The BYD Blade Battery Evaluated: The Hype is Real (Mostly) 

Notes: 1) 1000km for NEDC is about 432 for EPA. This wasn't a Typo. insideevs.com/features/343231/heres-how-to-calculate-conflicting-ev-range-test-cycles-epa-wltp-nedc/#:~:text=So%2C%20U.S.%20BEV%2FPHEV%20drivers,a%20standard%20deviation%20of%200.092. 2) Correction from Matt Lacey! "Steel is common for cylindrical, but Al is standard for prismatic (regardless of chemistry) - lighter and better thermal conductor than steel though usually thicker. Can is grounded to +ve electrode to avoid corrosion. Blade cell is Al can, not steel" 3) However, re 2), this doesn't change the fact that they might use thicker aluminum to provide rigidity. However, there might be another thing causing the low Wh/kg in BYD: It has more surface area. 4) Tesla has started putting 60 kWh packs in China Model 3's, which provide 276 miles of range. This means the BYD Blade might provide 300 miles of range. 5) There is no such thing as a safe battery pack, only safer. That's the key takeaway with blade safety. So, yes, you can probably make it explode somehow, but it's less likely to. 6) RU-vid wiped the original notes along with all the comments. Not sure why.

As a ower of BYD Qin plus with these blade cells inside, I love this explaination. These are some of my opinions from a cell teardown I made half a year ago: 1. The case is aluminium, not steel. All prismatic cells are aluminium casing, not steel. 2. The gravimetric energy density (specific energy) is low due to large surface area to volume ratio. Ideally, a sphere would have the lowest area to volume ratio thus maximum amount of active material. The thinner and elongated the cells are, the more it is wasted on casing. 3. BYD blade cell pack is not as structurally sound. They are not as strong as cell-module-pack intergration. (I witnessed crush tests on these pack before.) 4. 9:18 The cell you showed is actually a pouch cell for PHEV models. The EV models uses single long blade cell, PHEV uses 8 pouch cells to form a "thick blade". Obviously, PHEV cares more about power while EVs cares more about enery. 5. 10:14 My car has a total pack capacity of 71.7 kWh for a similar size compared with model 3. The NEDC is 600 km while Model 3 LR in China is now 619 WLTP. Tesla wins on whole vehicle efficiency by a lot! However, from battery system's POV, BYD with LFP had an amazing achievement for their first generation product. 6. When comparing battery technology, we really should only look on packs & cells. Vehicle design would have a huge impact on range performance. I wish manufactures should post their vehicle's energy consumption rather than just "Range". 7. 13:00 The Ocean-X model might be the EK series, my vehicle's predessor. It would have an NEDC range of 700 km to start with. That is still based on the current blade cell technology. The next gen would have a pack specific energy of 180 Wh/kg. With the help of 8-in-1 platform control system and even CTC, I suspect 1000 km would be possible but with a catch on the testing standard. 8. 17:30 And cheap labour. BYD has the cheapest labour compared with other cell manufactures. No comment on that. If you would like to know more about the BYD Qin plus, here is the link to my video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3uwzJHiYn2Q.html

Notes: 1) 1000km is 621 miles nedc and 434 EPA, which is closer to reality. This is explained later in the video. Watch the video before commenting please. 2) There is no such thing as a safe battery. Every mechanism for storing energy is like a bomb. You can only ever be safer. BYD blade will still be flammable under the right conditions...just like every other battery. But the odds should be much lower, and that's what we should always be striving for - few people killed. 3) After publishing this video, I thought of one additional reason why the BYD Blade Cells my have lower gravimetric energy density: As I mention in the video, they have greater surface area. That is, I think the reduced gravimetric energy density could be either/or due to thicker steel/more surface area. 4) BYD Tang appears to have similar range (EPA) to Han. It's range is often reported in WLTP or NEDC, which are generous. 5) The was a paper published by Chao-Yang Wang claiming more impressive figures for Wh/l. But, if you check, the references, it appears to reference an article. 👀 6) It appears that Tesla LFP is getting a boost to 60kWh and 273 miles of range. This means that with BYD LFP in a Tesla vehicle, we'd be looking at almost exactly 300 miles of range. However, BYD vehicles are less efficient and it would still be a stretch to hit 300 miles of range. But they'll be there in the next couple of years.

In the LFP cell, the oxygen atom is joined to the phosphorus atom; whereas, in the other formulations, the oxygen atom is joined to a metal atom, Phosphorus has a high thermal stability which would have a slower reactivity rate.

Look to reality to interpret results? Wow, what a concept! Wall Street analysts and cosmological scientist should try this method.

