Written by | Li Qingyuan
Edit | Yang Guang
Produced | Automotive Sankei
On October 12, CATL announced an investment of 32 billion yuan in an industrial park project involving the recycling of waste battery materials.
52 days later, the project officially started, setting a record "Yichang speed", which once again aroused the market's enthusiasm for the power battery recycling market.
This year, China ushered in the peak period of the first batch of power battery retirement. According to the data, the cumulative total number of decommissioning by 2020 exceeds 200,000 tons, and by 2025, this figure is expected to rise to 780,000 tons.
Not long ago, at the "14th Five-Year Plan" special meeting held by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the recycling of new energy vehicle power batteries was mentioned again.
This market is seen as the next outlet, and the Oriental Securities Research Report believes that the domestic power battery recycling market is expected to reach $37 billion by 2025. Enterprise investigation data shows that the registration volume of power battery recycling related enterprises in the first half of this year increased by 2611.2% year-on-year.
Although various capitals are scrambling to layout, the real market is a mixture of fish: qualified "regular army" goods are not enough to eat, 90% of the batteries on the market are missing, and eventually flow into black workshops.
"The entire market is in a state of 'chaos at the beginning', industry standards are under construction, and regulatory supervision is also improving." Formal enterprises do not compete in price as small workshops. Liu Dong, director of the battery recycling project of Guoxuan Hi-Tech, said in an interview with automotive industry and economics.
In the face of a huge potential market size, how to deal with "decommissioned batteries"? The industrial chain that still needs to be improved, what are the "pain points" that need to be opened?
The "road to retirement" of a power battery
In the first three quarters of this year, domestic new energy vehicles sold 2.157 million units, a year-on-year increase of twice. Not only that, according to data from the Ministry of Public Security, by the end of 2020, the number of new energy vehicles in the country reached 4.92 million, an increase of more than 1 million for three consecutive years.
Behind the growing number of new energy vehicles, accompanied by a large number of old power batteries began to gradually "retire".
Although it is called "decommissioned" batteries, it does not mean that the performance of these batteries has been scrapped.
According to the fruit shell science, when the capacity of the power battery is attenuated to about 80%-70% of the rated capacity, it is no longer suitable for electric vehicles. However, in the range of 80%-20%, the performance of power batteries can still meet the energy needs of many equipment, and only when the capacity drops to 20%, it is necessary to force scrap.
From the perspective of power battery service life, the effective life of power lithium batteries is about 4-6 years, and the service life is generally 5-8 years.
So, how does the battery after the "end of life" exert waste heat?
"The power battery recycling model usually has two paths: cascade utilization and dismantling recycling. Generally, the cascade utilization is carried out first, and then the batteries that cannot be cascaded are recycled. Liu Caisheng, chief analyst of True Lithium Research, said to Auto Industry Andeconomy.
Some industry insiders described it this way: "It's like recycling a book, not destroying paper, just using the book elsewhere, which belongs to the cascade use; and beating the book into pulp is dismantling and recycling." ”
That is to say, "cascade utilization" is actually the reuse of batteries, and the requirements for environmental protection, safety and technology are very high. Only batteries that meet the requirements after testing can enter the echelon utilization link.
"When the battery capacity decays at 40%, Guoxuan Hi-Tech will choose recycling technology. Of course, the material is different, and the orientation is also different. According to Liu Dong, the content of rare metals in ternary lithium batteries is high, and more is recycled. The lithium iron phosphate battery will be more valuable in the cascade utilization.
(Battery raw material extracted by Volkswagen)
Volkswagen related people told us, "The ternary lithium battery of Volkswagen electric vehicles can reach 95% utilization rate after recycling. ”
Although the cascade utilization and dismantling and recycling technologies are far apart, they are a typical complementary relationship rather than mutually exclusive for the power battery recycling industry.
Ninety percent of the waste batteries are missing
The hidden market for those who are high
A small discarded battery puts the entire industry in an awkward position.
At the request of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments, power battery recycling outlets are accelerating construction. As of the end of October this year, 171 relevant enterprises have set up 10,048 new energy vehicle power battery recycling service outlets in 31 provinces and municipalities across the country.
"Do these more than 10,000 recycling outlets have the function of collecting or collecting batteries?" There is also a question mark. However, according to industry feedback, the setting of recycling points is more of a formality.
Since 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has announced three batches of 47 enterprises to enter the list of "new energy vehicle waste power battery comprehensive utilization industry specification conditions", commonly known as "white list enterprises" in the industry.
(Excerpt from part of the list of companies)
But in fact, the number of batteries that really enter the recycling enterprise is far from what is expected. Where did all these batteries go?
"Only 10%-20% of the waste batteries enter the regular enterprises, and most of the batteries can be said to be missing and flowing into unknown small workshops." Liu Dong revealed to us.
Power battery recycling is a rather troublesome thing, whether it is environmental protection or fire protection, it means cost, and small workshops obviously have no burden in this regard.
Because there is no clear pricing mechanism, the phenomenon of "high price" abounds, small workshops give higher prices and low costs, batteries more flow to the "black market" and disappear into small workshops.
When auto sankei searched for keywords such as waste car batteries and car chassis recycling on second-hand commodity trading platforms such as salted fish and turnaround, it found that posts about the recycling of new energy vehicle power batteries emerged. The list price of the product ranges from 10 yuan to 300 yuan, but in the detailed introduction, there are words such as "a large number of collections, waste batteries, and door-to-door".
