Text | Li Qin
Edit | Su Jianxun
"Talking about Carbon" is an interview column launched by 36 Carbon around the topic of "Double Carbon and ESG", we will look for the key players of the "Double Carbon Business" of large companies in the industry, the CEOs of star companies, representatives of academic industries and other figures, and conduct a deep discussion on topics such as carbon neutrality strategy, sustainable development, and corporate social responsibility.
The following is the second issue of "Talking About Carbon", 36 Carbon exclusive interview with Yang Hongxin, Chairman and CEO of Hive Energy. Founded in 2018, Hive Energy was born out of Great Wall Motors, which is the only remaining fruit of domestic car companies trying to enter the battery field, and is now absorbing external financing and waiting for an IPO.
Under the wave of "double carbon", all kinds of new energy are developing rapidly, the battery industry is particularly competitive, and Yang Hongxin shared his views on the issues of company competition, patent layout, technical route and capital planning that the outside world is concerned about.
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"We believe that the inflection point of the new energy vehicle has arrived, and the general trend is unstoppable."
Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of Hive Energy, told 36 Carbon. This thesis has long been exemplified, the Ningde era broke through the trillion market value, and once came close to winning the A-share throne. Under global climate issues such as carbon neutrality and carbon peaking, it has become a consensus that the automobile, as the core part of transportation and travel, has become a consensus to move towards new energy, and power batteries are a key part of this narrative.
A competition for capacity expansion has set off in the power battery industry. In 2021, in addition to the Ningde era, other battery companies such as Guoxuan Hi-Tech, AVIC Lithium Battery and Hive Energy, etc., have sales of less than 20GWh, and their targets for 2025 have been listed as 300GWh, 500GWh, 600GWh and so on. GWh is a unit of battery capacity, which can supply more than 10,000 electric vehicles per GWh.
Hive Energy is one of the instigators of this competition. In December 2021, Hive Energy announced at the second Battery Day conference that it will expand battery production capacity to 600GWh in 2025. This goal is considered to exceed the industry leader Ningde era.
Founded in 2018, Hive Energy was born out of Great Wall Motors, which is the only remaining fruit of domestic car companies trying to enter the battery field, and is now absorbing external financing and waiting for an IPO.
For Yang Hongxin, the helmsman of Hive Energy, a key competition in the power battery industry is production capacity and scale, which is an unavoidable proposition, because the essence of the battery industry is heavy asset manufacturing.
"The law of large-scale manufacturing is that for every doubling of production capacity, manufacturing costs will drop by 10%-15%, and the larger the scale, the larger the volume, the more stable the product, and the lower the cost." Yang Hongxin said, and car companies generally pursue long-term, stable supply, "if you are too small to fully meet their needs, it is difficult to enter the head supplier system of the whole vehicle." ”
Yang Hongxin, Chairman and CEO of Hive Energy
Of course, the power battery industry technology route is diverse, and the iteration is rapid, and the scale will inevitably become a double-edged sword, that is, if the technical barriers are not high enough, the scale is more likely to become a burden than an advantage.
Therefore, Yang Hongxin's principle is that when formulating the strategy, a lot of deduction should be done, and the "product blueprint" that should be invested heavily for this purpose should be selected.
"What we pursue is the most reasonable, we do what we do." Yang Hongxin said that in 2018, the hive saw that lamination technology was more reasonable for the performance structure and energy density of the battery, so it bypassed the winding technology commonly used by companies such as Ningde Times and chose the lamination route. According to its introduction, the company's latest generation of lamination machine lamination speed can achieve 0.125 seconds, which exceeds the winding process in terms of efficiency.
Thanks to the lamination process, the Hive launched a long and thin short blade battery product in February this year. Divided by length, the short blade battery of the hive has two types of 600 mm and 300 mm, of which the 600 mm short blade battery is mainly used for lithium iron phosphate technology, while the 300 mm "micro short knife" can carry more technology, including lithium iron phosphate, ultra-fast charging, cobalt-free, ternary and so on.
In Yang Hongxin's words, the short blade is their "product blueprint", which is the battery product form found to maximize the application of passenger cars, commercial vehicles and energy storage.
"We have counted dozens of domestic and foreign passenger cars, as well as energy storage and commercial vehicles, and calculated that the batteries of about 600 mm or 300 mm can adapt to the battery envelope of about 80% of passenger cars, as well as the wheelbase and wheelbase of the whole vehicle." Yang Hongxin said that he found the right one and then adapted to the different power needs of the vehicle through fine adjustment of length, thickness and height.
