Car battery FPC demand explosion space for the future

Flexible Printed Circuit board (FPC) is a kind of Circuit board made of Flexible coppers. It is used as a signal transmission medium for the connection of electronic products. It has the characteristics of high wiring assembly density, good bending ability, lightweight and Flexible process.  FPC can be divided into single-layer FPC, double-layer FPC, multi-layer FPC and soft and hard combined version.  

With the development of automotive electrification and intelligence, FPC's advantages in bendability, weight reduction and high degree of automation are further manifested. The amount of FPC in the field of vehicle is increasing, and its application covers three power control systems, sensors, advanced auxiliary systems and other related scenes, including headlights, display modules, BMS/VCU/MCU.  Zhanxin PCB Industry Research Institute estimates that the consumption of FPC per bike will exceed 100 tablets.  In particular, the great development of new energy vehicles has led to a substantial increase in the demand for FPC for on-board power batteries.  

1.1. There is a clear trend of power battery FPC replacing copper wire harness.  

Acquisition line is an important part of the BMS system of new energy vehicles, which can monitor the voltage and temperature of the new energy power battery cell.  Connect data acquisition and transmission and own overcurrent protection function;  Auto power battery protection, abnormal short circuit automatic disconnect and other functions.  

Before the new energy vehicle power battery acquisition line adopts the traditional copper wire harness scheme, the conventional wire harness is made of copper wire surrounded by plastic, when connecting the battery pack, each wire harness reaches an electrode, when the power battery pack current signal is a lot, need many wire harness to cooperate, occupying a large space.  Pack assembly process, traditional wiring harness relies on workers to manually fix the port on the battery Pack, the degree of automation is low.  

Compared with copper wire harness, FPC due to its highly integrated, thin thickness, softness etc, in safety, light weight, neat layout, etc have prominent advantages, in addition the FPC thickness thin, custom battery pack structure, the assembly can be placed directly by mechanical arm grab on the battery pack, a high degree of automation, suitable for large-scale mass production,  The trend of FPC replacing copper wire harness is clear.  

FPC for power battery has been widely used in new energy vehicle models.  

In the early stage of industry introduction around 2017, due to the high cost in the early stage of small batch industry and the high requirements for reliability in the automotive electronics field, most power battery enterprises are still in a wait-and-see attitude.  

With the excellent performance of FPC and the rapid cost reduction brought by large-scale production, the process of FPC replacing traditional wire harness is obviously accelerated.  In 2018, gaIGong Lithium battery research shows that Ningde Times and BYD, the first echelon of domestic power batteries, have applied FPC in pack.  Public information shows that Tesla, Guoxuan High-tech, China Aviation Lithium, Tafel, Xinwanda, Fu Neng and other enterprises have also started to apply FPC.  At present, FPC scheme has become the main choice for most new energy vehicles.  

Considering the stock models, the overall penetration rate of FPC for power battery still has room for improvement.  Due to the current sales, there is still a certain proportion of stock model sales, according to the statistics of Owner's Home, new energy sales in 2020, 2019, 2018 accounted for about 39%, 27%, 26%, respectively, part of the stock models are still using wiring harness and other solutions.  With the withdrawal of these models and the emergence of more new models, the overall penetration rate of FPC for power pools will continue to increase.