Author: Yuntan, Editor: Xiao shimei
When the cold winter hit, the battery of electric vehicles is still "unaffordable", and the mileage is "frozen" by 30% to 50%, which is a common phenomenon.
And some data show that the charging time of electric vehicles in low temperature environments is even increased by 70%. Although the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has rapidly approached 20%, for the huge number of electric vehicle owners, mileage anxiety has always been a lingering "heart disease".
According to the test of authoritative institutions, for every 10kg reduction in the weight of pure electric vehicles, the cruising range can be increased by 2.5km. Weight reduction, battery life upgrades, and the pursuit of lightweighting have become "compulsory courses" that new energy vehicle companies have to study.
【New energy vehicle "burden reduction"】
"Weight" has always been a weight that mainland new energy vehicles cannot bear.
In the process of automobile electrification, the battery, motor, and electronic control "three electricity" replace the power system of traditional fuel vehicles, but the weight of the vehicle also increases. For example, Geely's same type of Emgrand GS, the tram has increased its weight by 220KG.
Under the trend of intelligent networking, electric vehicles have been equipped with a large number of intelligent equipment, chips, radars, high-definition cameras and wiring harnesses for data transmission, etc., which have added a lot of burden to the "weight" of electric vehicles.
The National Advanced Rail Transit Equipment Innovation Center believes that the lightweight of mainland automobiles is seriously lagging behind Europe and the United States.
Benchmarking foreign products, mainland electric passenger cars are generally 10%-30%, and electric commercial vehicles are generally 10%-15%, and these burdens have been squeezing the mileage of cars.
The national policy level has begun to focus on the "Made in China 2025" issued by the State Council, which pointed out that lightweight technology is the key breakthrough direction of automobiles.
The "Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap" has formulated a clear roadmap for vehicle lightweighting. Among them, the "burden reduction" task of new energy vehicles is the heaviest - in 2025, the quality of the whole vehicle will be reduced by 20% compared with 2015, and the weight reduction will be 35% in 2030. Therefore, lightweight is one of the main technical routes for new energy auto parts.
"Lightened" electric vehicles have increased range, alleviating range anxiety while reducing carbon emissions. The application of lightweight technology also helps to reduce the braking distance, save kinetic energy, and also help to reduce noise.
According to Xiamen Fengyuan Machinery, with the explosive growth of new energy vehicles, the market size of automotive lightweight materials will increase rapidly to 35 billion yuan in the next three years.
Driven by the dual pressure of energy conservation and emission reduction and the demand for improving the performance of new energy vehicles, automobile lightweighting is accelerating.
【Three directions of lightweight】
Aluminum alloy, preferred material.
Aluminum alloys contribute to the process of automobile lightweighting.
Considering the technological maturity and cost advantages, aluminum alloys and high-strength steels are still the first choice for automotive lightweighting. Together, the two account for more than 85% of the market, while aluminum alloys account for nearly 65%.
Tesla, Weilai and other car companies have adopted a large number of aluminum alloys to reduce the weight of the body. Benefiting from the all-aluminum body, the body weight of the NIO ES8 is reduced by 40% compared to the traditional steel body, and the body weight is only 335kg. The aluminum rate of ES8 is as high as 95.8%, the highest in the world.
Due to the advantages of aluminum alloy materials, the penetration rate of doors, hoods and tail plates continues to increase. The battery is the most core component of the electric vehicle, but also the pure incremental component of the process of replacing the fuel vehicle of the new energy vehicle, with excellent cost performance, the aluminum battery box is the first choice for the power battery.
According to the agency's forecast, only the lightweight of the chassis, the core component of new energy vehicles, will grow as high as 6 times in 6 years, and the market size will rise from 4.6 billion yuan in 2019 to 32 billion yuan in 2025; while the aluminum battery box and subframe market size will be rapidly expanded to 18 billion yuan and 7.5 billion yuan, and the CAGR will be 31% and 55% respectively.
In the process of lightweighting, the amount of aluminum used in bicycles will increase from 190KG in 2020 to 259KG in 2025 and 350KG in 2030.
