In the January 11 report of Wall Street Insight research, "In 2021, the installed capacity of lithium batteries increased by nearly 1.5 times, and the market evolved into Competition between China and South Korea?" | In 2021, the main car companies in the entire power battery industry (including Ningde Times, BYD, LG New Energy, etc.) have a detailed analysis of the production, sales and installed capacity, the annual summary and the important layout of the future, and this report will continue to further sort out the annual output and installed capacity of the power battery double male - ternary battery and lithium iron phosphate battery and the comprehensive comparison of the two.
1, ternary will not be replaced by lithium iron, the cost disadvantage is weakening
In 2021, the entire ternary lithium battery market has indeed been affected by lithium iron phosphate batteries, after 3 years of ternary lithium batteries to lithium iron phosphate batteries market share advantage, lithium iron phosphate batteries in 2021 to achieve a counterattack, the annual ternary lithium batteries in the production, sales, installed capacity of the three major aspects of lithium iron phosphate batteries have been surpassed by lithium iron phosphate batteries:
1) Output: The annual output of ternary lithium batteries was 93.9GWh, an increase of 93.6% year-on-year, accounting for 42.7% of the total output, which was inferior to the output of lithium iron phosphate of 125.4GWh, an increase of 262.9% year-on-year, accounting for 57.1%.
2) Sales: The annual sales volume of ternary lithium batteries was 79.6GWh, an increase of 128.9% year-on-year, accounting for 42.8% of the total sales, which was inferior to the sales volume of lithium iron phosphate 106GWh, an increase of 245% year-on-year, accounting for 57.2%.
3) Installed capacity: Ternary lithium battery annual installed capacity of 74.3GWh, an increase of 91.3% year-on-year, accounting for 48.1% of the total installed capacity, inferior to lithium iron phosphate 79.8GWh installed capacity, an increase of 227.4% year-on-year, accounting for 57.1%
Wall Street Insights research believes that although lithium iron phosphate batteries perform well in 2021, ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries will remain in a state of long-term coexistence in the future, there is no complete crushing and substitution relationship, there is only a stage of one after another, which in the past 2009 to 2021 The share of ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries in the past 12 years has been reflected in each other's share of the three stages of mutual transcendence.
In addition, ternary low-nickel batteries such as 3 series and 5 series batteries, due to the battery energy density and other performance is only slightly higher than lithium iron phosphate, but its thermal runaway and other management costs are similar to the 8 series, in the case of a large increase in cost, taking into account the cost performance is easy to be seized by lithium iron phosphate batteries. However, the competitive advantage of high-nickel, ultra-high nickel and cobalt-free ternary batteries that gradually occupy the ternary share is still obvious in the high-end market, and its high-quality performance is unmatched and replaced by lithium iron phosphate batteries.
Although the lithium iron phosphate battery is gradually increasing in car companies that are interested in it, the proportion of high-end brands in its use is still low, and the terminal supporting car companies in 2021 are still mainly concentrated in BYD, SAIC-GM-Wuling and Tesla, accounting for nearly 80% of the three. Even Tesla, which first proposed the use of lithium iron phosphate batteries in 2021, only uses lithium iron phosphate batteries on the standard version of the global model products, while other high-performance models such as high-endurance versions, as well as high-end models such as Model X and ModelS, will still use high-nickel and cobalt-less ternary lithium batteries, especially its 4680 large cylindrical batteries will be officially used in 2022.
It is worth noting that throughout 2021, in terms of the material price of lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries, although the absolute price value, ternary materials are still higher than lithium iron phosphate, but the price increase of lithium iron phosphate has far exceeded that of ternary materials, which will weaken the cost disadvantage of ternary relative to lithium iron. The price of lithium iron phosphate (power type) rose from 40,000 yuan / ton at the beginning of 2021 to 111,000 yuan / ton at the end of the year, an increase of 177.5%, and as of January 14, the price rose again to 126,000 yuan / ton; while the prices of the three most commonly used models of ternary materials, type 523, type 622 and type 811, rose from 123,500 yuan / ton, 145,500 yuan / ton and 170,000 yuan / ton at the end of the year to 248,000 yuan / ton, 266,000 yuan / ton and 276,000 yuan / ton, respectively, The increases were 100%, 83% and 62%, respectively.
2. In 2022, the international market is facing the full introduction of lithium iron
In 2021, the output of lithium iron phosphate and battery installed capacity climbed sharply, the main reason in addition to the previous Wall Street insights mentioned in the upstream raw materials of lithium batteries such as the four major materials, copper foil and other prices rose by a large margin, making lithium iron phosphate batteries with lower costs, the cost advantage is obvious, but also in the terminal car companies on the use of power batteries preference change, especially the power battery supporting changes in explosive passenger cars.
