Enabling EV power battery to gain best performance and the longest life cycle under any circumstances, BMS is a kind of crucial technology to develop electric vehicle, says ReportsnReports.com.
Global battery management system (BMS) output, valued at $ 4.7 billion in 2017, is expected to exceed $ 6 billion in 2019 and hit $ 11.17 billion in 2025, representing a CAGR of 11.6 per cent from 2017 to 2025, according to ReportsnReports.com report.
BMS, a key part of battery electric and hybrid vehicles, is primarily composed of battery electronics (BE) and battery control unit (BCU), with the former being responsible for collecting current, voltage and temperature data of battery and transmitting them to BCU and the latter for information exchange with other control units.
BMS has three core functions: cell monitoring, SOC (State of Charge) estimation and battery cell equalization. BMS monitors the working temperature and quantity of electricity of lithium battery cell and automatically takes measures to equalise the charging and discharging current and prevent the overheating temperature. Enabling EV power battery to gain best performance and the longest life cycle under any circumstances, BMS is a kind of crucial technology to develop electric vehicle.
A total of 1.1659 million new energy passenger cars were sold worldwide in 2017, an upsurge of 55.9 per cent from a year earlier, showing great popularity of and a significant rise in market recognition of new energy vehicles. Global sales of new energy vehicles are expected to sustain a CAGR of around 45 per cent between 2018 and 2020.
Power battery BMS generally employs active equalisation technology, resulting in higher cost per vehicle, but at the same time experiences annual decline of 10-15 per cent in price. The BMS market size will have a much slower growth rate than power battery output.
Traditional auto parts vendors represented by Denso and Preh have seized the initiative by dint of their key roles in vehicle supply chain. Denso, as the most important supplier of parts for Toyota, has provided BMS modules to vehicle models like Prius and Camry Hybrid successively, while Preh not only supplies products to BMW i series BEVs but is also vigorously exploring the Chinese market by resorting to the resources of its parent company Joyson Electronics.
Cell vendors like LGC attempt to narrow the functional range of BMS and make it simple and universal, and to spin off software and data services as a separate supply to automakers. Among carmakers, Tesla BMS is mature and sophisticated and its next-generation technology will be applicable to bigger battery cell.
China leading the pack
China sold 777,000 new energy vehicles in 2017, including 556,000 passenger cars; new energy bus production plummeted by 16.4 per cent in 2017 due to considerable impact from declined subsidies and is expected to stabilise at around 90,000 units over the next few years.
The market space for BMS was RMB 5.69 billion (about $ 840 million) in China in 2017. Battery electric bus sales was lower than expected, and bus BMS price suffered an annualised decline of 10-15 per cent because of lower technical barriers and intense market competition. More and more passenger cars and logistics vehicles carry ternary battery and larger amount of electricity, leading to higher requirements on safety performance of battery pack and more use of BMS active equalisation technology. Passenger car BMS will prevail in the Chinese BMS market which is expected to be worth RMB12.87 billion (about $ 1900 million) in 2020.
As the penetration rate of ternary lithium battery rises, higher requirements are posed on battery safety management. What matters most to BMS are active cell balancing and design of SOC estimation algorithm. The light-asset hardware design companies are expected to enjoy higher profitability.
The technical innovation-oriented third-party BMS companies which strictly control quality and costs and build in-depth cooperation with carmakers and battery producers are highly likely to win out from the fierce competition. It has become a trend that carmakers invest in BMS enterprises.
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