"Opportunities" and "challenges" coexist!
Wen | Luo Yingying
Recently, the National Energy Administration issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Modern Energy System", which clearly pointed out in the setting of indicators: by 2025, the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption will increase to about 20%, the proportion of non-fossil energy power generation will reach about 39%, and the proportion of non-fossil energy power generation will increase by 5.8 percentage points during the "14th Five-Year Plan". On the other hand, on January 24, according to the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Construction of the Modern Circulation System" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, it is necessary to accelerate the development of smart logistics for industries such as new energy vehicles and automatic driving, actively apply modern information and intelligent equipment, and improve the level of logistics automation and unmanned.
At present, in the pattern of the mainland energy industry, fossil energy such as coal, oil, and natural gas that produce carbon emissions accounts for 84% of total energy consumption, while hydropower, wind power, nuclear energy and photovoltaics account for only 16%. In the past two years, as a key window period for the "double carbon" target strategy, governments at all levels have successively issued relevant policies to accelerate the implementation of the "double carbon" goal.
Driven by policies, the new energy market will usher in a spurt outbreak, and the related equipment industry is also facing huge opportunities. As the core logistics equipment in the new energy production process, in recent years, the landing of mobile robots in the new energy industry is further accelerating.
According to the data of China Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) Industry Alliance and the statistics of the New Strategic Mobile Robot Industry Research Institute, in 2021, the new energy battery market will account for 8.4% of the overall sales market of industrial application mobile robots, with a significant growth rate, and is the most high-profile subdivision industry in 2021.
In order to better understand the current situation and future trend of mobile robot applications in the new energy (battery) industry, New Strategic Mobile Robot All Media recently interviewed the relevant responsible persons of two companies that have performed well in the new energy industry in the past two years, Siasun Robot and Jiashun Intelligence, and chatted with them about the "opportunities" and "challenges" of the new energy industry.
Interviewees:
Wang Yupeng, President of SIASUN Mobile Robot BG
Zhang Jinliang, vice president of Jiashun Intelligence
The spurt development of the lithium battery industry
From January to March 2022, the installed capacity of continental power batteries was 51.3GWh, up 120.7% year-on-year. Relevant institutions predict that in 2022, China's power battery installed capacity will reach 299.9GWh, an increase of 94.1% year-on-year.
A large part of the rapid growth of the lithium battery industry is due to the strong demand for the terminal of the lithium battery industry chain, so that the upstream and midstream production capacity of lithium batteries is released in large quantities. The rapid development of new energy vehicles has also greatly increased the sales of lithium batteries, and as the downstream of the lithium battery industry chain, it can be said that it has become the strongest assist for the development of the lithium battery industry chain.
At present, many lithium battery head enterprises such as Catalonia Times, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Hive Energy, BYD, and Sunwoda have entered the game. It is reported that since 2021, CATL has distributed a number of orders to lithium battery equipment companies, with a total amount of 11.4 billion yuan; Ewell Lithium Energy officially disclosed the 10 billion battery project in Jingmen, Hubei Province in March this year, achieving large-scale expansion; Honeycomb Energy has released nearly 1 billion lithium battery equipment orders since the beginning of the year; Sunwoda has invested more than 60 billion yuan in the power battery field since 2021.
From the trajectory of the construction and expansion of various enterprises, it is obvious that the "cake" of lithium batteries is getting bigger and bigger, it is understood that 32 of the 79 companies in the recent A-share lithium battery sector have disclosed the first quarter performance report, all of which show positive growth.
Before there is a policy to vigorously promote, after the lithium battery market "gap open", the lithium battery enterprises rolled up the expansion frenzy, but the lithium battery manufacturing process is complex and varied, in order to improve efficiency, ensure product consistency and stability, to achieve capacity planning, enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises, lithium battery industry to automation, intelligent production, information process management is imminent.
As a necessary equipment for intelligent production and intelligent warehousing, the rise of mobile robots has followed the trend.
Requirements: front-end customization is the mainstay, and the back-end is more standardized
The production process of lithium battery is divided into three stages.
The main process of lithium battery production
The previous operation
The process is the core key to the production of lithium battery, accounting for more than 40% of the entire production process, the production process has slurry mixing, positive and negative electrode coating, roller pressing, slitting, pole production and die cutting and other steps, the production line production rhythm is close, the production equipment docking accuracy, transportation speed, accuracy and overall deployment requirements are extremely high, the need to achieve a number of single equipment series and high precision docking, very test the technical skills of the enterprise.
