Wei Xiaoli joined hands to increase the capital of Xinwanda, and the battery anxiety of car companies was more serious than expected

Text | Angel Lee

Edit | Su Jianxun

The supply of power batteries has become the top priority of car companies, and Wei Xiaoli is stepping up battery companies.

On the evening of February 24, Sunwoda issued an announcement that the company's board of directors deliberated and passed the relevant capital increase proposal, agreeing that 19 companies would increase the capital of their subsidiary Sunwoda electric vehicle battery for 2.43 billion yuan, and subscribe to the new registered capital of Sunwoda automotive battery of 1.237 billion yuan, corresponding to about 19.55% of the equity of Sunwoda automobile battery after the completion of this capital increase.

Among them, Jiangsu Chehejia, an affiliate of Ideal Automobile, and Weirui Investment, an affiliate of WEILAI Automobile, increased their capital by 400 million yuan and 250 million yuan respectively, and held 3.21% and 2.01% of the equity shares of Sunwoda Auto Battery respectively. At the same time, 36Kr exclusively learned that the second investor, Sky Top LLC, is actually Xiaopeng Motors behind the company, which also invested 400 million yuan and obtained 3.21% of the shares. At this point, Wei Xiaoli's entire staff arrived.

Some insiders told 36Kr that THE participation of WEILAI Capital should be based on financial actions, while ideal cars and Xiaopeng motors are mostly considered at the strategic level.

In addition to the three new car-making forces, the investors of Sunwoda auto batteries also include affiliates of traditional car companies such as SAIC and Dongfeng. This means that the development of Sunwoda in the field of power batteries has been recognized by new car manufacturers and traditional car companies, and the company does not rule out cooperation with these car companies in the future.

After the completion of the capital increase, the registered capital of Sunwoda Auto Battery will increase from 5.087 billion yuan to 6.325 billion yuan. Sunwoda said that the capital increase of investors in this round should be used for daily operating funds in full.

From consumer electronics to power batteries

Starting from 3C consumer batteries, Sunwoda was founded in Shenzhen in 1997. After more than ten years of hard work, Sunwoda has achieved good results in the field of mobile phone batteries, and Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, etc. are its customers.

However, the earliest Sunwoda's main business is battery PACK (module packaging), which is also regarded as the dirtiest and most tired link in the battery industry, and the profit is far less than that of battery cell manufacturing. Aware of this, Sunwoda began to gradually increase the added value of its products.

Since 2008, Sunwoda began to lay out power batteries, but it was not until 2014, with the acquisition of Dongguan Lithiumway and the establishment of electric vehicle battery companies, Sunwoda officially stepped into the field of power batteries.

In the following years, Sunwoda established a power battery core research institute, a power cell company, and invested in power cell production lines, and constantly practiced internal strength. In 2018, Sunwoda began to achieve self-sufficiency in batteries.

At present, Sunwoda has a layout in industrial clusters such as 3C consumer batteries, intelligent hardware, electric vehicle batteries, energy storage systems and energy Internet.

Liang Rui, vice president of Sunwoda, once said in a public interview that the proportion of the company's power battery revenue is still relatively small. Its market share in domestic power batteries is not high. According to the data of China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, Sunwoda ranked tenth in the domestic market share in 2021, with an annual loading volume of 2.06GWh and a market share of 1.3%. Monthly results can sometimes rank seventh or eighth.

At present, Sunwoda has reached cooperation with Geely Automobile, Dongfeng Liuqi, Renault Nissan, VOLVO, GAC, EasyJet, Shangtong Wuling and other car companies. In addition, it has also established joint ventures with Geely and Liuzhou Wuling to expand production capacity.

However, Sunwoda's ambitions are not small, Liang Rui once said in an interview that the future goal is to achieve the top three domestic power batteries.

Recently, Sunwoda has indeed accelerated the pace of industrial layout. In December 2021, Sunwoda announced its intention to build projects with an annual production capacity of 30GWh power batteries and energy storage battery production lines in Zaozhuang, Shandong Province, with an investment of 20 billion yuan. Earlier, Sunwoda also planned to build a 50GWh power battery production base project in the Nanchang Economic Development Zone, with an investment of 20 billion yuan.

In addition, its Guangdong Huizhou base project plans a production capacity of 4GWh, with an investment of 2.41 billion yuan, and the Nanjing base project in Jiangsu Province has a planned production capacity of 30GWh with a total investment of 13.5 billion yuan. It is expected that by 2025, Sunwoda's production capacity will reach 140GWh.

