Recently, at the 2022 CES Show, Japanese technology giant Sony released a new electric SUV concept car VISION-S02. Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida also announced that he will establish Sony Mobile to commercialize Sony's electric vehicles.
Since 2021, more and more Internet and technology companies have crossed the border into the field of car manufacturing, including Xiaomi, Midea, 360, etc., and even Internet freight companies Lala are also involved. Netizens joked that the future of smart car manufacturers, there are selling mobile phones, there are sellers of electricity, as well as selling antivirus software. Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association of Passenger Vehicles, said that the production and sales of new energy vehicles in 2022 are expected to reach a scale of 6 million vehicles, of which more than 5.5 million new energy vehicles will be used, achieving a super growth trend.
While giants from all walks of life are optimistic about new energy vehicles, major plastic giants have also set their sights on new energy vehicles.
01
Covestro
In 2021, german chemical giant Covestro participated in the Expo for the first time. As a chemical company, Covestro has a long and in-depth cooperation with the automotive industry, and not only that, but covestro also provides very unique help on the road to double carbon in the automotive industry.
"As the inventor of polycarbonate, we focus on the development and application of energy-saving, carbon-reducing and innovative high-tech materials. From our point of view, we focus on three main areas. "First of all, we focus on innovative material solutions, which are entirely our bank, based on the needs of customers and the market, focusing on some industry-oriented technologies – such as 5G base stations in the communications industry, electric vehicles in the automotive industry – and application development-led material development." In this process, the concept of low-carbon, recyclable and sustainable development is combined. Second, we emphasize innovation in business models. Because of the process of sustainable development and carbon reduction, the entire industrial chain, upstream and downstream cooperation customers have their own different demands and visions, and we try to carry out different cooperation with partners in the industrial chain. The third point is that we follow the philosophy of circular design. We try to influence and guide our customers so that they also begin to have a recyclable concept in the process of product design, so that our customers' products also have high performance, easy to recycle, regeneration capabilities. ”
The automotive industry is one of the industries that use Covestro's various innovative materials and accept the concept of the circular economy more quickly.
"Automotive is one of the core business units of the Engineering Plastics Division, and the automotive industry offers us many opportunities for application development. We have a very in-depth cooperation with the automotive industry chain from automotive OEM to Tier1, and many of our top customers are our long-term partners. In this context, of course, because we are in the automotive industry, the global market sales in 2020 account for about 40% of the engineering plastics division, which is the leader in this industry. Under this premise, we have begun to discuss with many leading customers about sustainable development and circular economy. Wang Li introduced, "The headlamps of the Landu FREE show car exhibited at the Covestro booth this time are made of polycarbonate, our low-carbon raw materials. This material can reduce carbon emissions by about 80%, and is a promising example of carbon reduction for automotive materials. Similarly, raw materials based on physical recovery are added and mixed in a certain proportion, which can provide up to 75% of the content of post-consumer recycled materials, which are used in various plastic parts such as automotive interiors and exteriors, and can also reduce the carbon emissions of unit parts to a very low level. ”
02
LANXESS
On November 11, the German chemicals company LANXESS announced the conversion of its High Performance Materials (HPM) business unit into a separate legal corporate structure, which is scheduled to be implemented in the first half of 2022. LANXESS Performance Materials is one of the leading suppliers of high-performance plastics. These materials are mainly used in the automotive, electrical and electronics industries. In particular, electric vehicles are a promising application area for LANXESS Plastics, which is mainly used in body, battery housing and charging infrastructure.
"The global market for new mobility options is booming and is strategically rearranging itself – creating many innovative alliances and partnerships. In order to take full advantage of the growth opportunities in this market and to be able to act flexibly, we will create a separate legal structure for the business units," said Hubert Fink, a member of the Board of Management of LANXESS AG.
Lanxess' recent expansion in China also confirms this.
On November 24, 2021, LANXESS will build a second high-tech engineering plastics mixing line under the Duriton and Baogen brands at its Changzhou production site. The project will invest about 30 million euros to increase the annual production capacity of its Changzhou production site by 30,000 tons. Together with the existing production facilities in Changzhou and Wuxi, LANXESS will have a total mixing capacity of 110,000 tons per year in China. The new production line is scheduled to start production in the first quarter of 2023.
