In the context of rising raw material prices, China's power battery industry has withstood the pressure and once again achieved good results of doubling its performance. According to the data released by the Power Battery Application Branch, from January to November this year, the installed capacity of power batteries in the Chinese market was about 128.3GWh, an increase of 153.1% year-on-year, and the annual installed capacity is expected to reach 150GWh.
Launch an assault on the "big and strong"
Since 2015, China's new energy vehicle production and sales have ranked first in the world for six consecutive years, and domestic brands have risen rapidly. According to the statistics released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to November this year, the new energy vehicle market is still hot, and the production and sales volume have reached a new high, with the cumulative output of more than 3 million vehicles and the sales volume approaching 3 million.
In addition, the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles has also increased rapidly this year, from 5.4% last year to 12.7% today. Among them, the main factor is the significant increase in the proportion of private consumption, which provides strong support for the growth of new energy vehicle sales. This also shows that with the continuous maturity of power battery technology, consumers' acceptance of new energy vehicles is getting higher and higher, and the new energy vehicle market has shifted from policy-driven to market-driven.
Gao Yanmin, former director of the Department of Consumer Goods Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the vigorous development of the new energy automobile industry has led to the rapid progress of the power battery industry. Nowadays, the power battery material technology continues to develop and innovate, the process technology is constantly iteratively upgraded, and the battery manufacturing cost is decreasing year by year. It can be said that the progress of the new energy automobile industry is inseparable from the help of power batteries.
Statistics from the Power Battery Application Branch show that in the first 11 months of this year, the market share of the top 10 companies in the Chinese market reached 92%, of which 9 were independent brands; among the top 10 companies in the global market, Chinese companies occupied 6 seats.
In this regard, Liu Yanlong, secretary general of the China Chemical and Physical Power Industry Association, pointed out that in the fully open and competitive market, China's head battery enterprises are in the world's first group in terms of product research and development, technological breakthroughs, cost control, service capabilities, etc., and truly achieve the goal of "big and strong".
In order to ensure the standardized development of the power battery industry, the relevant departments of the state have introduced a number of policies and planning measures. In November this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued the "Lithium-ion Battery Industry Specification Conditions (2021 Version)" and the "Lithium-ion Battery Industry Specification Announcement and Management Measures (2021 Version)", and solicited opinions from the whole society, aiming to guide lithium-ion battery enterprises to reduce manufacturing projects that simply expand production capacity, strengthen technological innovation, and improve product quality. In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other five ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Management Measures for the Cascade Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries", which further guides car companies, battery companies, recycling enterprises, and ladder utilization enterprises to jointly promote the cascade utilization and recycling of waste power batteries, and truly realize the green development of new energy vehicles and power battery industries.
Raw material prices continue to rise The industry is under serious pressure
While the power battery industry is accelerating its development, it is also facing tremendous pressure. The rising price of raw materials has brought great challenges to the supply chain of power battery companies.
Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of Hive Energy, pointed out that since the beginning of this year, the sales volume of new energy vehicles has grown rapidly, but the coordinated development of the supply chain has obviously lagged behind the overall growth rate of the industry, and the addition of liquid VC (vinylene carbonate), lithium hexafluorophosphate, LFP (lithium iron phosphate), anode graphitization, PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride), SP (conductive carbon black) prices in the electrolyte have continued to rise, and the supply is very tight. He expects that this imbalance between supply and demand will continue, and other materials will also be tight in supply due to long expansion cycles, chemical expansion EIA declarations, and insufficient equipment capacity in the future.
Data show that since the beginning of this year, the price of lithium cobalt oxide, a cathode material, has increased by more than 200%, and the price of electrolyte has increased by more than 150%; the supply of anode materials and other materials has continued to be tight, resulting in a significant increase in the comprehensive cost of power batteries. Under continuous pressure, battery companies such as BYD, Penghui Energy, and Guoxuan Hi-Tech have issued price increase letters. Among them, BYD adjusted the unit price of battery products such as C08, and the unified increase was not less than 20%. In this regard, BYD said that the price adjustment is mainly due to market changes and the rise in raw material prices caused by power rationing and production rationing. Guoxuan Hi-Tech also admitted in the price adjustment letter that with the continuous rise in the price of raw materials for batteries, power battery companies are currently facing the biggest difficulties since the new crown epidemic.