Previously, due to the preference of the subsidy policy for battery energy density and the mileage of the car, lithium iron phosphate batteries were mainly used in commercial vehicles, and the annual sales of commercial vehicles in 2021 were 186,000 units, an increase of only 46.6% year-on-year. With the passenger car sales of 3.521 million units and the growth rate of 1.1 times the gap is larger, while the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate in commercial vehicles is about 10GWh, only single-digit growth year-on-year, it can be said that the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate in 2020 is basically the same; but the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate in passenger cars exceeds 30GWh, a year-on-year increase of more than 900%, accounting for more than 75% of the total installed power of lithium iron phosphate power batteries, which is the main reason for the large increase in the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries in 2021.
This point is reflected in the choice of major mainstream car companies at home and abroad in 2021. BYD, Xiaopeng, Geely, SAIC and other domestic car companies, and Volkswagen, Tesla, Daimler, Ford, Hyundai and other international car companies have successively said that they will import lithium iron phosphate batteries, of which representative foreign car companies such as Tesla currently selling model 3 and Model Y in the mainland And the sales of lithium iron versions have accounted for nearly 80%, while further other markets in the world The standard endurance version of model 3 and Model Y have also begun to use lithium iron phosphate batteries Domestic car company BYD is the leader of lithium iron phosphate batteries, and the proportion of its models equipped with lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries has suddenly increased from 5.5:4.5 in 2020 to 9.4:0.6 in 2021.
The collective preferences of major terminal car companies have also led to battery manufacturers have changed their direction, after the main ternary lithium battery LG new energy, SK innovation, etc. also announced in 2021 to enter lithium iron phosphate, overall, the power battery installed capacity of the top ten battery manufacturers in addition to Panasonic, other have begun to layout lithium iron phosphate batteries. Obviously, in 2021, the installed capacity and output of lithium iron phosphate batteries can increase significantly and the power battery preferences of domestic and foreign car companies have changed, and the layout of power battery manufacturers is highly correlated.
Of course, the trend of accelerating the proportion of lithium iron phosphate in 2021 is mainly concentrated in the mainland market, and the overseas demand for lithium iron phosphate is not as high as in China, and it is still dominated by ternary lithium batteries, but this trend is expected to usher in changes in 2022. If 2021 is the lithium iron phosphate battery in the domestic power battery market to set off production, installed capacity of ternary lithium battery in the anti-overtaking, then in the new year 2022 lithium iron phosphate battery in addition to the domestic power battery market to continue to maintain the advantage, in the ternary lithium battery has maintained the dominant position of the international power battery market (overseas whether it is in the field of energy storage or new energy vehicles, ternary lithium batteries account for more than two-thirds) or will also face a rapid increase in market share, do not rule out the possibility of the first time to surpass the ternary lithium battery.
3. Prospects for ternary and lithium iron in 2022
In 2021, the lithium iron phosphate industry chain is almost in a high degree of prosperity throughout the year, but among them, the main player of lithium iron phosphate cathode material is still a professional player such as German Nano, Hunan Yuneng, Hubei Wanrun, etc. The annual output of lithium iron phosphate is 410,000 tons, up 179% year-on-year, and the growth rate is almost the same as that of new energy vehicle sales (cumulative retail sales of 2.989 million vehicles, an increase of 169.1% year-on-year), and the overall supply and demand are in a tight balance, but by 2022, There will be a lot of new players entering the game and a large-scale capacity expansion.
Phosphorus chemical enterprises (Chuanheng shares, Xingfa Group and other companies with upstream phosphorus resources), titanium dioxide enterprises (chemical enterprises with raw materials and ferrous sulfate by-products such as nuclear titanium dioxide) and companies that focus on ternary materials (Dangsheng Technology, Xiamen Tungsten New Energy, Long-term Lithium, etc. have officially announced their entry into the lithium iron phosphate industry), production capacity planning is as high as 100,000 tons, although these phosphorus chemical projects are gradually tightening due to the current approval of energy evaluation, safety assessment, etc., and there are problems such as capacity climbing in new production capacity. The planned production capacity may not be able to come out quickly, but in the long run, the supply of lithium iron phosphate may be excessive. This will have a certain impact on the lithium iron phosphate industry, once the demand for lithium iron phosphate battery market by terminal car companies weakens, or will cause overall overcapacity, especially the product homogenization of new players is high, compared to peers have no advantage, easy to cause low-price vicious competition.
For ternary lithium batteries, although in 2021 by lithium iron phosphate batteries to surpass, in terms of growth rate is not a small distance, but in 2022, the launch of 4680 batteries and the process of high nickel cobalt-free will be expected to bring a substantial increase in opportunities and volume to ternary lithium batteries, and comprehensively enhance the proportion of high-nickel ternary lithium batteries in the entire ternary lithium battery.
In 2021, the output of ternary high-nickel materials in the mainland, including NCA and NCM 811, reached about 140,000 tons, an increase of more than 260% year-on-year, and with the supply side, cobalt-free lithium batteries, quaternary lithium batteries, and 4680 batteries suitable for high-nickel ternary in 2022, as well as the demand side, the high-end models of terminal car companies and high-end brands continue to increase the demand for high-nickel ternary, and the high-nickel ternary lithium batteries are expected to continue to maintain rapid growth. Further occupy the share of low and medium nickel ternary, and achieve a reversal of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