Broad prospects have attracted a number of enterprises to settle in, Lizhong Group is one of the largest intermediate alloy production enterprises in mainland China, the business involves intermediate alloy new materials, casting aluminum alloys and aluminum alloy wheels, is the only company in the industry with melting equipment, recycled casting aluminum alloys, functional intermediate alloys, wheel molds, wheel design and production and digital information applications of the complete industrial chain of the company.
The company is the top in the industry in three major segments, with intermediate alloy production capacity (70,000 tons / year) winning the world; recycled casting aluminum alloy (1.2 million tons / year) ranking first in China; and the annual output of aluminum alloy wheels is 18.45 million, ranking second in China.
As the company's largest profit, the revenue growth rate of the new energy wheel hub in 2020 is as high as 52.32%, and the sales volume reaches 437,200.
Kaiyuan Securities believes that with the increase in the penetration rate of aluminum alloy wheels, the total demand for aluminum alloy wheels will increase from 166 million to 239 million in the next 5 years. Considering that new energy vehicles account for less than 4% of the current wheel sales in Lizhong, it has a strong performance elasticity due to strong downstream demand.
In addition to expanding production and consolidating its position in the industry, Lizhong Group will also extend upstream and intend to invest in the construction of 145,000 tons of new lithium battery materials, including 18,000 tons of lithium hexafluorophosphate. One of the raw materials of the intermediate alloy is the excipient of lithium hexafluorophosphate. "Aluminum alloy + lithium battery materials", the future of the company will form a two-wheel drive development pattern.
In the first three quarters of 2021, Lizhong Group achieved revenue of 13.104 billion yuan and net profit attributable to the mother of 337 million yuan, an increase of 44.77% and 15.90% respectively year-on-year.
Under the background of the sharp rise in aluminum prices, silicon and other raw materials in 2021, the performance of Lizhong Group is still growing rapidly, showing strong cost and management control.
In 2022, upstream material prices peaked, and the company's earnings will continue to recover. Industrial chain coordination and diversified layout are expected to recreate a new Lizhong.
Magnesium alloy with maximum elasticity.
Among lightweight materials, although the amount of magnesium alloy is not as good as that of aluminum alloy, the incremental elasticity is the largest.
The "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap" proposes that the amount of magnesium used in new energy vehicles will increase from 15kg in 2020 to 45kg in 2030, an increase of up to 2 times, showing the incremental value of magnesium alloys.
Not only the lowest density, but also more conducive to die casting molding, and stronger stability, magnesium alloys have an irreplaceable role in automotive lightweighting.
China Industry Information Network predicts that in 2020, 2025 and 2030, the demand for magnesium alloys for vehicles will show a leap forward growth trend, reaching 45, 82.3 and 1.718 million tons respectively, with an increase of nearly 3 times in the next decade.
With a market share of more than 35% in the global market, Yunhai Metal is the largest producer of magnesium alloys in China. At the same time, the company also exerts its strength in aluminum alloy products, and extruded aluminum products have been supplied to Tesla and Ningde Times.
The company announced that it expects the net profit for the full year of 2020 to be 500 million yuan to 580 million yuan, an increase of 1.05 times to 1.38 times, far exceeding the 73.59% predicted by the agency.
Compared with competitors, Yunhai Metal Magnesium Alloy has a complete industrial chain from mining, smelting, smelting, processing and casting to metal recycling; and Baosteel Metal is the second largest shareholder of the company, and Li Changchun, senior vice president of Baosteel Metal, is currently the general manager of Yunhai Metal.
The interaction with Baosteel's resources and the layout of the whole industry chain have made the company's magnesium alloy production cost 12% lower than that of "Friendly Merchants".
On the basis of the original annual production capacity of 100,000 tons of raw magnesium and 180,000 tons of magnesium alloys, Yunhai Metal has continued to expand production and continue to increase market share. On the one hand, it has established a joint venture with Baosteel and other companies to launch a 300,000-ton high-performance magnesium-based light alloy and 150,000-ton magnesium alloy deep processing project; on the other hand, through the acquisition of Tianjin Liuhe magnesium products, it has completed the construction of a new automotive lightweight parts base.