"Battery packs without water are generally recycled according to kWh, ranging from 100 yuan to 300 yuan. The battery pack that has entered the water is recycled by ton, and the price of different materials is also different, lithium iron is 5000 yuan / ton, and ternary lithium is 13000 yuan - 18000 yuan / ton. The auto industry survey found that most merchants said that the specific quotation depends on the battery situation, but without exception, the prices of these "black household" merchants are far more than the quotations of "white list" companies.
It is understood that the recovery price of regular enterprises is only 10,000 yuan / ton, or even lower, and will also charge a separate service fee. In contrast, the competitiveness of both sides is not at the same level at all.
Under such confrontation, there has been a situation in which the "regular army" cannot recover a sufficient amount of batteries, which is becoming more and more difficult to sustain, and most of the decommissioned batteries are missing.
Considerable profits for outlaw batteries
The "regular army" enterprises do not have enough to eat
"Only you can't think of it, no market can't do it." When we tried to track the whereabouts of the waste batteries in these small workshops, we found that in the field of low-speed electric vehicles and electric bicycles, there are waste batteries.
Batteries with higher remaining capacity after cascade treatment can indeed be used in energy storage, low-speed electric vehicles and other fields. However, the safety performance of batteries in small workshops is a significant problem, and it is inevitable that hidden dangers will accumulate during use.
"There have been more than 6,000 electric vehicle (two-wheeled electric vehicle) fires this year, and the battery problems in them are likely to be flown out of this kind of refurbished small workshop." Liu Caisheng guessed.
In fact, for small workshop recycling enterprises, limited by cost and technical thresholds, their priority is still dismantling and recycling.
In the first half of this year, the price of industrial metals rose sharply, and the price of nickel, cobalt and manganese continued to rise, for example, the price of nickel rose by nearly 50% in the first half of the year. The ternary lithium battery contains a large number of valuable metals and materials, and the economic benefits of recycling are good, and the profit margin is very considerable.
In contrast to the high profit margins, qualified "white list" companies are in a difficult situation to make a profit.
"If companies can buy enough batteries, there is no difficulty in making a profit. The main difficulty in making profits is that the production capacity cannot be released, and the purchase of sufficient batteries cannot be produced. "People familiar with the matter analyzed us.
(Source: official website, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Zhongtai Securities)
Bao Wei, general manager of Huayou Cycle, one of the "white list" companies, said bluntly that the problem facing the industry at this stage is not insufficient production capacity, but the limited number of batteries that can be recycled.
According to Bao Wei's statistics, only the first batch of 5 enterprises on the "white list" can handle 600,000 tons, which is more than enough to deal with the current scrap of more than 200,000 tons.
In addition, the batteries that have really entered the scrapping stage are basically electric buses, taxis and other operating vehicles that have reached the mandatory scrapping period that have entered the official system in the early days, and more are lithium iron phosphate batteries.
The ternary lithium battery containing high-value metal materials has not yet entered the market for a short time and has not yet entered the scrap tide. That is to say, there is still some time before the arrival of the flashpoint of battery retirement.
And Liu Dong and others are looking forward to the real arrival of the "retirement tide".
Write at the end
Although a large number of waste batteries cannot flow into the "regular army", this market is still a blue ocean.
According to the statistics of Flush, among the 32 listed companies in the power battery recycling sector, 26 companies achieved a year-on-year increase in net profit in the first three quarters of this year, accounting for more than 80%. Among them, 21 companies doubled their net profits year-on-year during the reporting period.
"Under the guidance of rising raw material prices and relevant policies, industrial chain companies are actively laying out the power battery recycling industry." Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Innovation Center of North China University of Technology, analyzed the automotive industry and economic analysis that the entry of car companies is conducive to reducing costs and increasing efficiency in the industrial chain and enhancing market competitiveness.
In addition, some car companies are also actively taking action. BYD, Weilai, BAIC, Tesla, Jaguar Land Rover and other manufacturers have laid out battery recycling business.
In September this year, Tesla's official website in China launched the "Battery Recycling Service" and reminded customers that Tesla can recycle "any battery that no longer meets customer needs", and the official will recycle these lithium-ion batteries 100%.
In November this year, Weineng and Huayou Energy signed a cooperation agreement, and the two sides carried out in-depth cooperation on battery cascade utilization and recycling, which is also an important part of Weineng's "full-cycle management of battery assets".
On the way to the interview, many practitioners gave us feedback that this industry is far more secretive than imagined. The omission of any link may increase the probability of "out-of-pocket batteries", such as dismantling enterprises in the industrial chain, compliance companies before the implementation of the New Deal, battery recycling outlets.....
Of course, that's another topic.
* Some information references:
Magnifying lamp "The Funeral of lithium battery"
Wanlian Securities "Electrical Equipment Industry In-depth Report: Power Storage Dual Drive, Lithium Iron Phosphate Volume and Price Rise"
Beijing News "Waste power battery recycling price per ton of million yuan, nearly 80% into the black market"
Science and Technology Daily "The tide of retirement is coming, and the "regular army" of new energy battery recycling cannot beat the "black workshop""
Soochow Securities "Power Battery Regeneration Welcomes Long Cycle High Boom, AutoMotive Aftermarket Leader Actively Layout Strides In"