Although there is still a certain gap between the total capacity plan and other friends. It is understood that by 2025, the production capacity planning of the Ningde era is expected to be 600GWh, BYD's battery production capacity is expected to reach 430 GWh, Guoxuan Hi-Tech is expected to reach 300GWh, Zhongxin Airlines is expected to reach 500GWh, and Yiwei Lithium energy is expected to reach 200GWh.

However, at present, the battery anxiety of the OEMs is serious, and they will pay more attention to the recent production capacity delivery. It is reported that the Sunwoda Nanchang Battery Base Project (Phase I) is expected to be completed and put into operation in the first quarter of this year. It may also have a series of capacity releases in 2022. This may be a major reason why Sunwoda can get a capital increase from 19 companies such as Wei Xiaoli.

Car companies have serious battery anxiety

The beating of the "heart" of the power battery is crucial to the good operation of the car company's shell.

However, with the rising prices of raw materials such as upstream lithium carbonate and the sharp increase in demand for new energy vehicles, the anxiety of OEMs is also increasingly serious.

It is understood that in 2021, the sales of new energy vehicles in the mainland reached 3.521 million units, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, and the sales of new energy vehicles in January 2022 reached 431,000 units, an increase of 1.4 times year-on-year.

But behind the fierce demand, the supply of power batteries is in short supply, and the price of upstream raw materials has soared. The price of battery-grade lithium carbonate (the core raw material of power batteries) has risen to 467,500 yuan / ton, while the price a year ago was only 50,000 or 60,000 / ton, more than 9 times higher.

At present, upstream raw material enterprises such as Ganfeng Lithium and Tianqi Lithium are intensively going to sea to buy ore, and even battery companies such as Ningde Times and Yiwei Lithium Energy in the middle of the industry have also joined this resource grab war. Sunwoda has also previously obtained the right to explore the Jinel Salt Lake in Dongtai, Qinghai, but the prospecting work is still in progress.

From mining to smelting, to processing into batteries, it takes a certain production cycle. Some insiders told 36Kr that the "power battery shortage" may not be alleviated in the short term, and the contradiction between supply and demand will exist for a long time. And the pressure has been transmitted downstream, and car companies and consumers have borne the result of the imbalance between supply and demand of batteries.

For example, Great Wall Motor's Euler brand stopped accepting new orders for two models, black cat and euler white cat, due to "lack of core and lack of electricity". The two models are Euler's entry-level models, priced at 69,800-84,800 yuan and 71,800-88,800 yuan respectively, with a total sales volume of 173,000 units.

Dong Yudong, CEO of the Great Wall Motor Euler brand, said in the official App: It is a helpless move to stop taking orders. "Taking the black cat model as an example, after the sharp increase in raw material prices in 2022, the loss of a single model exceeded 10,000 yuan."

More car companies have also raised product prices to varying degrees, including Xiaopeng, BYD, Tesla, Nezha, SAIC Roewe, Weilai and so on. Coupled with the decline in subsidies for new energy vehicles, the pressure on car companies will undoubtedly be greater.

In this way, it is reasonable for car companies to increase the power battery company.

In terms of financial investment, the space for new energy vehicles is vast, the plate is still growing rapidly, and the waist battery company has the opportunity to achieve rapid development. With strategic investment in batteries, investing in battery companies can also ensure the stability of their own battery product supply to a greater extent.

At present, the battery of the ideal car is still exclusively supplied by the Ningde era, but the ideal has also been rumored to cooperate with BYD battery. This ideal leads the investment in Sunwoda, and the project cooperation between the two sides may also be on the way.

Similarly, NIO's exclusive battery supplier is also THE NINGDE era, but Li Bin, CEO of NIO, said in the third quarter earnings meeting last year that even if an exclusive supply is established with the NINGDE era, the battery is still a big constraint on the delivery.

As for Xiaopeng Motors, there has been news before: Sunwoda is expected to become the A supply of the G9 models that Xiaopeng Motors will deliver soon, and the supply share is more than 50%. Deliveries of the model are expected to begin in the third quarter of this year.

If we can reach cooperation with the above three car-making forces, it will be a leap forward in The market share or industry position of Sunwoda.

Although in the field of batteries, the status of the Ningde era is still unshakable, but with the waist players BYD, Zhongxin Airlines, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Hive Energy, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Xinwanda and other players leap forward, the situation of "one super and many strong" is expected to appear.