The technical framework for lamination and short blades was determined, and the capacity planning of the hive was also based. Yang Hongxin told 36 Carbon that the traditional VDA standard and Volkswagen's MEB standard battery are no longer among the capacity expansion of the hive, only retaining the early production line for the customized needs of some PHEV (plug-in hybrid) and other models, and then almost new capacity construction will be short blade batteries.
Short blade battery for hive energy
For the focus of competition in the battery industry, Yang Hongxin talked about three points: first of all, technology, including materials, structure and manufacturing innovation; followed by production capacity and scale, because of each doubling of production capacity, manufacturing costs will drop by 10%-15%, and stable production capacity can also cater to the demand for long-term supply of automobile companies; and finally, supply chain competition, combined with the recent surge in lithium prices, if the lack of control of upstream raw materials, will also affect the cost and product iteration.
In addition to the competition of production capacity and technological innovation, the patent game in the power battery industry is also becoming more and more frequent. From the timeline, the blade battery is BYD's Fordy battery first mass production delivery, in this regard, Yang Hongxin said that the short blade of the hive has been unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2019, and has applied for hundreds of patents for self-protection so far.
"Independent research and development is the most fundamental place of independent innovation." Yang Hongxin said that in addition, more importantly, China now has the world's largest new energy industry chain, "our biggest challenge is not between domestic independent brands, we should jointly target the international market, seek a better position, stronger competitiveness." ”
The following is an interview with Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of 36 Carbon and Hive Energy, slightly excerpted:
36 Carbon: Recently, the Hive launched a short knife battery, how is this product concept formed, and what are the trade-offs in the middle?
Yang Hongxin: We mainly focus on passenger cars, but also look at commercial vehicles, energy storage, these potential markets. At the same time, we are also thinking that the standardization of batteries is not done very well, especially the battery pack, which is basically a size, the length, width and height are different, and the installation points are not the same.
We try to standardize or close to the battery cells to adapt our cells to the vast majority of battery packs. So we do positive deduction according to this logic, counting dozens of domestic and foreign passenger cars, as well as energy storage and commercial vehicles.
Of course, it is impossible to find a completely applicable cell, which may become a small cylinder, because the smaller the single body, the more flexible, but you can not use thousands, tens of thousands of cells into a bag, management and processing is too difficult, no effect, to try to make the number of cells small.
In this way, we have introduced, can adapt to about 80% of the passenger car battery envelope, as well as the vehicle wheelbase and wheelbase, about 600 mm or 600 and then divided by 2 is 300 mm, 300 mm, 600 mm, these two sizes can adapt to 80% of the market of the vehicle battery pack envelope, that is, the width of the battery pack between 1.3 meters and 1.35 meters, which is a relatively wide coverage of the size.
Then the thickness and height can be fine-tuned to adapt to the different power needs of the whole vehicle, such as the legroom in the cab of the SUV will be sufficient, and the legroom of the car is relatively small, so they will have some differentiated needs for battery height.
In the case of the same voltage, for example, it is 110 strings, the voltage is 400 volts, some of the high power is low, based on the lock length, only adjust the thickness, the SUV will install more electricity, and the car will install less electricity.
In addition, like energy storage and commercial vehicles, they also have some traditional sizes, after we have calculated, 500 mm-600 mm short knives can also be covered, its group efficiency is actually 5% higher than the original thick cell group efficiency, so I basically developed a series of production lines can be compatible. It is to take the passenger car as the benchmark, slightly shortened, it can be used in commercial vehicles and energy storage, and can also improve the volume utilization rate.
Like the 600 mm short knife, we mainly promote lithium iron phosphate technology, we also have about 300 mm of micro short knife, like our super fast charging technology, charging 10 minutes to travel 400 kilometers, power multiplier requirements in all aspects are particularly high, too long, your current density, uniformity will be affected by some, so for super fast charging, cobalt-free technology and ternary system, we push on the 300 mm micro short knife battery.
36 carbon: The 600 mm short knife of the hive is pushing the iron lithium battery at the moment, like the fast charge is 300 mm, 600 mm after the optimization of the fast charge capacity is still in the space?
Yang Hongxin: Now we will take 1.6C (charging rate unit) as the standard for 600 mm short knife iron lithium, and we are developing a fast charging with 2.2C iron lithium. Then technologies like 4C and high energy density are basically developed under the 300 mm system.
