ternary lithium battery of about 2,000 times.

Of course, even so, its cycle life is actually not as good as that of lithium iron phosphate batteries or semi-solid-state lithium batteries.

Hailan Battery's lithium iron phosphate battery has a cycle life of up to 3,500 times, making it the world's top lithium iron phosphate battery, far exceeding Ningdai Battery's ternary lithium battery, which has a cycle life of approximately 2,000 times.

The semi-solid-state battery developed by Hailan Battery has a longer cycle life because of the mixture of solid electrolytes, and can even reach 4,000 times. This is a performance data that makes other battery manufacturers drool.

The current oxide polymer solid-state battery has a cycle life of only 3,000 times. Although it seems a little less, it can actually be used because it has a higher energy density and does not require frequent charging!

To put it simply, the previous Hailan SR2 sports car long-range flagship version can run kilometers on a single charge using a semi-solid-state battery. If it can be charged times, the theoretical mileage is million kilometers.

Taking into account factors such as battery degradation and the higher power consumption of daily driving, we will simply give it a 50% discount and say it has a mileage of 1.4 million kilometers.

A Hailan SR3 can travel kilometers on a single charge. If charged times, the theoretical mileage is million kilometers.

Also, if we take into account that the battery energy density will decay and cut it in half, that would be 2.1 million kilometers. This figure will be higher during actual use.

Two million and one hundred thousand kilometers, this total mileage has greatly exceeded the life limit of daily vehicle use. Unless it is an operating vehicle, a family car can be used up to two million kilometers.

There are many people who buy a car and drive it for several years, but only run it for 30,000 or 40,000 kilometers.

Therefore, a cycle life of 3,000 times and a total range of 2 million kilometers are completely sufficient, and even a little excessive.

Not to mention two million kilometers, even the previous Hailan cars equipped with lithium iron phosphate batteries have a total mileage of about one million kilometers, but it is still enough. The earliest owners of Hailan cars are still using their cars normally, and many of them have a battery health rate of more than 95%... If used normally, there will be no problem using them for another ten or eight years.

High energy density and high cycle life result in a long service life, which is also very important.

After all, vehicles are large commodities. For most families, it is normal to buy a car and use it for ten or eight years, and it is even common to use it for more than ten years.

You can't ask users to replace batteries after just a few years of use.

Xu Shenxue continued to introduce: "Our new Poseidon solid-state battery system has excellent low-temperature performance. In an environment of minus 20 degrees, the battery attenuation is only 10%, which greatly exceeds the previous liquid batteries and semi-solid batteries!"

As Xu Shenxue spoke, a comparison picture appeared on the PPT behind him.

"Our Hailan SLMC, when using the third-generation lithium iron phosphate battery at minus 20 degrees, maintains a battery life of 65% under comprehensive use."

"The long-range semi-solid-state battery version of Hailan SLMC can maintain a comprehensive range of 75% at minus 20 degrees!"

"We use the new Poseidon solid-state battery system. When tested at minus 20 degrees Celsius, the comprehensive endurance can be maintained at 90%!"

"If we only consider low-temperature battery degradation, then our Poseidon solid-state battery has a better level. In our actual test, at minus 20 degrees, the battery degradation was only 8%, which is a figure that we never dared to think of before!"

There are many problems with using electric vehicles in northern regions in winter, such as battery power attenuation in low temperature environments. In actual use, for example, when turning on a hot air air conditioner, components such as motors and tires consume more power in low temperatures. Therefore, the range of electric vehicles in northern regions is relatively poor in winter.

This is an inherent defect of electric vehicles. No matter how powerful the battery is, it cannot stop electric vehicles from using extra power for heating and warmth when used in winter.

However, the application of solid-state batteries can solve this problem to a large extent, because the power attenuation of solid-state batteries is smaller in low temperature environments. Even if electric vehicles consume more power in winter, they can still maintain a fairly good overall endurance.

Good safety, high energy density, good low-temperature attenuation, and a decent cycle life... When Xu Shenxue listed the many performance characteristics of Poseidon solid-state batteries one by one, many people were numb.

This kind of battery should not exist at all given current technological conditions!
How did the R&D personnel of HaiLan Automobile produce the HaiLan battery?

