LG Chem Becomes Sole Supplier for Cylindrical Batteries of Lucid Motors

LG Chem has signed an agreement with the US electric vehicle (EV) maker Lucid Motors on February 25 to exclusively supply next-generation cylindrical batteries for EVs from the second half of this year until 2023, but the quantity and amount of the supply are not specific. Lucid Motors plans to start producing Lucid Air pure electric cars in 2020.

Relevant personnel of Lucid Motors said that the reason why the company chose LG Chem as the exclusive supplier is mainly that it can provide the best production method for Lucid Air to ensure the high energy density and high efficiency of cylindrical batteries, so as to achieve their delivery to provide first-class products. Besides, LG Chem's large-scale battery production capacity allows the EV maker to accurately evaluate the production capacity of Lucid Air in the next few years.

Lucid Motors, Inc. formerly known as Atieva, is an American automotive company specializing in electric cars. The company was founded in 2007 by Jiapeng Xie, a former Tesla vice president, and Sam Weng, a former Oracle executive. It is an electric vehicle startup that benchmarks Tesla. The company's first electric car model, Lucid Air, was launched in 2016 with a starting price of about $ 60,000. It was originally planned to begin mass production in Arizona at the end of 2018, but due to lack of funding, the process was relatively slow until September 2018 from Saudi The Arab Public Investment Fund (PIF) broke ground after receiving more than $ 1 billion in investment.

In April of this year, Lucid Motors will officially release a mass-production version of Lucid Air in New York and announce its final design, specifications, and pricing. The first batch of cars will be put into production in the fourth quarter of 2020, with a production capacity of 15,000 units.

The data shows that the top model of Lucid Air will be equipped with a motor with a maximum power of 745kW (1013Ps), and the Air will be capable of over 400 miles range and 0-60 mph in under 2.5 seconds, four-wheel drive, a battery pack capacity of 100kWh, and an optional 130kWh capacity. The battery range of a single battery pack can exceed 643km on a single charge (unpublished test standards).

The advantages of using a cylindrical battery as the power source for Lucid Air pure electric cars include: Firstly, the battery surface junction structure owns good safety even in extreme cases, the surface junction structure could block oxygen in the air from invading the active materials of the pole pieces, which greatly improves battery safety. Secondly, good heat dissipation performance and internal resistance is about 20% smaller than other structural batteries of the same capacity. Thirdly, the high degree of automation and good product consistency.

The disadvantages of cylindrical batteries are the low energy density and high probability of alienation of cell characteristics. To make up for the shortcomings, producers could improve the positive and negative electrode materials, such as adding a small amount of highly chemically active metal tungsten oxide.

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