The 2C charge of the 600 mm short knife can definitely be done, and the higher can also be done, such as 4C, but the energy density will be sacrificed more.
36 carbon: Will the production lines put into use in the future are all short-knife batteries?
Yang Hongxin: Yes, 60%-70% of the production capacity is short knives. Our production line will be divided into three categories in the future, one is that the current VDA and MEB standards will be expanded after the very few, unless there is a customized capacity, used in the installed power is not very high, thirty or forty kWh, or PHEV and extended range.
Then 300 mm micro short knife products, we will expand production for 4C fast charging, we try to make 300 mm sides out of the pole ear, compatible with 600 mm. Then there's the top side out of the pole ear of 300 mm, on the same side, we try to make it compatible with VDA and MEB sizes. That is to say, the top side of the pole ear is the downward size compatibility, the two sides of the pole ear out of the upward size compatibility.
Like this lithium iron phosphate or the future lithium manganese iron phosphate, we are basically based on 500 mm and 600 mm, 500 mm is the main push is commercial vehicles, energy storage, 600 mm main push is the passenger car, but the production line is all compatible, do not have to make big changes.
36 Carbon: BYD's blade is the concept of CTP (Battery i.e. Module), what is the short knife of the hive? How to expand to CTC (battery cell is the chassis)?
Yang Hongxin: Our 300 mm micro short knife is a large module or LCTP, and the 600 mm is all LCTP.
CTC will bring a fine adjustment of space, but after we have calculated, 600 mm can also be universal, but the height is slightly lower, so we will develop a short knife for CTC, the height is about ten millimeters shorter. Now the production line can be compatible with 30 mm height variation.
If you choose the right blueprint product, for example, I chose the short knife 600 mm production line made of blueprint, when compatible with short size, the investment cost does not increase.
36 Carbon: Now that they are all pushing the CTC program, will car companies feel that you are a little more involved in its chassis?
Yang Hongxin: Now there are about three kinds of CTC technology, one is the battery factory for the battery pack PACK, the car company can install the PACK, but the shell is gone, the upper shell is on its body, but I still give it a tray and battery pack; there is also a lower tray is also brought on the body, I can only give it a power core; there is a third kind of similar to the skateboard chassis, which may also be based on the power supply core.
There are some differences in the three routes, there are power supply cores, there are PACK, so our design concept is to design our batteries to adapt to three different CTC structural forms, so that it can be generalized.
36 Carbon: There are now various patent wars, blades are the product form that someone introduced first, I don't know if the honeycomb's patents have avoided some minefields?
Yang Hongxin: We applied for short knife batteries in 2019, from batteries to battery packs, LCTP patents, many of which have been authorized, and many have been applied for in 2021. In April 2019, at the Shanghai Auto Show, we were the first in the world to publicly exhibit short knife products, and we have now applied for more than 100 patents for short knife batteries.
36 Carbon: What do you think of the patent war in the industry, is it a commercial game?
Yang Hongxin: First of all, each company still has to achieve independent research and development in terms of intellectual property rights, which is the most fundamental place for independent innovation; second, China has rarely encountered a global leading opportunity in history, because it is difficult for traditional fuel vehicles in China to be leading, and we have achieved the world's largest new energy industry chain in China, whether it is raw materials or equipment or batteries, it is the most complete industrial chain and competitiveness.
I think that in this period of rapid growth, our domestic battery companies should jointly participate in international competition. International Japanese and Korean companies have its historical accumulation and financial strength, like LG Chemical has also been spun off and listed separately, Germany including Europe is also developing the battery industry on a large scale, many automakers have invested, and the United States is also introducing.
Our biggest challenge is not to target the international market together among these independent brands in China, and to seek a better position and stronger competitiveness in the international market. Therefore, we independent brands in China should strengthen cooperation and jointly do some technological innovation and industrial layout that belong to China.
36 carbon: the launch of short knife battery this product form, in addition to the market research you just said, what technology accumulation is needed, because the market insight may be everyone has?
Yang Hongxin: The reason why we took the lead in making short knives may be three reasons, the first is that we are from the automobile factory, and our own slogan is to be the battery expert who understands the car the most, so the problem of thinking is to stand in the perspective of the whole vehicle;
Second, we are latecomers, without historical baggage, and we will not be bound by the past. We will pursue what is most reasonable and will do what we will do. At that time, in 2018, we judged that lamination technology as the performance structure of the battery, energy density are the most reasonable, and positively chose lamination;
The third point is that the route is right and the strategy is clear, depending on the breakthrough of key core processes and equipment. So we began to study the lamination process and lamination equipment very early, and now we have done the third generation of lamination machine internally, from single station to double station, from double station to three station, the average speed of lamination is increasing, and the average lamination speed of the third generation lamination machine has been 0.2 seconds.