Wang Yupeng introduced that the mobile robot first began a large number of applications in the previous process, "in the process of assembling single equipment, the docking and transfer between equipment and equipment, the operation mode of mobile robots is very suitable, Siasun first cut into the field of new energy batteries is from the beginning of the process, we developed the first high-precision docking AGV in China, after that, Siasun will continue to pay more attention to the application of the front market." ”
Siasun New Energy Industry AGV
Mid-stage operations
This section of the process is mainly the synthesis and manufacture of batteries, the use of pipeline lines, chain lines and other lines for assembly of the supply and loading and unloading, mobile robot application is less.
Post-process
This section of the process is mainly the battery chemical composition, battery module and PACK line integration and material logistics warehousing and distribution, etc., will use a large number of laser forklifts and two-dimensional code AGV and other products.
Zhang Jinliang introduced that in the integration of battery modules and PACK lines, most of them are AGVs/AMRs that apply two-dimensional code navigation technology, and the use of 40 or 50 robots can be reached on a module production line. At the same time, warehousing and logistics need to use a large number of laser forklifts, shelf trucks and other simple AGVs to achieve basic automated logistics transportation. "Compared with the front and middle stages, the scenes in the back section are more standardized and easy to replicate horizontally, so it is the 'place where soldiers and families must compete' for most AGV enterprises."
Jiashun intelligent PACK line AGV solution
Competition core: technology, talent, experience, delivery, service
For lithium battery manufacturing, Japan and South Korea and other countries started earlier, once formed a monopoly position in the international market, a large number of lithium battery manufacturers can only rely on foreign imported equipment and technology, but with the strength of domestic enterprises in the past two years, gradually achieve catch-up. At present, lithium batteries, as a popular segment of new energy, have opened a new round of large-scale, automated, intelligent trends, the mobile robot industry as a representative of modern intelligent equipment, has basically achieved localization, and its market application and competition pattern has begun to emerge.
The main mobile robot (AGV/AMR) supplier enterprises in the new energy industry
The new energy frenzy is menacing, lithium batteries as the current hot segment, in the long run there is still a lot of incremental space, but also attracted the attention of a large number of enterprises.
Relying on the competitive advantage accumulated in the previous process in 2021, Siasun won a number of orders in the lithium battery industry in 2021; Jiashun Intelligent, as one of the earliest AGV companies to enter the lithium battery industry, has established cooperative relations with a number of lithium battery companies. According to Zhang Jinliang, the current Jiashun Intelligent has accounted for 40% of the company's overall business in the new energy business, and its proportion will be further increased in the future.
Zhang Jinliang predicted, "The current fire in the field of lithium batteries, the AGV industry is affected by this, and the demand growth in this field will reach about 80% in the next few years." ”
However, in the face of huge opportunities, it is not easy for mobile robot companies to enter the lithium battery market, and they need to be considered in combination with the company's own situation.
Jiashun intelligent soft pack battery production line AGV solution
To "tailor-made" products, enterprises need to have certain technical capabilities
As we all know, the traditional lithium battery manufacturing production line has low efficiency, large material cost loss, workshop management difficulties and other issues, with the large expansion of the lithium battery industry in recent years, the country advocates the background of intelligent manufacturing, lithium battery head enterprises gradually introduced robot flexible manufacturing. However, the inherent problems are difficult to solve, the manufacturers of the lithium battery industry have different characteristics of each production line, there is no unified and clear standard of production regulations, AGV is difficult to achieve scene scale, so it is more testing the technical "skill" of AGV suppliers.
Wang Yupeng said that playing iron also needs to be hard. As a special manufacturing industry with high requirements for safety, consistency and reliability, manufacturers pay more attention to the accuracy of AGV positioning, the coordination with the overall production beat, the stability of the scheduling system and the accuracy of data collection in the application scenario, so the product not only needs to be "tailor-made", but also to see whether it is suitable or not.
Siasun AGV is used in the new energy industry
Zhang Jinliang also believes that "more importantly, the technological development of enterprises cannot rely on the introduction of external imports, the right to speak is decided in the hands of others, and the enterprise itself has no core competitiveness, so it is more necessary to develop and make breakthroughs." ”
Talent and rich experience are indispensable
At the same time, because the battery industry has suddenly exploded in recent years, and based on the particularity that most production lines can only be customized, there is a large number of technical personnel gaps in the current AGV industry. At present, for the battery market, most of the R & D personnel can only follow the solutions and technical routines that have been in the industry, and it is difficult to achieve innovative breakthroughs. Wang Yupeng believes that the technical personnel with independent research and development capabilities are now becoming one of the important reasons for manufacturers to choose enterprises.
Zhang Jinliang said that in addition to talents, the experience precipitation of enterprises is also one of the key factors.
