The trick mentioned in the http://officeopenxml.com/SScontentOverview.php doesn't seem to work for me as well.
If I create in excel a cell with date formatting. It defines the date format using style in the file xl\styles.xml
If I use the same style for the cell (<c s='1'...) it properly formats the date.
https://playground.jsreport.net/w/anon/Uq8QQFxW