Brilliant video, I have been waiting for your in depth analysis of these cells! I was fascinated by the thermal engineering that a seemingly 'simple' change to the form factor could make. I didn't realise that their ability to act as a heat sink was also complemented by lower heat generation in the first place! Keep up the great work :D

I came back to watch the video again. My, now different questions, are answered. Well done.

Love your videos!!! The blades are fantastic. I plan to test some soon. Really cool technology. Love your breakdown and comparisons.

Jordan, my man, you never disappoint sir. Thank your for the amazing video once again. Would love to see a follow up to the Novonix video from last year as this appears to the year of the anodes, Nouveau Monde, Talga, Syrah, Novonix, BTR etc...

I had a different take on the blade short claim. Long cell means relatively long internal distance (lateral) to short location. Further distance to short = delayed current contribution ( I picture an instantaneous voltage well centered on nail puncture location. Prismatic has very steep well that normalizes quickly, while blade has less steep well and takes longer to flatten). Similar to fast charging current inhomogeneities. Long cell intentionally introduces current inhomogeneities at high power (short), extending time of short discharge due to decreased current at short, decreasing heat buildup at point of short. NOT SURE THIS IS TRUE,. Just laying out my immediate thought when you first mentioned the claim of longer short circuit. Also, heat buildup of rapid mass transfer is better distributed away from point of short and close to surface for dissipation. Thanks for producing these! Note, this is purely personal opinion.

Such an amazing and comprehensive overview of battery progress. I can’t imagine how much time is involved in assembling all of this information thank you very much for your effort

The best content on youtube is right here! I simply cannot get enough of these videos, need more, more, MORE!!

Been waiting for your video on blade! Thank you for the brilliant explanation as always!

Seems like BYD could incorporate the aluminium honeycomb sheet used in airplanes to get the rigidity needed across the width of the vehicle and improve the heat dissipation.

Very good video. The issue with the reference to BYDs model Han is that it is based on a ICE platform and not optimized for efficency they took a gasoline car and engineered a battery into it. Of course your video was 2 years ago but the ocean (BYD Seal) seems to have delivered on the promise from BYD and Tesla using BYD Cells is showing that BYDs claims where not to far off back then.

As always, professional and well done!

65$/kWh is insanely low cost for now. I remember not very long ago people speaking of

Yeah Jordon! Happy 2022! Thanks for keeping us well informed and sticking with this especially as we are about to get into the next phase of this EV transition. It's ALL ABOUT THE BATTERIES and your contribution to understanding this most important part is very helpful in helping us understand the magnitude of what is happening and what to look for.

Your videos are consistently valuable. Thank you for this.

Hands down the best technical product analysis available for free. Tesla should be employing you.

Great presentation. It’s always informative and stimulating to take in your presentations. More than happy to subscribe and support you on Patreon.

Thank you for such an informative presentation, done so professionally.

Thank you so much for taking the time to make this video. It was very informative and very well presented. I hope Tesla can make use of the technology. The world needs a low cost, long range EV desperately. Thank you again. I look forward to watching your other videos. Take care.

Really enjoyed this video. Answered many questions I had about BYD blade battery! Thanks for the great content!

Thanks for your time and hard work to share this information. I very much appreciate it.

Thanks Jordan, great insight and analysis in this v relevant video. We need "The Limiting Factor" for 2022 and beyond. Eamon

I love your videos. Thank you. Very cool stuff. BYD is the Only other EV stock I’ve really considered besides Tesla. Feels like those two are pulling away from the pack.

You, Sir, via your channel are, Far and Away, the absolute best in providing clear and understandable information on this topic which leads me to this: One unfamiliar with battery chemistry could conclude that the OPTIMUM configuration would be Nickel/Cobalt/Aluminum chemistry in a Blade configuration providing the heat dissipation of the high-aspect ration blade cell with the gravimetric and volumetric energy density of the NCA chemistry. What say ye?

As we have come to expect, a state-of-the-art virtual teardown, analysis, and Technical discussion.

As a DIY Solar guy I can affirm and attest that when Chinese battery sellers claim "xx" amp hrs in their cells you can assume "xx - 20%" when ordering Prismatic LFP

I always enjoy and look forward to your videos....thanks

Some cases, as my bike, lfp does outperform, becouse in my case li-ion is just too much down of the power below 3,5v cell voltage to enjoy. Lfp battery gives pretty much the same power all the way, so in my case I get much more usefull capacity from pack that weights the same. Whit along of all the other benefits on top of that. Just to say to all of the powerful ebike buiders, car business is not exatly my area. I still enjoy wery much of this information, just giving a diffrent point of view. Thanks man for good work :)

Awesome video Jordan! Thank you once again for your in-depth analysis Very interesting to see another form-factor for batteries being used. I like the idea, it seems smart. If this is the path to a [sub-]$25k Tesla too, that would be awesome

Another excellent fact based video. Learning more of these different flavoured batteries. Keep up the good work.

