Chinese car maker BYD unveils innovative 'Blade Battery'

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Shenzhen, China - China's leading electric car maker BYD has unveiled a new blade-shaped battery which is said to solve the safety hazards associated with electric cars. Set to power the upcoming Han flagship sedan that’s due for launch in June, the Blade Battery is also said to be 50 percent more space efficient than traditional batteries, owing to its long and thin shape. During the press conference, the Blade Battery successfully passed nail penetration tests, which are said to be the most stringent tests for battery safety. BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said that electric vehicles equipped with the Blade Battery would be far less likely to catch fire. When subjected to nail penetration tests, the battery didn’t smoke or catch fire, and its surface temperature only reached 30 to 60°C, BYD said.

“Under the same conditions, a ternary lithium battery exceeded 500°C and violently burned, and a conventional lithium ion phosphate block battery reached dangerous temperatures of 200 to 400°C, although it did not openly emit flames or smoke,” BYD said in a statement.

“This implies that EVs equipped with the Blade Battery would be far less susceptible to catching fire – even when they are severely damaged.”

BYD claimed that its Blade Battery also passed other extreme tests, such as being crushed, bent, heated in a furnace and overcharged by 260 percent.

BYD Blade Battery Pack. Picture: BYD.

“In the past few years, many EV manufacturers have fallen into a competition for ever-greater cruising range. When the range becomes the prime factor to consider, this focus is then transferred to power battery makers, leading to unreasonable pursuits of ‘energy density’ in the battery industry.

“It is due to this impractical focus on ‘energy density’ that safety has been sidelined from power battery development,” BYD concluded.

Xinhua