"The 'Dragon Scale Armor Battery' Reveals Its True Form—Now Hive Energy Has the Confidence to Tackle the Price War"

At the 2023 Shanghai Auto Show, one immediate impression was that the momentum of new-energy vehicles is growing stronger than ever. According to statistics, among the more than 150 new models unveiled at this year’s show, roughly two-thirds were new-energy vehicles. This striking ratio clearly signals that an era dominated by new-energy cars is rapidly accelerating into the future. In fact, in 2022, China’s new-energy vehicle market already achieved remarkable growth, with sales reaching 6.887 million units—propelling its market penetration rate up to 25%, three years ahead of the original target of 20% set for 2025. Industry experts widely believe that by 2023, China’s new-energy vehicle penetration rate could easily surpass 30%, potentially driving annual sales to as high as 9 million units. Amidst this overwhelmingly positive market environment, some players are charging ahead blindly, while others are calmly taking stock of the situation. Yang Hongxin, Chairman and CEO of Svolt Energy, clearly belongs to the latter group. "The explosive growth of new-energy vehicles over the past few years has created a misleading perception within the industry—that these vehicles have already reached maturity," he notes. "In reality, however, numerous challenges still lie beneath the surface. For instance, large-scale production and commercialization of power batteries for vehicle integration have only been underway for about three years, leaving considerable room for improvement in areas such as safety, battery lifespan, low-temperature performance, and charging speed."
For power batteries, safety must always come first—no matter the circumstances. Especially as the market penetration of new-energy vehicles reaches a higher level, automakers will have an even lower tolerance for safety-related incidents. So, how can we reduce safety concerns associated with power batteries—or even eliminate them altogether? The only way is through continuous technological innovation.

Based on a deep understanding of industry development, Hive Energy unveiled its next-generation, highly secure, systemized power battery solution—known as the Dragon Scale Armor Battery—at its 2022 Battery Day. During this year's Shanghai Auto Show, Hive Energy also made the first public appearance of a real-scale prototype of the Dragon Scale Armor Battery.

At the exhibition, SVOLT showcased the Dragon Scale Armor battery's recently passed thermal runaway test. During the thermal runaway test, it was clearly demonstrated that heating triggered thermal runaway in the center cell of the entire pack. No flames were observed throughout the pack, and the failure of a single cell did not spread to adjacent cells, truly achieving the ultimate safety of the power battery. Yang Hongxin explained that the Dragon Scale Armor battery's ultimate safety is the result of SVOLT's exploration and implementation of a novel design architecture known as "thermal-electrical separation." Through innovative structural, cell, pack, and thermal management designs, the Dragon Scale Armor battery's thermal-electrical separation architecture completely physically isolates erupting materials from live components, fundamentally eliminating the risk of short circuits.

Currently, conventional battery cell explosion-proof valves and tabs are located on the same side, and the thermal runaway pressure relief zone is co-located with high- and low-voltage circuits. Once a cell experiences thermal runaway, erupting materials—including flammable gases, conductive graphite fragments, and electrolyte—accumulate in the pressure relief channel, causing a high-voltage short circuit and triggering thermal runaway. The Dragon Scale Armor battery, based on the second-generation Short Blade battery cell, features an explosion-proof valve located at the bottom. This allows for rapid, targeted pressure relief in the event of thermal runaway in a cell, allowing ejected material to be rapidly discharged in a targeted direction through a very short channel, preventing it from spreading to surrounding cells. Furthermore, the Dragon Scale Armor battery places the cell connectors on the side, achieving "thermal and electrical separation" in the Y and Z directions.

In addition to placing the explosion-proof valve at the bottom, the Dragon Scale Armor battery cell also accelerates pressure relief by increasing the valve area, increasing the number of valves, and optimizing their placement. This significantly reduces the maximum temperature of the cell in a thermal runaway situation. Furthermore, from a conduction perspective, the lowered cell temperature also mitigates the chain reaction to adjacent cells. For ultimate safety, the Dragon Scale Armor battery also utilizes large upper and lower water cooling plates. This design allows the cell to maintain extensive contact with the cooling plate, allowing the plate to quickly dissipate heat. Field tests using 800V super-fast charging demonstrated excellent cell temperature consistency and a 70% increase in heat transfer capacity. This not only improves battery pack safety in non-charging scenarios, but also significantly enhances the safety of electric vehicles during fast charging.

In addition, the Dragon Scale Armor battery features a highly integrated lower case design, with a water cooling plate added to the bottom and positioned away from the opening of the short-blade battery explosion-proof valve. The exhaust space and chassis protection space are highly integrated. This means the lower case can simultaneously perform four functions: structural support, structural protection, integrated cold plate, and explosion venting. If safety determines whether a new energy vehicle can run, then its range determines its range. Currently, both charging speed and the comprehensiveness of the charging network still cause many people to suffer from "range anxiety" regarding new energy vehicles. However, from a material perspective, the energy density of existing lithium-ion batteries has reached its theoretical limit, and the implementation of next-generation battery technologies such as solid-state batteries has been slow. Therefore, many power battery companies are focusing on structural improvements to improve range.

