New Year Exploration Camp BYD Battery "Core Factory"
According to the recent news of the China Association of Passenger Vehicles, the retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles in China in January 2022 increased by 132.0% year-on-year to 347,000 units in the context of the decline in the entire passenger car market. Among them, BYD continued the good trend of last year, winning the first place in new energy passenger car sales for 8 consecutive months, and the sales growth rate was significantly higher than the industry average.
Since 2014, BYD car sales have always hovered between 400,000 and 500,000. However, in the past two years, as BYD has successively launched heavyweight technologies such as blade batteries, DM-i super hybrids, and e-platform 3.0 and new models such as Han EV and Dolphin, it has promoted the hot sales of its Dynasty series and the accelerated expansion of the Ocean series, achieving sales and customer unit prices flying together.
Batteries are one of the most expensive and important components of electric vehicles. On February 16, Nanfang Daily and Nanfang + High-quality Development Opened a New Bureau "Reading Shenzhen New Production Line" Research First Stop, came to the BYD headquarters in Pingshan District, Shenzhen, walked into the "core factory" of BYD's battery business sector, Fudi Battery SVB Factory, and exchanged views with Li Yunfei, general manager of BYD's brand and public relations business department, to understand the energy source of the rise of new energy vehicle giants.
Group photo of the group research. South + Zhu Hongbo shooting
Factory production line automation, equipment self-made mainly
At about 9 o'clock on February 16, in Pingshan, Shenzhen, at the entrance of the headquarters of BYD, a leading new energy vehicle company, the flow of people working was surging and male and female employees gradually merged into the park. It seems that after only a week of construction, the place has returned to its usual busy scene.
In the Kengzi Fudi Battery SVB factory, which is a 20-minute drive away, the fully automated battery production line has also been operating in an orderly manner. Following in the footsteps of an engineer, the research team of the Shenzhen Branch of Nanfang Daily witnessed the production process of BYD lithium iron phosphate batteries here.
According to the on-site engineer, the birth of a finished battery product here takes 10 to 30 days. Generally speaking, the incoming raw materials will first start into ingredients, and then make positive and negative electrode materials, and then will make coil materials, and add diaphragms, but also through painting, welding, shelling, adding electrolyte, chemical composition, inspection and testing and other links.
The Fordy Battery SVB Factory, founded in 2014, is BYD's second battery factory, including battery production line, battery research and development center, battery testing center, comprehensive station, etc., which is the "core factory" of BYD's battery business sector, covering material patents, structural patents and battery strategy, method and system patents in batteries.
Factory research group photo. South + Zhu Hongbo shooting
Although the production workshop of the SVB factory is large, it is kept clean and quiet everywhere, with few workers, and many links are even unmanned.
According to engineers, at present, the key process of the SVB factory production line is equipped with the most advanced production equipment in the industry, and the automatic assembly line independently developed by BYD is equipped, which has the characteristics of high precision, high speed and high intelligence, and only a small number of employees on the site can complete the operation.
Overall, the SVB factory covers an area of about 100,000 square meters, with a layout of 11 factories, an annual production capacity of 14GWh, a daily output of 150,000 monomers, mainly producing power batteries, energy storage batteries and consumer 3C batteries, customers including automobiles, mobile phones, batteries and other well-known brands in the industry. The main production base of blade batteries is in the Fordy battery factory in Bishan District, Chongqing.
During the Spring Festival, the SVB factory is also working overtime to meet the expanding production demand.
Originally, in recent years, BYD's new energy vehicles have developed rapidly, covering two major technical categories such as pure electric and plug-in hybrid, as well as passenger cars, commercial vehicles, special vehicles and other categories, with BYD Qin, Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, Dolphin, Destroyer 05 and other models, footprints in more than 200 cities on six continents around the world, becoming the leader of global new energy vehicles.
Blade battery. South + Zhu Hongbo shooting
Fordi battery has a complete R & D and production system
As a new energy automobile manufacturer that produces and sells its own tires and glass, BYD has the hard power to stand out from the crowd. Among them, the battery is the foundation of BYD's fortune.
As early as 1995, at the beginning of the company's establishment, BYD positioned its main product as a rechargeable battery. With the rapid development of BYD, BYD founder Wang Chuanfu is known as the "battery king".
Since then, Wang Chuanfu has continuously expanded BYD's business and developed to the present, BYD Group has covered automotive, rail transit, electronics, semiconductors, solar energy, energy storage, lighting, batteries, power and other business areas.
Over the years, the power battery of electric vehicles has mainly been two development routes of lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries, and BYD mainly promotes the former. As early as 2002, BYD launched the research and development of lithium iron phosphate batteries and launched products to the market in 2005.
In the view of Wang Chuanfu, chairman of the board of directors and president of BYD, an important reason for the main lithium iron phosphate battery is that the main materials of such batteries are phosphorus, iron, lithium, etc., excluding rare precious metals such as nickel, cobalt, manganese, etc. Raw materials are widely distributed in the mainland, and there will be no problem of rare metal "card neck", which is conducive to the healthy development of the new energy automobile industry in the mainland.