Another great video! Another interesting area to dive into is the electrical characteristics of LFP vs. Nimh. Also typical ESR or internal resistance. That translates to lower current capability in and out so cars will be slower acceleration and in theory lower charge rates? LFP is better suited to lower cost and performance vehicles. Tesla need every battery they can get. Any way, just something else to think about, Keep up the great work!

I appreciated the thermal runaway slide title easter egg.

Very nice explanation ! Details, pace, imaging ... everything 😉 Thank you! BTW I also have tried with little to no succes to propose to Tesla a very very similar design of blade battery. It is 99% similar to BYD battery without even knowing it existed because it hasn't been made public yet. In my design I also explain a far better manufacturing method that can yield exponential quantities ... I wonder if BYD / Tesla would even listen to small inventors and actually have a way to hear them ...

Great to see more improvements in battery technology 🖖🏼

Another excellent report, thanks! 😀

nice breakdown. one thing to keep in mind is that lion(nmc&nca) both do not want a 100 percent charge nor a 100 percent discharge, where as lifep04 has no problem with it.

Not battery related but Another cost saving would be cars that just drive them self lives straight from the factory to the port to be exported or onto the train or truck trailer.

As always, another cogent and informative discussion.

Nice breakdown. Very thorough.

I don’t often watch your videos because they’re more technical than I can focus on. But when I do, I’m blown away by your quality research 👌

Great research - this should get more views.

If that is a Del Shannon reference at 2:20 I'm joining your Patreon. WHAT a song

Another unknown with the blade form factor is cycle life. With a large cell there may be more chance for irregularities to accumulate in different ends of the cell over multiple discharge-charge cycles. On the other hand, efficient heat removal may work to extend cell cycle lifetime, even with the more heat-tolerant LFP chemistry.

Great explanation about the nail in the batteries

Loved the "My Little Runaway" reference...

Ty ty ty Mr Jordan u deserve a Nobel prize money n professional transisionalism

Great vlog tons of info 👍👍👏👏👏👏👏

Seems that Warren Buffett has another long term winner in BYD. Amazing that he bought in so many years ago.

AS USUAL AN OUTSTANDING PRESENTATION :: I see the short "multiple" paths of the 4680 a major advantage, including charging & discharging. I accepted there would be problems, but building on the Maxwell' dry electrodes with rolls 5 cells wide, the concept of a "NEW FORM", a flat horizontal cell 300 x 400mm as a blade or prismatic could be interesting.

The cover for the battery pack is made with a honeycomb core composite plastic plus fiberglass panel to reduce weight.

Great video as usual. Would be interesting to see a video on "revolutionary new Sodium batteries" - seen a lot of hype lately about it being used for vehicles (as apposed to stationary use which seems more suited).

Try stacking 4 or 5 blade cells and puncture those with the same long nail. It might not make a difference but you also might see a different result with that one continuous piece of metal connecting all the shorts together.

I just wish I could get a car with those batteries in north america...

Another excellent video sir.

Great job, thanks.

A very cool battery video again 🤩

If you look at the number that Tesla just did this quarter, their cost should be going up, but it went down and book a higher profit margin. I think that what happen is that in the Fremont factory in the third quarter and they installed LFP batteries for the cars driving down cost. That just amazing, I haven't seen that kind of adjustment and turn around in the car industry.

Simply brilliant.

Good info Jordan, now please dig into CATLns Qullin battery that is coming to Geelys Zeeker lines.

Thank you!

Nice explanation of a technical problems at the cutting edge of the EV industry.

Tesla model 3 std now 267-272 miles EPA range with LFP. We just got one. Battery pack is obviously heavier than the nickel-based original, it appears they may have made an incremental change from the initial US lfp offering last year but I haven't seen definitive treatment of that. I believe they have recently squeezed more watt-hours with the updated lfp battery as the vehicle weight is a little more. Regardless, a wonderful car with worry free full charge.

Good details. Intersting

All it really proved to me is do not ever let anyone under your BEV vehicle of they have a hammer and a nail in their hands.

excellent work.. to say the least

The tests used to provide battery range seem confusing (I can never remember what specs they use). Why doesn't the industry make it simple and use a constant 100km/h range test and a constant 50km/h range test.

thank you and posted to reddit

The BYD Han was not built from scratch to be an EV so it's not a good example to understand the true potential of their tech. We should wait for the new sedan to see the new architecture in action, like 800v that's a first for the company. Game on! 🙂

Would you be able to do a video on ESS (the company) and flow batteries for grid scale storage in general? Would really like your take.

i'm still interested in NMC or other low cobalt chemistries in a blade form factor. even if the structural strength is lower, the increase in heat dissipation coupled with pressure relief could bring NMC closer to Prismatic LFP, even if it won't reach Blade LFP safety.

