Are electric cars safe? Why lithium ion batteries self ignite?

Hi everyone welcome back to our channel ! This is fiona from guangzhou tycorun energy co.,ltd. Our company tycorun energy is one of the leading lithium ion battery manufacturers from china.

So, in today’s video we are going to talk about the safety of electric car ,

Also the invention and the history of lithium ion battery.

If you are interested please keep watching.

So, recently one of my clients told me that he is going to buy electric car, but he heard a news about electric car self igniting so, he worried about this problem and he come to me asked me that why lithium ion batteries self ignite? Today we are going to illustrate these questions for you.

To tell you about the safety of the lithium ion battery, we have to start with history and invention of the battery.

So around 200years ago,in 1780, an italian anatomist called galvani , he found out that when he is using two different metal knife to frog’s leg,he found out that there is electricity and he thought that this is bioelectricity, but later this statemen was rejected by people.

Later on, around 20 years later, in 1799 a physicist scientist called volt he restudied this statement, like galvani have found out that there is bioelectricity in legs of frogs right ? Then it was rejected by people and when it comes 1799 mr volt have restudied this problem

And he found out that actually it was not bioelectricity actually the electricity is from two different metals

Then he used two different metals that is silver and the zinc to invent a new battery and this was the most original battery in the past. And later 1836 a person called daniel he invented a battery which is more closer to modern battery that is copper core battery , but later people thought that sulfuric acid is not as convenient as.

So they used a viscous electrolyte instead of sulfuric acid.  Why can electric current be generated by using two different metals? Actually this is chemically called that the potential of the metal electrode is different. Anyway, if two different metals are put place in together they are going to generate the electricity current together.

People keep trying which kind of metal is better for using, and then people gradually fall in love with using a kind of new metal, and that is called lithium ion. So as i have mentioned that if there is two different metal they are going to generate the current electricity right? So people are always looking for a better material so later people find the lithium material. And one of the advantages of the lithium is very light weight and has a high density.

In fact, the first person who has invented the lithium was edison. Our great scientist edison is actually the first person who invented the lithium but until 1991 peope didn’t use the lithium ion battery and in 1991 sony company have launched the first 18650 battery

So, lithium ion battery was invented by edison but people didn’t use the lithium ion battery until 1991 .

This 18650 battery has a relatively simple structure, a relatively stable nature, and a relatively cheap cost, so it has been widely used in our daily life, for example in our power bank also in our laptops so on.

When you dissemble the inside of those products you can see that most of them are 18650 battery.

So since when people started to study the lithium ion battery again ?

Let’s talk about the principles of lithium ion battery ,actually principles of lithium ion battery is quite simple ,

Actually lithium ion battery has these four main principles . The first is it is similar to our original battery ,for example , it has a positive electrode and a negative electrode ,this is similar to our original battery .except for  those two same  also there is a layer of film between electrode side and negative side .

So the choice for the material of lithium material is very important, anode material is graphite.

And also ,now days there is also one popular lithium ion battery that is ternary lithium battery. This ternary material is actually composed of three materials: Nickel, cobalt, and manganese. This is combination of there materials together and then the ternary battery came out. So you might be interested in , they are both lithium ion batteries so what is difference between lifop4 battery and ternary battery.

I am going to compare from this from three aspects: They are from safety, energy density , low temperature performance. Ok , when we look at for the lifp4 battery , its density is 100~150wh/kg and when it comes to ternary battery it is 200~300wh/kg , it is obiviously the ternary battery is higher than the lfp battery. Ok, the second one is low temperature performance. The low temperature performance of the lfp is very low ,and the ternary battery is around 20degree.

I can illustrate you like this , if you are in a southern country maybe you cannot realise this but if you are in a northern country like in russia or in some places very cold places in winter you will find out that your battery is not working very well in winter right? Like when you go out when it is snowing , you will find out that you phone is already power off. So the third one is about the safety, when it comes to first and second the ternary battery was better than the lfp battery right? But nothing is perfect and when it comes to third part, when it comes to safety , the lfp battery is more safe than the ternary battery.

Actually it really depends on your occasion of using also your local market which kind of battery is more suitable for you. Actually they both have their advantages and also their disadvantages.

So why it means safety is 800 degrees and 200 degrees ? It means that when the battery is over heating , the lfp battery can bear for until 800 degrees when it comes to ternary battery it can bear for until 200degrees. People ask, why the lithium ion batteries self ignite? Actually there are several problems , one of them are over heating , over heating maybe from the high temperature in your local place and also another reason is over discharge or over charge , these reason may happen self ignite of the battery. Normally batteries have their over charge protection, but once if your over charge protection fales the self ignite will occur.

I am sure that you have heard the self ignite of the tesla electric car right? Actually the tesla electric car it uses the ternary battery and the battery type is 18650 battery. So if you open the their electric car , you will find out that the whole under of  the electric car is so many pcs of 18650 batteries, so you may ask me how many pcs of battery in tesla car, usually there are around 8000pcs of 18650 battery. So you can imagine that whole under of the electric car is this kind of battery. Tesla has promised that they have used the best bms system, but it is really hard to avoid when one pcs of battery have problem the whole battery is going to burn.

From this phonanment , tesla said that in this phonanment  it is because one pcs of battery has problem and other batteries burn out .there is also another electric car that is much more safe , that is buick velite but they used 96 pcs of square lithium ion battery and this is much more easy for bms system to control than controlling 8000pcs of battery.

If one the 96 pcs of batteries burn ,you still have enough time to escape.

So, no matter what happens , no matter it is electric car or no matter it is laptop , we have to be very careful when we are using the battery. But don’t worry they are still very safe and actually  lithium ion battery is very safe  , every pcs of battery is passed from the strict tests of the factory. Safety is guaranteed if you buy lithium batteries from professional lithium ion battery manufacturers, and TYCORUN ENERGY is one of them, with 14 years of professional experience in lithium ion battery industry, and has been always providing excellent OEM & ODM lithium battery services and customized, reliable solutions of lithium battery utilization to customers all over the world.so if you buy our lithium battery products, you just have to be careful when you are using the lithium ion battery, but don’t worry they are very safe.