After years of technical research, in 2020, BYD blade battery super package was released, which solved the long-term pain point of low endurance and easy spontaneous combustion of automobile power batteries, further improved the safety performance and endurance of lithium iron phosphate batteries, and promoted the proportion of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries loaded with lithium iron phosphate batteries in China's electric vehicles to increase by more than 50%.
As new energy vehicles have ushered in major changes unprecedented in a century in recent years, Wang Chuanfu has changed the vertical integration model he has followed for many years, splitting multiple core businesses independently and seeking full competition in the market.
In this context, Fordy Battery Company was established. It is reported that the word "Fudi" is taken from the "Wei this good man, Fu Qiu Fu Di" in the "Book of Poetry, Daya Sangrou", which means honesty and faith, and steady progress.
At present, Fordy Battery has more than 7,200 R&D employees, 7% of the company's average annual sales are used for R&D investment, and 5293 patent applications have been authorized for 3503 (as of March 1, 2021).
BYD Fordy batteries. South + Zhu Hongbo shooting
The core competitiveness of the newly integrated Fordi battery is stronger, with a complete R & D and production system for power batteries, including core mineral resources investment, equity participation, to the development and manufacture of core battery raw materials, cell R&D and manufacturing, module design and manufacturing, BMS design and manufacturing, PACK design and manufacturing, battery cascade utilization and recycling, etc.
BYD Group has invested in upstream mineral resources companies to ensure the stable supply of core raw material resources such as lithium, nickel and cobalt; there are factory production lines in Qinghai, Xi'an, Changsha, Chongqing, Guiyang, Shenhui and other factories to ensure the stability of battery production capacity supply. At the same time, BYD has rich experience in vehicle cooperation and is the first car company in China to apply power batteries to electric vehicles.
Fordy Battery has set up production bases in many cities, and its products are exported to many countries and regions at home and abroad. According to one data, 17 out of every 100 new energy vehicles in the world use relays produced by Fdi batteries, and 10 use Fdi power batteries.
Moreover, Fordy Battery also belongs to the high-profit sector of BYD Group. Southern + reporters from BYD's annual report in the first half of 2021 statistics, battery revenue accounted for only 1% of the group, but contributed 15.69% of the group's net profit.
BYD E Platform 3.0. South + Zhu Hongbo shooting
The expansion of battery production may promote new growth in the automotive industry
With the updating and iteration of core technologies and industrial models, BYD new energy vehicles ushered in explosive growth last year.
According to BYD's production and sales data, in 2021, BYD's new energy passenger car sales achieved explosive growth, with annual sales of 593745 units, an increase of 231.6% year-on-year. By the end of January 2022, BYD has won the first place in new energy passenger car sales for eight consecutive months, and the sales growth rate is significantly higher than the industry average.
At the same time, this year, BYD's new energy passenger car business officially entered the European market, and Norway became the first stop for BYD to enter the European passenger car market.
"We faced a lot of customers in the second half of last year." A BYD employee said.
Because some models were slow to deliver, Wang Chuanfu also apologized to consumers. The strong demand from the automobile sales side has been transmitted to the upstream power battery production line, and BYD has further adjusted the annual battery production capacity plan for this purpose.
According to statistics, by the end of 2021, the annual shipment of Fudi batteries is close to 100GWh, which is about half of the annual shipments of the Ningde era (about 200GWh). It is reported that it is expected that by 2025, The annual production capacity of Fordi batteries will reach 600GWh, which provides a guarantee for the further expansion of BYD's new energy vehicle sales in the future.
The continuous demand from the sales side will also further stimulate BYD to recruit more employees. Li Yunfei, general manager of BYD's brand and public relations business department, said that BYD has developed from more than 20 employees at its inception to more than 230,000 employees, of which 35,000 are technical research and development employees, and the proportion of technical research and development personnel in the total number of employees is in the forefront of domestic vehicle enterprises. At the same time, due to the acceleration of production capacity improvement in business segments such as batteries and vehicles, BYD has also launched a recommended recruitment incentive policy for internal employees in recent years to continuously expand recruitment.
BYD patent wall. South + Zhu Hongbo shooting
Li Yunfei introduced that in order to meet the explosive growth trend of automobile production and sales, in 2022, BYD will further promote technological innovation and brand upgrading, expand battery and automobile production capacity, and actively expand the domestic and foreign markets, and the goal of the entire group's multiple businesses is to achieve carbon neutrality and carbon peaking.
In terms of brand upgrading, BYD has already made frequent moves in February. At the beginning of February, BYD Auto Brand released a new proposition: "Technology, Green Tomorrow", which further fits the theme of the current "double carbon" era; on February 17, BYD announced a new and upgraded brand identity to reflect its new aesthetic pursuit.
In the new stage, can the unit price and retail volume of BYD new energy vehicles continue to go hand in hand? Perhaps, the battery still plays an important role.
【Written by】 Li Ronghua
【Photo】 Zhu Hongbo
【Camera/Editing】Liu Tortoise
【Author】 Li Ronghua
【Source】 Southern Press Media Group South + client