BYD confident it can extinguish Korea's EV fire fears with Blade battery

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BYD confident it can extinguish Korea's EV fire fears with Blade battery

Published: 25 Nov. 2024, 18:05 Updated: 25 Nov. 2024, 18:33

SARAH CHEA
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

A nail penetration test in BYD's battery plant in Chongqing, China. The nickel cobalt manganese battery on the right explodes with a huge fire while the Blade battery shows no signs of combustion. [SARAH CHEA]

CHONGQING, China — With a bang, a battery pack labeled "nickel cobalt manganese" explodes, igniting a huge fire with billowing smoke as soon as a nail penetrates the casing in a lab.

The exact same-type nail then is jammed into a battery marked "Blade" by BYD, but nothing happens — not a hint of smoke or fire — while the surface temperature only reaches 30 to 60 degrees Celsius (86 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit).

BYD's Blade lithium iron phosphate battery is displayed at its headquarters in Shenzhen, China. [SARAH CHEA]

Blade lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries — named so because their appearance is sharp like a blade — are BYD’s absolute answer for the Korean market, which has been suffering from a snowballing fear of EVs over a battery explosion in August.

“From being crushed by a 46-ton truck to being heated in an oven to 300 degrees Celsius, our LFP batteries are proven to guarantee safety, especially in fire and explosion scenarios, through various extreme tests,” said a BYD spokesperson.

“All BYD EV models are now topped with Blade batteries.”

The battery plant in Chongqing, China, is BYD’s first-ever battery factory among its six in the country, where it invested more than 18 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) for an annual capacity of 20 gigawatt-hours. The plant also has a separate research lab dedicated to developing technologies for enhanced battery quality.

The plant runs 100 percent automatically with robots and machines making a battery cell in just six seconds.

BYD's Blade lithium iron phosphate battery is displayed at its headquarters in Shenzhen, China. [SARAH CHEA]

The factory runs on strict safety standards, which prevent the number of microscopic particles equivalent to one-20th the thickness of a single hair from ever exceeding 29 per cubic meter (29 per 35 cubic feet). The overall permissible humidity is limited to below 1 percent, while the humidity rate during a core production process cannot exceed 0.05 percent of the average moisture level. The temperature must be maintained at 25 degrees.

"Blade batteries are the results of BYD's technological capabilities that enhance the range but also increase safety," said Liu Xueliang, general manager of the EV maker's Asia–Pacific auto sales division. "Korean consumers will be able to feel the safety soon with our official debut planned for January."

The world's top EV maker confirmed its entry into the Korean passenger vehicle market in January, with the Atto 3 compact SUV and Seal sedan the most likely models to be launched first.

BY SARAH CHEA [[email protected]]