"The definitive opportunity for the new energy industry has arrived."
Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, recently made such a judgment when attending the 2021 Annual Meeting of High-tech Lithium Battery. He said that carbon neutrality has changed from a global consensus to a global action, and the determination of global green development is constantly strengthening, and it has been implemented in the practice of various countries, and many policies and regulations have been continuously introduced and gradually concretized. For example, the world's major economies such as China, the United States and the European Union have all made relevant commitments and initiatives.
From a global perspective, the power and transportation industry is a large carbon emitter, and the transformation of electricity and transportation requires large-capacity batteries as a guarantee and support. With the gradual implementation of the dual-carbon policy in various countries, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles and renewable energy in the world is growing rapidly.
Taking new energy vehicles as an example, data from the Association shows that the single-month retail penetration rate of New Energy Vehicles in China in November was 20.8%, and the penetration rate in the first 11 months of this year was 13.9%. The Association of Passenger Vehicles judged that the penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles could exceed 20% next year. In Norway, where Chinese new energy vehicle companies are rushing to influx, its single-month penetration rate has exceeded 90%.
In the face of certain opportunities, as a world giant in the field of power and energy storage batteries, Zeng Yuqun shared the latest phased achievements of the NINGDE era in material innovation, system structure, structural innovation and extreme manufacturing in his speech.
Zeng Yuqun believes that the essence of material innovation is the competition of computing level, so CATL has created a world-leading digital R&D platform, embedding big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence into battery research and development, which has greatly accelerated the research and development process of new chemical systems such as sodium-ion batteries, lithium metal batteries, cobalt-free and precious metal-free batteries in the NINGDE era. At the end of July this year, CATL released the first generation of sodium-ion batteries.
In terms of system structure, Zeng Yuqun revealed that the world's first CTP technology in the Ningde era has been upgraded and iterated to the third generation, and has been optimized and improved for endurance pain points, safety pain points and low temperature pain points.
In terms of structural innovation, BASED based on the new algorithm of BMS, CATL proposed and realized the mix-and-match design scheme of arranging two different cells of AB in a single battery pack, which can be a combination of "iron lithium + ternary", a combination of "lithium battery + sodium battery", and more different combinations.
In terms of manufacturing, the battery factory in the Ningde era can produce a battery every 1.7 seconds using technologies such as artificial intelligence, edge computing and cloud computing, with a defect rate of only one billionth, while increasing labor productivity by 75% and reducing energy consumption by 10%.
In addition to technological innovation, Zeng Yuqun also highlighted the problem of supply chain, he said that CATL will choose like-minded partners, carry out and deepen strategic cooperation, and strive to build the four major competitiveness of the supply chain as soon as possible.
One is scale competitiveness. Recently, large chemical giants at home and abroad, such as BASF, Dow Chemical, Hubei Yihua and Guizhou Phosphating, have begun to enter the battery industry chain. "This is a good thing for the industry," Zeng Yuqun pointed out, the battery market scale growth is fast, will soon move towards the TWh era, massive demand calls for a large chemical supply chain, the need for chemical giants to enter the industry, to provide a huge amount of stable supply, and through the supply side to drive the upgrading of the entire industry.
Second, in the face of the decline and withdrawal of the subsidy policy for new energy vehicles, we must do our best to reduce costs and achieve the cost competitiveness of new energy vehicles as soon as possible, which Zeng Yuqun said is the common goal and common task of the whole industry chain.
"Some links, some enterprises, only care about the immediate interests, the pursuit of short-term profits, which is not conducive to the development of the industry, but also not conducive to the enterprise itself, the supply chain is interlinked, Anneng alone?" Faced with some problems in the industrial chain, he unceremoniously pointed out and asked questions.
Third, to create quality competitiveness, it is necessary for material companies, battery companies, and vehicle companies to jointly shoulder responsibilities.
Finally, low-carbon competitiveness. Zeng Yuqun believes that the application of power batteries and energy storage batteries provides key support for "double carbon", but the battery industry should also lead by example and take its own carbon reduction as an important goal. "In the long run, whoever achieves low carbon and zero carbon first will grasp the initiative of competition." He called on China to study and put forward our country's carbon footprint accounting standards and regulatory requirements as soon as possible, and at the same time, the entire industry chain should work together to reduce carbon.
"The big era of new energy has arrived, but under the opportunity of certainty, there are still many challenges, and only by adapting to changes and keeping pace with the times can we continue to win," Zeng Yuqun said at the end of his speech.