Great video again! I think, as the size of the battery cells decreases and the number increases, the effect of a defective cell on the total capacity of the battery decreases. In the long run, this may pose a slight disadvantage to Blade cells. One cell got bad and lost your ~%1 of capacity right away.

In years to come it will be interesting to see a comparison of the torsional resistance of the blade-based Tesla battery and the 4680-based battery - or for that matter a comparison of the respective car's torsional rigidity. I am no mechanical engineer but the blade battery looks more likely to fit the role of a structural member.

Thanks for the video, glad I found your channel today. I just took delivery of a 2022 BYD Dolphin EA2. I choose the car because of the Blade battery pack and the low cost. Living in Guangzhou the small size was important but I wanted a safe battery too. I just charged my car for the first time and the fast charger stopped at 95% charge. I was wondering about your thoughts of charging the Blade battery to 100%. It wasn't mentioned in this video and I understand that it's not a problem for the LFP. Thanks!

One of the metrics that was not mentioned in this video is watt output per weight. Some LFP cell are 30"C" or 30 x times the amp hours. The BYD blade has such a low"C" rating I am pretty sure it will not support a high kW output of the motor/ drive. There needs to be a LFP cell that provides a better balance between performance and efficiency.

Very good

Consistent draconian senior management is self-illustrative.

found a listing online, byd blade is simply one giant cell at 3.2V! no wonder it is so safe since it is like a low performance battery only with large capacity. Amperage or performance would be killed though, im certain with its low charging, discharge, and regenerative braking performance

Reducing vehicle weight, lowering CF, and reducing motor and gearbox friction with their LFP blade batteries can make them meet their Ocean-X goals. It will be interesting to see if Tesla exports BYD's $25k EV instead of building them in their European and USA manufacturing plants. BYD's MING EV with CF below 0.18 using their new hub motor patent shows great promise. If they figure out how to mass-produce carbon fiber bodies like Aptera they will also lower weight.

Interesting Video - Thanks. One observation: there did seem to be multiple instances of the same detail throughout the video which I felt was off-putting.

I can tell you raw material prices are EXPLODING in the battery industry currently. Even for LFP, phosphorous seems to be in short supply (maybe harbinger of the looming phosphorous crysis...). So yeah, everybody is unhappy. Hopefully things normalize but i fear battery prices per kWh will make an upturn for the first time in a long time.

The length of the cell continues to provide better heat dissipation during puncture short-circuit.

Thanks!

The BYD blade LFP in the MiG ( GF Germany) made Tesla Model Y SR is amazing. Available since spring 2023 it charges better, faster than other LFPs and is on par with the current LFP NCM big batteries. Plug it in at any SoC and get 3C charge rate (5-80%, charge curve still applies). Needs only 30°C for fast charge instead of >45°C with all other batteries. Got the Y now for 6 months and it replaced the much expensive LR version. EVs got better and cheaper with it.

Very exciting technology

Energy consumption or economy, not efficiency. Thanks for another deep dive video. Blade battery, not just cool engineering...also a cool name 😁 Still strange China now uses the European NEDC, while Europe has moved to the international WLTP

Bravo, Jordan.

Love the 80s music reference 👌

The blade format looks good for distributing heat, and thus resilience against single cell failures propagating through the battery pack. But are they still sufficiently robust to handle e.g. a 20 cm intrusion into a battery pack? Would you get the same number of cathode-anode shorts with blade cells, as with prismatic cells? The blade pack could have more cells damaged than a prismatic based pack, given the same intrusion depth. The drill demo should rather have been trough stacks of cells, with the same accumulated thickness. For example two prismatic cells stacked, vs 10 blade cells.

great as alway!

With heat sink type of design and less heat loss, would that negatively impact cold weather operation? Say compared to the Tesla pack? Great videos as usual!

Can't help wondering why the raw egg is present for the competing technology nail tests but absent for the blade. Is it to simulate the cooling liquid? I suspect it helps contribute to the thermal breakdown of metal based batteries. By present I refer to the nail actually passing through the egg en-route to puncturing the battery thereby delivering the liquid egg directly into the puncture hole.

Betting the Blade LFP battery will be in the new $25,000 car.

Biggup the reference to Bon Jovi !

Please explore the effects of cold temperature on performance Thank you

Hi, Thank you for your video and deep analysis. Have you heard of the GAC Aion graphene battery ? It seems too good to be true too...

Electric Viking reports a new BYD EV which is model 3 size, with a 700 km charge range. BYD blade batteries can use all of its charge from 100% to 0% without degridation issues, I understand.