The new generation of laminators we are developing is 0.125 seconds, and large-scale deliveries will begin next year, which is completely independent intellectual property. Not only has the speed increased, but also the safety, yield rate and defect detection rate have been improved. In July this year, a new generation of laminator samples can be made.
36 Carbon: You just said that the hive has no historical baggage, is this baggage a winding process? Can I use lamination technology in a new factory as an alternative upgrade?
Yang Hongxin: The traditional field continues to be optimized, and there is room for improvement, just like the engine, the thermal efficiency has been improving from more than 30% to 40%, but it may be micro-innovation, and we belong to the subversive innovation of changing lanes.
Replacing a new factory with laminated equipment will also face the problem of replacing old and new products. Because from the current orders of these factories, or the main winding, that is, for example, the same supply to a car, can not supply both winding and lamination, how to solve the problem of technical route differentiation?
36 Carbon: Although the hive started relatively late, it seems to have made innovations very quickly, and I would like to ask, what is the ultimate competition in the battery industry, is it technology or scale?
Yang Hongxin: I think there are several aspects, the first is definitely technology, technology is material innovation, structural innovation and manufacturing innovation, manufacturing innovation is the process and equipment, innovation in several aspects will make battery companies more competitive in cost, more competitive in this product performance, must be the most basic is technological innovation.
The second competitiveness is capacity and scale. Because after all, to return to the essence of the battery, it is still heavy asset manufacturing. The law of large-scale manufacturing is that for every doubling of production capacity, manufacturing costs will drop by 10%-15%, and the larger the scale, the larger the volume, the more stable the product, and the lower the cost. And car companies generally pursue long-term, stable supply, if you are too small to fully meet their needs, it is difficult to enter the head of the vehicle supplier system;
Another point is the competition in the supply chain. Because this battery is a manufacturing attribute, but also an energy attribute, is a lot of upstream raw materials, you include nickel that everyone is talking about recently, including lithium prices rose to more than 500,000 tons, if you do not control the upstream, your supply will be tight, the cost will not be controlled, and the basic iteration will also be affected.
In fact, we have laid out the layout in these three aspects very early, and in terms of technology, we not only have laminated sheets, but also the development of cobalt-free, semi-solid, and all-solid-state batteries.
In terms of factories, we have put into production and are already building 250 GWh capacity, which can enter the top three in the country.
In the layout of the supply chain, we invested in the Australian lithium mining company Pierara in 17 years, began to develop cathode materials, our cathode factory has been put into production last year, we are producing cobalt-free cathode and ternary cathode, and will also produce a part of the lithium iron phosphate in the future. Then we also set up Hive Capital, with Hive Capital as the upstream layout, has invested in nearly 10 companies, including anode, electrolyte, recycling, as well as equipment and equipment, to ensure the safety of our entire supply chain and cost reduction, and continuous technology iteration.
36 carbon: the hive is out of the car company, the car company now wants to make batteries, what do you think of this trend?
Yang Hongxin: Car companies will have several actions, the first, should increase battery research and development, independent research and development or cooperative research and development; second, many automakers should be able to lay out some upstream resources to ensure supply and reduce costs; the third may do some battery resource guarantees, such as joint venture factories have been more common.
However, it is still difficult to completely invest in large-scale production capacity, and it is difficult to do a good job in the industry without 4-5 years of accumulation. The industry differences are still very large, including the talent structure, although the hive was established in 2018, large-scale investment in research and development began in 2016, and the research and development center was fully put into use in 17 years, including overseas investment.
36 carbon: the head company Ningde era has done a lot of industrial layout, such as entering the service end to do power exchange, what direction do you think the battery factory will go back?
Yang Hongxin: The future development of battery factories may also be differentiated, some companies may gradually expand to the C-end, into the field of charging, power exchange, cascade utilization, energy operations, that is, to the terminal or downstream expansion; there is a relatively traditional, focusing on research and development, supply chain and manufacturing and technology; there is a lack of research and development capabilities, lack of supply chain control capabilities, may gradually become the main OEM.
36 Carbon: What is the direction of the hive?
Yang Hongxin: We are currently in the second category, that is, there is research and development, innovation, production capacity, and supply chain layout, and our future development direction will develop towards the first category.