The Dragon Scale Armor battery, with its "thermal-electric separation" design architecture, not only improves safety but also optimally increases system efficiency within the same space. From a horizontal perspective, traditional battery packs require a central pressure relief duct in the middle. By placing the duct on the sides of the Dragon Scale Armor battery, the battery cells can be larger. This means that within the same space, the cells can be packed more fully, resulting in higher volumetric efficiency. Vertically, the Dragon Scale Armor battery places the pressure relief duct at the bottom, sharing the same space with the bottom (no additional space required). This effectively frees up some headroom, increasing the height of the battery cells and further improving the volumetric efficiency of the battery pack within the same space.

Notably, the Dragon Scale Armor battery's flexible volumetric efficiency is inseparable from its robust compatibility. Driven by high safety and system-balancing benefits, the Dragon Scale Armor battery offers a wide range of dimensions, covering all cell sizes between 300 mm and 600 mm. It also supports a variety of chemistries, including lithium iron phosphate, lithium manganese iron phosphate, and ternary metal chemistry, meeting the range requirements of various vehicle series from the A00 to C segments. Furthermore, it is compatible with currently mainstream 2C+400V and 4C+800V charging schemes. In addition, CTC, CTB, CTV, etc. can all be combined with the dragon scale armor design solution.

According to Honeycomb Energy, through a series of spatial and structural component integration designs, the Dragon Scale Armor battery system, using lithium iron phosphate cells, has significantly increased its volumetric efficiency to 76%, achieving a range of over 800 kilometers, setting an industry record. Using high-manganese iron nickel cells, the range will exceed 900 kilometers, and using ternary cells, it will exceed 1,000 kilometers. This will help automakers further expand driving range within limited space. From safety to range, Dragon Scale Armor batteries offer the ultimate solution to meet the current demands of new energy vehicle development. However, meeting these two requirements is clearly not enough for the new energy vehicle market in 2023.

At the beginning of the year, Tesla suddenly announced price cuts across its entire lineup, sparking a wave of price cuts in the new energy vehicle market, with many brands subsequently following suit. However, with new energy vehicle subsidies officially expiring at the end of 2022, cost reduction is becoming increasingly urgent for most automakers, already facing losses. As the power battery, which accounts for the largest proportion of an electric vehicle's cost, it has undoubtedly become a key focus for automakers in controlling costs. "The Dragon Scale Armor battery has two very important design concepts: greater safety and lower cost," said Yang Hongxin.

According to reports, through the advantages of system integration, the Dragon Scale Armor battery has 20% fewer structural components, reducing the overall weight by 10-20 kg, which directly reduces the material cost of the product. The use of thermal and electrical separation reduces the insulation protection requirements for all live components of the Dragon Scale Armor, thereby also saving some costs. Furthermore, the double-sided flat cooling method ensures low-cost and high-efficiency thermal management. It is important to note that as new energy vehicles approach a 30% penetration rate, in addition to optimizing the design of power batteries to reduce costs, cost reduction and efficiency improvement in manufacturing are also particularly important.

In terms of manufacturing technology, Honeycomb Energy avoided the traditional winding process, instead focusing on the more complex lamination process. The latter significantly increases energy density, reduces costs, increases cycle life, and improves battery safety, but has the disadvantage of lower production efficiency in the early stages.

At the beginning of this year, Svolt Energy has advanced its cell-assembly technology to the third-generation "Fei Die" system—marking a significant leap toward lower costs, higher manufacturing efficiency, and a smaller footprint. Building on the second-generation technology, "Fei Die" doubles the cell-assembly speed, achieving an impressive rate of just 0.125 seconds per cell. At the same time, it reduces the equipment’s floor space by more than 45%, while cutting the investment cost per GWh by over 53%, dramatically lowering overall production-line equipment expenses. Notably, Svolt plans to unveil its fourth-generation cell-assembly technology by the end of this year, incorporating even more cutting-edge innovations such as advanced laser technology and magnetic levitation-based material handling systems. This next-generation system is expected to further boost production efficiency—potentially doubling it once again. Yang Hongxin emphasized that combining the "Dragon Scale Armor" technology with the "Fei Die" system can deliver approximately 10% cost reductions for customers, along with a similar 10% improvement in energy density. Moreover, this integrated approach will significantly enhance battery pack safety.
Currently, in terms of mass production, the Longlinjia battery has already completed product development and finalization. The first vehicle model equipped with the Longlinjia battery will enter mass production and hit the market in the fourth quarter of this year, with additional models following suit in the first half of next year. "We are actively engaging with several customers, including international OEMs, who have shown tremendous interest in this cutting-edge technology." To sum up: From the price wars at the beginning of the year to the debut of nearly a hundred new-energy vehicle models at the Shanghai Auto Show, a fierce battle for dominance in the new-energy automotive market has officially begun. For the power battery companies caught in this competition, whoever can deliver batteries that are not only superior in quality and safety but also offer unmatched cost-effectiveness will ultimately secure the upper hand in the future market. And now, the Longlinjia battery—making its public appearance at the auto show—has already taken the lead, boldly stepping into the spotlight.

Translated from Sina Auto

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