With huge scale advantages and the layout of the whole industry chain integrating upstream and downstream, Yunhai Metal's leading position in the field of magnesium alloys will be further enhanced.
Carbon fiber, the ideal material.
Compared with traditional automotive metals, carbon fiber composites have low density, high strength, designability and corrosion resistance, making them the "most ideal" materials for automotive lightweighting.
NIO has partnered with SGL Carbon to develop a carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) battery housing that is 40% lighter than traditional aluminum or steel battery housings. Not only is it highly rigid, but it also has a thermal conductivity 200 times lower than that of aluminum. The vehicle reduces a certain weight and also brings convenience to the power exchange.
According to the roadmap, carbon fiber will be used in new energy vehicles in 2020, and by 2030, the proportion of vehicle weight will reach 5%.
However, the problem of carbon fiber is that the cost is too high, the technical barriers and capital threshold are high, and it is currently only used for luxury cars and coupes. The raw material price of up to 120-200 yuan / Kg, coupled with the extremely complex manufacturing process, makes it difficult to meet the process of automobile lightweighting.
At present, in the downstream applications of global carbon fiber, automobiles account for less than 9%, and only 2% of mainland carbon fiber is used in the automotive industry, and carbon fiber aerospace and wind power blades are still the main use scenarios.
Automotive carbon fiber is still in the exploratory stage, on the eve of the outbreak. Therefore, reducing manufacturing costs is the key to large-scale promotion. According to the national plan, the cost of carbon fiber for automobiles will be reduced by 50% compared with the previous stage in each stage of 2020, 2025 and 2030. According to estimates, the cost in 2025 is 60-100 yuan / KG, and it will be reduced to 30-50 yuan / KG in 2030, close to the current cost of aluminum alloys.
With the reduction of costs, the amount of carbon fiber vehicles will gradually increase, the agency predicts that in 2025, the global and Chinese automotive carbon fiber demand will reach 19.81 and 112,000 tons, and the proportion of automotive carbon fiber will increase to 5%, and the amount of carbon fiber will reach 5600 tons.
The extremely high threshold and capital barriers have led to the obvious advantages of carbon fiber leading enterprises, which deserve long-term attention.
At present, the domestic carbon fiber leaders have their own characteristics, the largest is the Jilin Chemical Fiber Group, which owns Jilin Carbon Valley (836077, Beijing Stock Exchange) and Jilin Chemical Fiber (000420. SZ, the core subsidiary is Jilin Baojing), respectively, mastered the production of raw silk and carbonization technology, with industrial synergy advantages.
Hengshen Shares (listed on the New Third Board), a subsidiary of Shaanxi Chemical Group, is known as the only enterprise in China covering raw silk, carbon fiber, sizing agent, fabric, liquid resin, adhesive, prepreg, carbon fiber composite parts, and aviation composite materials.
In addition, in the sequence of central enterprises, China National Building Materials' Zhongfu Shenying has applied for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board; Sinopec's Shanghai Petrochemical (600688. SH), Bluestar Group, a subsidiary of ChemChina, has the support of upstream raw material resources, and its strength should not be underestimated.
Guangwei Composites in Private Enterprises (300699. SZ) and Zhongjian Technology (300777.SZ), whose products have penetrated into military systems such as aerospace, Guangwei Composite is also the main supplier of carbon beams for wind power giant Vestas.
Although automotive carbon fiber is still on the eve of the outbreak, with the improvement of technical processes, it is expected to replicate its development path in the fields of wind power and military industry.
Compared with the intelligence of automobiles, the current demand for the improvement of the endurance of electric vehicles is more intense, so it is imperative to reduce the weight of automobiles. The strong downstream demand, the help of top-level policies, the acceleration of the industrialization process, and the explosion of lightweight materials such as aluminum, magnesium, and carbon fiber are worth looking forward to.
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This article involves the content of listed companies, which is the author's personal analysis and judgment based on the information publicly disclosed by listed companies in accordance with their statutory obligations (including but not limited to temporary announcements, periodic reports and official interactive platforms, etc.); the information or opinions in this article do not constitute any investment or other business advice, and Market Value Watch does not assume any responsibility for any action arising from the adoption of this article.
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