As for this question, actually the engineers at Hailan Battery couldn’t give them a very detailed answer… They could only say that we just tried a bunch of new materials and then we made it.

If you want to know how new materials are made, don't ask them. Ask the Materials Research Institute under Xiannvshan Holdings.

Many new materials used in solid-state batteries, especially the oxidized polymers used as electrolytes and the metallic silicon materials used as negative electrode materials, were developed by the Materials Research Institute under Xiannvshan Holdings and have nothing to do with Hailan batteries.

The Materials Research Institute under Xiannvshan Holdings has developed a large variety of new materials in recent years. Some of these materials are useless and have been put on the shelf, some can be used right away, and some cannot be used for the time being.

As for material research, that’s it. All kinds of material experiments are done. Whether the new materials produced are useful or not is another matter...especially now that the Materials Research Institute of Xiannvshan Holdings is still working on artificial intelligence materials science.

Scientists come up with a new idea, and then use the new idea to run big data... After the big data runs out some seemingly feasible routes, they conduct experiments based on these technical routes.

If we do this, there is a certain probability that we can produce something new... However, what the new things produced in this way are useful for and what fields they can be used in is another matter.

Most of the time, the researchers who develop the materials produced in this way actually don’t know what they can be used for... Anyway, they just study them like this, and what field they can be used in is a matter for the application field.

This R&D model has also led to the development of a large number of messy new materials by the Materials Research Institute under Xiannvshan Holdings and several artificial intelligence materials research institutes under Zhiyun Group.

Among them is the crucial room-temperature superconducting material, which is classified as top secret.

There are countless new materials that are not well-known or whose applications are not yet known. Researchers come up with one or several so-called new materials almost every day!
When developing solid-state batteries, the R&D personnel at Hailan Battery analyzed and tried these new materials one by one. In the end, they found that the combination of several of the materials was very suitable for making solid-state batteries... Thus, a new oxide polymer solid-state battery was developed.

If you say that the research and development process of Hailan Battery has low technical content, that is definitely nonsense. Various experiments and the use of different materials for different combination experiments are also very important.

But if you say it has high technical content, this material was not developed by them themselves.

Xu Shenxue boasted about solid-state batteries on the stage for more than half an hour!
After that, I started to introduce Hailan Automobile’s new generation flagship super sports car, Hailan SR3!

This super sports car represents the most advanced technology of Hailan Automobile in all aspects!
It is equipped with a new generation of advanced intelligent assisted driving 4.2 system, which is the second-generation L4-level driving system within Hailan Automobile.

Equipped with the Poseidon solid-state battery system, the pure electric range can reach an exaggerated 1,400 kilometers!
It is equipped with a third-generation super-fast charging system specially designed for solid-state batteries. It can charge the car in ten minutes and allow it to run 500 kilometers.

Then there is the new generation of smart driving cockpit and the upgraded in-vehicle AI system, which can control various vehicles based on voice commands. It does not need to be connected to the Internet like many other artificial intelligence terminals. The new generation of in-vehicle AI uses local computing power, so it can still be used offline.

In order to meet the computing power requirements of the Advanced Intelligent Assisted Driving 4.2 system and on-board AI, the on-board computing center of the Hailan SR3 is equipped with eight EYQ5 computing chips. The chip is manufactured using the second-generation seven-nanometer process. The computing power of a single chip is 260TOPS, and the computing power of eight chips combined is 2080TOPS.

In addition, the vehicle-mounted computing center is equipped with two ZY38 big data processing chips, which are responsible for processing massive amounts of various sensor data. This chip is actually more important. Only with it can the computing power requirements of artificial intelligence for general computing centers be greatly reduced.

Then there are other types of chips responsible for processing various smart terminal devices in the car's smart cockpit.

The Hailan car made in this way is actually a robot with wheels... Its computing power is even higher than that of the intelligent robots under Zhiyun Group.

After all, the power supply of a robot is not as large as that of a car!
Whether it is the Hailan SR3 or the Yun Robot S4, they all use the most advanced chips of various types, the top artificial intelligence technology and solid-state batteries!
This year, Xu Shenxue will set off a new storm in artificial intelligence and solid-state batteries!
He expects this storm to sweep across the world!
Stimulate the sales of Hailan cars to three million units, and stimulate the sales of robots to go even higher!

(End of this chapter)