Hubert Fink, member of the Board of Management of LANXESS, said: "This expansion is to meet the strong demand from the growing Chinese automotive industry. The boom in e-mobility in China has led to new demand for lightweight applications and continues to increase the proportion of electronic components used in automotive interiors. The construction of the new production line is another important measure for LANXESS to expand its business layout in Greater China. ”
03
Grand Xi'ao
In November, GrandView CEO Frank Bozich announced that the company will fully transform into a specialty materials company in the coming years. The CEO of Centro said the company will seek to strengthen its chemical business, particularly specialty materials, to make it a stronger player in four key areas – automotive, construction, medical and consumer products. To this end, the company will transform by actively adjusting its business.
Bozich noted that the automotive end market is a key growth market for Saxo and currently accounts for about 20 percent of the company's sales revenue. In the future, the automotive market will be an important factor in the transformation of Shengxio. Bozich said: "We have enjoyed the dividends of the growth in demand in the automotive market as we offer more adoption of the solutions we offer, and the demand for acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) for automotive interiors and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) for automotive lighting is growing. At present, the trend of the US auto market to move to larger models also means that the interior needs more materials such as ABS. ”
Frank Bozich also said that to match the company's transformation, the company's product portfolio will change a lot. As a result, the company is very active in mergers and acquisitions in 2021.
In May 2021, the Company completed the acquisition of Arkema's PolyMethyl Methacrylate (PMMA) business, and in September of the same year, the Company acquired Aristech Surfaces, a company whose main business is Acrylic materials. In terms of divestitures, the synthetic rubber business will be sold to Synthos, and the transaction is expected to close in 2022. In addition, businesses that could be divested are being evaluated, including Styrene monomer, polystyrene (PS), etc. Frank Bozich noted that the company has done a lot in terms of mergers and acquisitions this year, and will focus on digesting and integrating these acquisitions in the coming year.
04
SABIC
As carbon reduction gradually becomes a global consensus, it is imperative to reduce vehicle exhaust emissions. Although people's attention to environmentally friendly travel is mostly focused on fuel innovation, making cars lighter is actually a solution with significant energy saving and emission reduction effects. Experiments have proved that if the weight of the car is reduced by 10%, the fuel efficiency can be improved by 6%-8%; in addition, in terms of driving experience, the overall acceleration of the car after lightweighting is significantly improved, and the stability of vehicle control, noise, vibration and other aspects have also been improved.
To help automakers reduce body weight and achieve sustainable development, SABIC has tailored innovative solutions for a number of customers in China, such as the launch of the world's largest LEXAN polycarbonate rear triangle window for SAIC-GM, which can reduce weight by up to 40% compared with glass windows; BMW's MINICountryman is also equipped with a lightweight instrument panel bracket using SABIC materials.
As one of the modern new environmental protection modes, the issue of battery life has been controversial, and the lightweight battery pack can solve this problem to a certain extent.
In order to make "electric" travel smoother, SABIC has developed a battery pack with thermoplastic materials instead of metal materials, which not only reduces the weight of each component by 30%-50% compared with conventional aluminum and other metal materials, but also simplifies the assembly process, reduces costs, improves thermal control and safety, enhances crash resistance, and effectively breaks through the endurance bottleneck of electric vehicles and gets rid of the embarrassing situation of "turning circles in a hundred miles around the charging pile".
