Yesterday we brought you news about Geely’s latest generation Aegis short blade battery, today we bring you more details about the battery. First, it appears the official name in English is simply “New Short Blade EV Battery Technology,” according to Geely, which doesn’t mention the Aegis name.
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While the most important specification is still the energy density of 192 Wh/kg, many more details are now known about the battery, its capabilities and its safety. Geely is a lithium iron phosphate battery and claims that it has best-in-class battery life, charging speed and ultimate safety.
Geely’s short blade battery is 580mm long, which is approximately 40% shorter than a traditional long blade battery, resulting in less internal resistance and heat generation, while increasing volume usage by 50%.
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The short blade battery in the test achieved 3,500 charge cycles, which Geely claims is equivalent to 1 million kilometers of charging and driving. More importantly, this is intended to have minimal impact on battery damping, which helps extend battery life and improve the residual value of pre-owned electric vehicles. Geely doesn’t provide details on how the figure was determined, but says it reduces CO2 emissions by 80,000 tons per year. To put 1 million kilometers into perspective, it’s enough for a car to drive an average of 20,000 km per year for 50 years.
Another key claim of the new short blade battery is that it charges super fast and provides stable performance at low temperatures. Geely’s battery charges 10-80% in 17 minutes and 4 seconds with an average charging speed of 2.45°C. This is approximately 1.5 times faster than a long leaf battery which takes approximately 26 minutes and has an average charging speed of 1.61°C. EVs generally suffer from range reduction in cold temperatures and for long leaf batteries at -30°C the capacity retention rate averages 78.96%, while Geely’s new battery maintains 90.54% of its maintains capacity.
This has been achievable through the use of long, thin carbon nanotubes in the battery to aid ion transmission, along with additives to improve film permeability. These changes make it easier for the lithium ions to travel between the electrodes, improving fast charging performance.
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The battery has passed six extreme tests, including: immersion in seawater corrosion, extremely cold environment, scraping the bottom of the package at high frequency, rolling with 26 tons of overweight, side impact of one package and roasting with fire. These tests were conducted by the China Automotive Center and Geely’s battery passed them all. The tests meet a higher standard than required by the national standard and in the case of the scrape test it must be carried out 3 times, the rolling test must pass a weight of 26 tons, a cold weather test must pass -35°C at the equivalent from 5000 m altitude for 8 hours, and for the roasting test a fire at 1000 °C for 130 seconds.
Geely’s own tests included simultaneously piercing the battery with eight nails and after an hour there was no effect. Similarly, Geely fired a standard (5.8mm) Chinese army rifle round at the battery without thermal ignition.
Such results are possible because the short-blade battery uses “a membrane with high thermal stability and high heat resistance, with a very stable separator combined with safe electrodes, resulting in higher energy density and safety.” There is also a self-developed self-melting technology on the surface of the electrode that blocks short circuit if an accident happens. An aluminum foil layer fuses with the battery membrane and creates an insulating layer if the battery cell experiences extreme shock and punctures. Geely says the battery features a “patented grid frame design, an energy-absorbing cavity, a three-layer sandwich underbody protection plate, CTB (cell-to-body) integration, a thermal runaway control system and multiple other safety features.”
The new short-blade battery will debut in the Geely Galaxy E5 SUV, launching in early August. They’ll be used in both the 49.52 and 60.22 kWh packs, delivering 440 and 530 kilometers of CLTC range respectively. The car will also feature the Galaxy’s 11-in-1 intelligent electric drive system, and the E5 will consume just 11.9 kWh/100 km.
Sources: Geely, Fast Technology