In Liu Yanlong's view, the "price increase tide" caused by the mismatch between supply and demand in the industrial chain is rooted in the lack of attention and layout of resources and materials, which has produced a series of chain reactions. In the future, the power battery industry should bear in mind the lessons and pay enough attention to the layout of key resources and materials.
However, it is worth mentioning that in the case of a sharp rise in raw material prices leading to a continuous decline in the gross profit margin of power batteries, leading enterprises still show a strong ability to resist risks. Recently, CATL plans to invest 13.5 billion yuan to build a new lithium battery manufacturing base in Yichun City, Jiangxi Province. Industry insiders believe that the battery base is expected to accelerate the upgrading of the power battery industry. For other power battery companies, customers, production capacity, and cash flow are still important starting points for them to stabilize their development under the soaring of raw materials. Recently, Hive Energy announced the completion of a B+ round of financing totaling 6 billion yuan, and the funds raised in this round of financing will be mainly used for research and development of new technologies, the construction of Changzhou Phase IV production base, Changzhou R&D center and Changzhou headquarters management center. At the same time, Hive Energy said that the global capacity planning target for 2025 will be increased to 600GWh.
Diversified routes bloom
In the process of the development of new energy vehicles to the market, power batteries have a variety of technical routes to compete for the phenomenon. In this regard, Liu Yanlong said that from the perspective of battery technology routes, lithium iron phosphate batteries have gradually gained user recognition by virtue of economic and safety advantages, and market demand has heated up. From January to November this year, the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries in the Chinese market reached 64.8GWh, which was higher than that of ternary batteries (63.3GWh) for the first time.
The cost advantage of lithium iron phosphate batteries has also attracted the attention and favor of many large car companies around the world, including Tesla, Volkswagen, Daimler, General Motors, Ford, Hyundai and other international mainstream car companies have said that they want to introduce lithium iron phosphate batteries, LG new energy, SKI and other battery companies are also accelerating the layout of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
In addition to the original technical route, thanks to the development of new materials and new processes, more and more new technologies for power batteries have begun to emerge.
For example, the large cylindrical battery technology that Ewell Lithium energy focuses on is also the battery technology direction that Tesla, Panasonic and other companies focus on. It is reported that Ewell Lithium energy has perfect technical reserves in the field of large cylindrical batteries, and plans to invest in the construction of 20GWh passenger car large cylindrical battery production lines and auxiliary facilities projects.
In addition, silicon anode batteries and sodium-ion batteries have also set off a lot of heat. GAC AION LX Plus is equipped with a new type of nickel-cobalt-manganese ternary lithium battery, and the system energy density reaches 205Wh/kg. Unlike ordinary nickel-cobalt-manganese ternary lithium batteries, the negative electrode of the new battery has added silicon wafers. This design limits and buffers the expansion and contraction of silicon during charge and discharge (without fragmentation), and also acts like a sponge absorbing water, allowing the silicon anode to exert the advantages of large capacity, and its core feature is to greatly reduce the mass and volume of the battery.
From the perspective of the development of silicon anode technology, the focus of improving the energy density of power batteries has been expanded from the positive electrode to the negative electrode and other components. In this industry background, lithium metal secondary batteries using lithium metal as anode material have also received more attention.
Recently, SES, a supplier of hybrid lithium metal batteries, released Apollo lithium metal batteries with a capacity of up to 107Ah, which is said to be the largest lithium metal battery in the world at present, and it is also the first monomer lithium metal battery with more than 100Ah publicly displayed in the world.
In recent years, the independent research and development of power battery systems by vehicle companies has become a new trend. From BYD's "blade", GAC Eian's "magazine", to the Great Wall's "Dayu", and then to Lantu Automobile's self-developed "Amber" and "Mica", the battery systems independently developed by car companies have their own characteristics, in addition to high safety, the selling points such as improving continuous driving ability and energy-saving management are also quite attractive.
Some insiders pointed out that due to the continuous enhancement of the market's driving force for the new energy automobile industry, the demand for power batteries in the whole vehicle has also begun to diverge, which also promotes the diversified exploration of technical routes by power battery companies. In the future, under the role of market orientation, there will be multiple tracks in the battery technology route, advancing in parallel.
Text: Zhao Lingling Editor: Sun Weichuan Layout: Wang Kun