New insights into dry-coating-processed surface engineering enabling structurally and thermally stable high-performance Ni-rich cathode materials for lithium ion batteries

•New insights into a dry-coating-processed surface engineering strategy are revealed.•Coating amount dominates the structural evolution of the surface coating layer.•The hybrid coating layer is tuned to reach an optimal cycling and safety performance.•Ambient storage stability and slurry preparation for practical use are also improved.•New findings explain and highlight the feasibility and universality of this strategy.