05
DSM
During 2021 Chinaplas in April this year, DSM Engineering Materials launched the Discovery Tour online virtual booth. Among them, automobiles (including the general automotive application market and new energy vehicles) account for a large proportion, highlighting DSM's ambitions in this field. Yu Bin, Global Senior Engineering Development Manager of DSM Engineering Materials, was interviewed by the media and shared with you how improving engineering plastics can help vehicle electrification, the following is the highlight of the interview:
"In the context of the carbon neutrality vision proposed by various countries and regions, we look at the development of the entire automotive industry and focus on China, in 2030 China banned the sale of pure fuel vehicles, electrification is an irreversible trend." Compared with traditional fuel vehicles, the various forms and depths of vehicle electrification, whether it is hybrid, plug-in hybrid, pure electricity or fuel cell, are inseparable from high-voltage battery packs, high-voltage control systems, inverters, DC-DC converters, motors and other important functional components. DSM focuses on the automotive triple electric system and fuel cell system, and provides PBT, PA66, PPS, PPA-ForTii® and other materials, which are currently used in mainstream OEMs such as Volkswagen, General Motors, Tesla, Xiaopeng, Weilai, Ideal, BYD, SAIC, GAC, BAIC, Great Wall and other brands. Yu Bin was straight to the point.
Although DSM has plans to sell its engineering plastics project, its optimism about the future of new energy vehicles is unchanged.
06
Roma Chemistry
On August 6, ROHM held the opening ceremony of the Asian Technology Center at the Shanghai International Chemical New Materials Innovation Center (INNOGREEN). Ma Jing, Director of the Management Committee of Shanghai Chemical Industry Zone, and Ling Hongen, President of ROHM Asia, attended the ceremony and cut the ribbon. MICHAEL PACK, CEO of ROHM Group, and Yu Dahai, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Group, attended the ceremony via video conference.
In recent years, ROHM's molding compound business has continuously launched new products developed in China, such as the toughened PMMA Baokli ® series for automotive high-brightness black columns and electronic displays, which can meet the diversified design needs of the lighting industry such as "seeing the light but not seeing the lamp", and the light diffusion PMMA Baokli ® series with high transmittance, high coverage rate and other performance advantages.
In addition, at the end of December, ROHM Group officially announced that it will invest tens of millions of euros to expand the production capacity of its PMMA (polymethacrylate) molding compound products (which are trademarked in the Americas as ACRYLITE®) under the trademark ® of PLEXIGLAS®. The expanded molding plant is expected to be completed and commissioned in the second quarter of 2023.
Roma PMMA molding compound products have always been in high demand worldwide. Romerkline ® has high durability, weather resistance and UV resistance, high color fastness, high brightness and high transparency, and excellent hardness and scratch resistance, etc., can be widely used in automotive, construction, lighting and household appliances and other industries.
Over the past few decades, ROHM's Bulgari ® molding compound business has grown rapidly in China. The rapid growth of the automotive and lighting industry in Asia has promoted the layout and development of ROHM in Shanghai. "This will not only support the business growth of our customers, but also help us seize new market opportunities," said Ling Hongen, President of ROHM Asia, "The announcement of the expansion of the Shanghai plant is another important milestone in ROHM's development in China." In addition, the ROHM New Technology Center was officially inaugurated in Shanghai a few months ago. In the future, ROHM will continue to deepen its localization business and strive to promote the common development of China's automotive and lighting industries.
In addition, foreign chemical plastic giants such as BASF, DuPont and Dow have positioned their future development direction in the new energy automobile industry.
Since foreign material suppliers have almost monopolized the technology of some core components of automotive plastics, the purchase price of independent brands is still very high. Some lightweight materials have obvious weight reduction effects, but the cost is high. For economic products, the cost of reducing the weight of the vehicle by one kilogram is controlled within 20 yuan, which is an acceptable range. At present, the price of foreign material manufacturers is an average of several thousand yuan per ton compared with local material manufacturers, and the average cost per kilogram increases by tens of yuan.
The products of local material suppliers are mainly used for parts such as bumpers, fenders, wheel covers, etc., and the supply of lightweight materials for core components such as steering knuckles and chassis suspensions is basically monopolized by foreign companies such as Bayer, BASF and DuPont. BASF's long glass fiber materials are mainly used in engine mounts, impact-resistant components in vehicles and other components. With increasingly stringent policies, weak links in the automotive industry chain, such as material supply and lightweight design, will still face severe challenges. Compared with foreign capital, the sales volume and capital of private brand enterprises have no advantage.
At present, some enterprises represented by Chery Automobile have begun to cooperate with parts suppliers, lightweight material suppliers and automobile companies from the early stage of research and development.
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