Geely has just unveiled its latest electric vehicle (EV) battery technology known as the Aegis Short Blade battery. This new battery boasts better safety than other battery technologies on the market, faster charging with stable low-temperate performance, and has a shelf life of up to 1 million km while still retaining its performance.
The Aegis Short Blade battery is Geely’s latest generation of its self-developed lithium ion phosphate (LFP) battery. As mentioned above, it is claimed to offer the best in class battery life and charging speed, without sacrificing safety.
This is achieved by integrating the battery with a high-strength, high-thermal stability, high-heat-resistant diaphragm, with a highly stable separator. This is then paired with safe electrodes, resulting in higher energy density and safety.
Geely has also applied its self-developed Self-Fusing technology on the electrode surfaces to block short circuits in the event of accidents. In the case of the battery cell being punctured during extreme shock, an aluminium foil layer will fuse into the battery diaphragm to create an insulating layer, preventing short circuits and thermal runaway events.
To ensure its safety, Geely tested the new Short Blade EV battery with eight simultaneous puncture needles, each with a diameter of 5 mm and left to stand for 1 hour. This is 7 needles more than the single-needle puncture test which is set as the current standard automotive test for EV battery safety performance.
In addition, the new Aegis Short Blade EV battery was put through a 5.8 mm (5.8 x 42 mm) infantry rifle bullet penetration test. And just in case that still wasn’t enough, Geely says its new battery technology went through the industry’s first “Six Extremes” serial tests.
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What does that mean, you ask? The “six extremes” include seawater corrosion immersion, extreme cold environment, high-frequency pack bottom scraping, 26-ton overweight rolling, single-pack side collision, and fire roasting. Geely says the Aegis Short Blade battery survived all six tests, thanks to its patented grid frame design, energy-absorbing cavity, three-layer sandwich bottom guard plate, CTB integration, thermal runaway control system, and multiple other safety features.
In terms of the battery’s life span, Geely claims the Aegis Short Blade battery is capable of reaching up to 3,500 charging cycles. This is equivalent to charging and driving for 1 million km.
Let’s say you drive your car up to 20,000 km a year, this means the battery could potentially be in service for up to 50 years. This will not only help improve the residual value of second-hand EVs but also reduce carbon emissions by more than 80,000 tons a year.
To solve the problem of high internal resistance found in long-blade batteries available on the market, Geely says its latest battery uses long, thin carbon nanotubes to create a “highway” for ion transmission as well as additives to improve film permeability. This makes it easier for lithium ions to travel between electrodes thus resulting in improved fast-charging performance.
Geely’s test data shows that with blade batteries with the same capacity, the 10-80% state-of-charge (SoC) average charging time for long blade battery is 26 minutes, with an average charging rate of 1.61 C. With the Aegis Short Blade battery, Geely claims an average charging time of 7 minutes and 4 seconds and an average charging rate of 2.45 C.
Aside from puncture, heat, and bullet tests, Geely’s new Short Blade EV battery is also said to be capable of delivering strong discharge capacity and longer driving range than long-blade batteries during extreme cold environments. In ambient temperatures of -30°C, the capacity retention rate of the long blade battery on average fell to 78.96% while the new Short Blade battery retained 90.54% of its capacity.
As seen in one of the images attached above, Geely’s Aegies Short Blade battery has an energy density of 192 kWh/kg. This is higher than BYD’s Blade battery’s energy density of 150 kWh/kg.
The Geely Galaxy E5 EV SUV could be among the brand’s first all-electric models to feature the new Short Blade EV battery, according to CarNewsChina. This model is also rumoured to be the donor model for Proton’s very first EV under the e.MAS subbrand.
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