So our vision is to become the world's leading energy technology Interconnection company, from the source of electricity, the storage of electricity, the transportation of electricity to the use of electricity, to the whole ecological process of recycling, such as upstream distributed energy management, energy control, to the integration of light storage and charging, to such as the leasing of batteries on the car and big data operations, we will gradually develop in this direction, and we are also carrying out business research in this area.
36 Carbon: The hive came out of the Great Wall system step by step, through what mechanisms, more smoothly become a third party?
Yang Hongxin: We, chairman of Wei Jianjun, have fully authorized us to work for ourselves after we have changed from migrant workers to partners, which is to rely on this equity to incentivize the company to operate independently, and then to supply externally into an open company. In this regard, it also makes the management of our company a real operator.
The second aspect is that we must set a goal at the beginning, to develop a large number of customers outside the Great Wall, and then improve competitiveness and reduce dependence on a single customer of the Great Wall, so that we can be pushed to the market and fully participate in the competition;
The third is capital, because of the characteristics of this industry, heavy assets, strong R & D expenditure, without the support of capital is difficult to develop, so we in 2018, we started the capital operation work, several rounds of financing is relatively successful, can lay a good foundation for our rapid development.
36 Carbon: There is also a theory in the industry, just worry about having an OEMs behind you, what measures does the hive have to dispel these concerns?
Yang Hongxin: So our Hive Energy is going to become an equity open company. About four or five of our shareholders are our clients, and capital has pushed us into an independent company.
In addition, we also have IPO plans and commitments, and we have to vigorously do external customers to reduce our dependence on the Great Wall. We now have more than 100 shareholders, and the shareholders' equity ratio other than Great Wall Holdings is close to 60%. The shareholding ratio of Great Wall Holdings will further decline, become more open, and further move towards publicization.
There is also a point, for another part of the car companies, the Great Wall background is our advantage, because some car companies have relatively little technical reserves for new energy, we can use the background of the whole vehicle to help them take fewer detours, especially like some European automakers, because they see the background of the Great Wall, your understanding of the car, the standard of the car level, the standardization of the entire design process, they are very assured.
36 Carbon: The scarcity of lithium resources has now become an industrial structure problem, when do you think it will be alleviated?
Yang Hongxin: China like Sichuan and some other regions of the release capacity of spodumene will not be until 2023, as well as some salt lakes in South America, may also increase the release of some production capacity in 2023, in general, we feel that it may be in the middle or second half of 2023, the relationship between supply and demand can be greatly alleviated.
Of course, there is also an uncertain factor, that is, the growth rate of new energy, if the growth rate of new energy is affected by the sharp rise in raw material prices, the demand will be reduced, and the relationship between supply and demand may also be adjusted, but we believe that because the big inflection point has come, the general trend is unstoppable. New energy should still be in a stage of rapid growth, so in general, it is still a situation of shortage this year and next year.
36 Carbon: As a battery factory, does the hive have an intuitive feeling about the adjustment of the car market?
Yang Hongxin: According to the subsidy decline and the rise in battery prices, it is obvious that the A00 and the car with a lower price will be more affected.
In addition, we judge that the market like PHEV (plug-in hybrid) may be better this year and next year, because it has very few subsidies, the slope has no impact on it, it is not very high in installed electricity, so it is less affected by the cost than the increase rate, and now when the charging facilities are not so popular, the problem of mileage anxiety does not exist, so we judge that PHEV will have an increase. In addition, cars that may be more than 150,000 yuan can absorb the decline in costs and subsidies, so the impact of this part of the market will be relatively small.
36 carbon: the industry has formed a tone, the shortage of resources has brought a round of reshuffling, shuffling the enterprises that do not have strong ability to obtain resources behind them, what do you think?
Yang Hongxin: There may be this trend, because in the case of limited supply, it is generally the head enterprises that give priority to obtaining resources, including the ability to resist the cost increase in prices, and the head enterprises' ability to resist risks is relatively strong. Therefore, the relatively small enterprises in the back of the line will encounter very big challenges in terms of capital and resource security. If this continues, it may become more and more concentrated on the head, such as the top 5 and the top 6.
36 Carbon: Is there a quantitative point in this judgment, such as how many G's production capacity is produced in a year?
Yang Hongxin: This has not been calculated, we understand that it may be able to rank high in the industry in the future, and your production capacity will be at least 50GWh.