Late exclusive 丨 Xiaopeng new car uses Sunwoda power battery to alleviate the shortage of battery production capacity

A major contradiction in the smart electric vehicle industry at present is that the downstream demand is strong, but the supply of upstream core components such as batteries and chips is insufficient, affecting vehicle delivery. Car companies need to find more sources of supply and build a stronger supply chain.

"LatePost" exclusively learned that Xiaopeng Automobile, which previously used CATL as the main supplier of power batteries, has determined to use Sunwoda's 4C power battery (4C battery can adapt to fast charging) in the G9 medium and large SUV released in November last year. Sunwoda will be a certain version of the G9 A supply, with a supply share of more than 50%.

Xiaopeng was the sales champion of China's new car-making forces last year, delivering more than 98,000 cars throughout the year, but the lack of battery supply slowed down the pace of delivery. At the earnings report in May last year, He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of Xiaopeng Automobile, said that the shortage of lithium iron phosphate battery production capacity has made Xiaopeng production face uncertainty. This continued until the end of the year.

The fundamental reason for the shortage of production capacity is that consumers' demand for smart electric vehicles exceeds expectations, from upstream mining and material companies to midstream battery manufacturing links are not prepared, and it takes time to increase production capacity.

In short supply, CATL, which can provide the largest and most stable battery supply, has made a lot of profits, serving the most customers with higher battery pricing than its peers, and its market share in China is more than 50%.

But smart EV companies don't want to rely too much on a single supplier. In addition to Xiaopeng's actions, GAC Aean and Weilai Automobile also used suppliers outside the Ningde era in new cars. Geely has a joint venture with Sunwoda, Fu Neng and other battery companies to jointly produce batteries. Hive Energy, which was spun off from Great Wall, raised 20 billion yuan in financing last year. BYD has been developing its own batteries and building its own factories.

According to the public information, the world's major power battery manufacturers have disclosed more than 3000 GWh of capacity planning, and these capacities will be gradually put in place within 3 to 5 years. Even if these plans are only halfway delivered, the shortage of production capacity will gradually ease, and the shortage of supply will not last forever.

Sunwoda, which received the Xiaopeng order, started with a mobile phone battery and was listed on the A-share market as an Apple supplier in 2011. In 2008, Sunwoda began to do automotive power battery packaging and battery management system (BMS), and in 2018 began to officially mass-produce battery cells. Sunwoda has done oem work for the battery assembly link of the G3 listed by Xiaopeng in 2018. Since last year, Sunwoda has announced orders from Geely, Dongfeng, GAC and SAIC. (Ma Hui, Wan Pei)