He introduced, "Even if the enterprise can make a case, but applied to the actual, there will still be more or less problems, such as port docking, system instability, etc., this process requires continuous repair and iterative design." In the process of cooperation with lithium battery manufacturers, AGV companies that enter the lithium battery market in the early stage have already walked the road ahead, and the enterprises that have entered the back still have to take a detour, so now AGV companies want to re-enter the market and get the recognition of lithium battery manufacturers. ”
Delivery and service are the deciding conditions
In the past two years, the major lithium battery manufacturers have invested in increasing the size, in order to achieve the rapid expansion of the demand for factories, when choosing equipment companies will pay more attention to delivery capabilities, Zhang Jinliang said that in non-standard scenarios, the gimmicks of enterprise publicity are useless, and customers pay attention to whether the enterprise can deliver and whether there is experience. On the other hand, he also mentioned that the current lithium battery production is basically nationalized, and some head lithium battery manufacturers even invest in equipment companies, but the order is still a unified bidding in the industry, and an important factor is in the service. "Under the same conditions, customers will of course tend to choose better and more convenient after-sales service."
Under the tide: it is difficult to collect money, and the profit is low
It is not easy to enter the market, but there are still strong AGV enterprises that have successfully entered the front line of the new energy industry through channels, technology, influence and other advantages. In this regard, Wang Yupeng believes that the rapid development of the industry will inevitably cause unhealthy market phenomena.
Siasun New Energy Industry AGV
The advance collection cycle is long, and it is difficult to make a profit
At present, the payment terms of the lithium battery market test the ability of supply chain enterprises to advance capital. Wang Yupeng introduced that the general mature and perfect production and manufacturing industry is based on the supply demand of the market to expand production and build factories, but under the blessing of the policy environment, the new energy industry needs a large number of popularization, it is bound to reduce costs and large-scale expansion in the case of market saturation, which can easily cause the subsequent factory capacity to be unsaturated.
"This requires the ability of AGV enterprises to advance capital, because the production capacity is not saturated, the factory does not accept the equipment, and the payment collection cycle is long, which is a big test for enterprises with weak capital flow."
Zhang Jinliang put forward another view from the perspective of lithium battery manufacturers, "The head enterprise of lithium battery has a payment guarantee, but some start-up enterprises start from bank loans, financing and other methods, and the potential risk of the stability of the capital chain of such lithium battery companies is larger, and there may be a risk of difficult payment recovery." ”
In addition, from the perspective of profitability, the general production and manufacturing industry can expand profit margins through product iteration, but for AGV robots, profit growth can only be achieved through technical iteration.
Therefore, it is "only with diamond diamonds do you dare to do porcelain work".
Price wars are not a long-term solution
Data show that in recent years, the market of battery companies has been further concentrated, the top 10 companies occupy 90% of the market share, affected by this, the upstream link of AGV equipment suppliers gradually shift to the head of the enterprise, there is a situation of more monks and less meat, battery companies on the AGV screening requirements are more stringent, coupled with the price war within the AGV industry, resulting in some companies on the one hand to obtain large orders from lithium batteries, on the one hand, the profit share continued to decline.
Wang Yupeng introduced that in the three stages of lithium battery before and after the process, the process steps involved in the front stage of the process are the most core and complex, and the technical requirements of the enterprise are high, and there is still a lot of competition space for AGV enterprises in this stage of the process. However, the competition in the middle and later stages has reached a white-hot stage, and most AGV companies have tried to infiltrate the workshop with products such as laser forklifts with simple processes, and then achieve the purpose of steadily climbing uphill, which has caused the "piling up" phenomenon of AGV enterprises in the process, in order to compete for a firm foothold in the market, they have to start a price war.
Zhang Jinliang also said that although it can rely on the price of the inner volume to seize the market, but in the long run can only be a vicious circle, the price is pressed again and again, and the future will be the cost price to receive orders.
Wang Yupeng believes that "fighting a price war is not a long-term solution, on the one hand, enterprises suffer losses, on the other hand, disrupt the benign competition in the market, an enterprise wants to have a solid foothold, only focus on its own technological development, improve product quality is the best way out." ”
Zhang Jinliang said, "In the fierce competition situation, it is understandable that enterprises choose to enter the market through price, but fundamentally, in order to develop in the market, it is also necessary to find the right route in line with the company itself." ”
Conclusion: Although the new energy lithium battery industry has brought huge potential market, if you want to stand firm on the cusp of the storm, the company itself needs to have a solid strength. At present, AGV enterprises continue to enter the market, and how the future development is, it remains to be tested.
In order to analyze the application characteristics and trends of mobile robots in the new energy industry in more detail, the "Blue Book of Mobile Robots for New Energy Industry (AGV/AMR) Solutions (2022 Edition)" compiled by the China Mobile Robot (AGV/AMR) Industry Alliance and a number of mobile robot companies will be released in June, so stay tuned!