The dispute between lead-acid and lithium batteries in the light electric vehicle market still depends on whether the market can be surprised or amazed, even if it is properly ironed the price in the hearts of consumers, it will also have long-term vitality and help enterprises to be invincible in the competition.
The crisis and opportunity in the lithium
Lithium batteries have risen into a demon, from 2021, all the way soared, battery prices rose 2 to 3 times, and the core material lithium carbonate price has soared from 50,000 yuan / ton in early 2021 to 505,600 yuan / ton, a year up more than 900%. What followed was a continuous price increase for new energy vehicles, whether four or two.
Entering 2022, a number of two-wheeled electric vehicle companies announced price increases, with the highest floating upwards of 1,000 yuan. The two-wheeled electric vehicle that once took advantage of cheapness and convenience has now become a monster that constantly swallows gold, so that manufacturers and consumers feel unaffordable, and the small tram that originally said that the more they look at it, the more they love, suddenly feel a little unscented.
As an upstream lithium battery manufacturer, it seems that they have not safely enjoyed the dividends of rising raw material prices. Among the veteran battery manufacturers, according to the latest financial report, in 2021, Tianneng co., Ltd. achieved lithium battery sales revenue of about 1 billion yuan, down 2.35% year-on-year. The old rival Chaowei, because the focus is still on the lead-acid business, the revenue of the lithium battery business in 2021 is 246 million yuan.
The soaring price of raw materials has made many lithium battery companies suffer from the same embarrassment of increasing revenue and not increasing profits, which gives traditional battery companies the opportunity. Whether it is Tianneng, Chaowei, or the champion of the light vehicle lithium battery industry, Xingheng, is facing a new round of opportunities and challenges.
And all this, in the jianghu of two-wheel batteries, has been staged, and it looks more like a new reincarnation.
Lithium battery battlefield · hundred billion cake a few knives
The new national standard has promoted the continuous development of the two-wheel lithium battery industry, and the data shows that in 2021, with the consumer's recognition of lithium batteries and the cooperation of distribution channels, the civil market for lithium batteries for two-wheeled electric vehicles increased by 38% year-on-year, the demand for the replacement market increased by 80% year-on-year, and the overseas market increased by 63% year-on-year.
In 2020, the penetration rate of the mainland lithium battery two-wheel market is 15%, and now the annual increase is 35-40 million vehicles, with the consumer demand brought by the exchange policy, it is expected that the penetration rate of lithium batteries will exceed 25% in 2022.
This is a fairly large market increment, for battery manufacturers, it means that lithium battery demand in 2022 will exceed 17GWh. According to the current national 250 million two-wheeled electric vehicle ownership, 40% lithium battery penetration rate, the overall demand is expected to be 57GWh. By 2026, lithium battery demand will reach 30GWh, and lithium battery penetration will reach more than 70%.
But in reality, the situation is far less optimistic.
First, because of the delay of local policies or the actual operation problems in the implementation, the wave of exchanges has not fully met the expectations of manufacturers.
Second, lithium batteries use large households to share motorcycles, and have been in the three major platforms of Meituan, Didi and Hello, bringing a wave of capital frenzy and strong demand in the industry, due to the cyclical nature of policies and industry turnover, it has now returned to rationality. In 2021, the demand for the sharing market fell by 71% year-on-year, and it is expected to continue to decline in 2022.
Third, the rising price of lithium batteries directly affects from lithium battery companies to downstream car companies, dealers and consumers, and no one will be willing to pay for the rising costs.
Fourth, the management of lithium battery standards for two-wheeled electric vehicles is missing, and a large number of illegal products flood the market, and the safety of lithium batteries is still a big problem.
Around the battery war of the powertrain of two-wheeled electric vehicles, it cannot be said that lithium batteries have the absolute upper hand, even inside the lithium battery, there are also a variety of technical route disputes. Products, prices, safety performance, service life, channels, brands and service elements all determine the current market competition pattern.
It's like a constant reshuffling process. From the perspective of technical route, lithium manganese oxide batteries will increase from 45% in 2020 to 56% in 2021, and the market share of LEP batteries and ternary batteries will decline.
As we all know, in the first echelon of the two-wheeled electric vehicle power system, Tianneng shares, which own two listed companies in A-shares and Hong Kong stocks, and Chaowei, which is listed on Hong Kong stocks, mainly take the lead-acid route. The light vehicle lithium battery industry champion Xingheng, riding on the "new national standard" and "double carbon" of the east wind rose rapidly. In the past years of competition, ups and downs, and now in the two-wheeled electric vehicle industry, it seems that lithium batteries have the upper hand.
But with uncertainties, especially the rising price of lithium batteries, the three companies are also facing fierce competition, and the price war and route war will be more intense.
Price War: Both ShengYu and He Shengliang
The world is out of my generation, and once I enter the rivers and lakes, I am urged. The battery industry also does not have an eternal king, a back wave hit, the front wave Chaowei was thrown down on the beach.
This lead-acid battery manufacturer, which has been dominating the list for many years and creating the first in many industries, once everyone knew that no one knew, and the muscles and courage of the spokesperson kung fu master Zhen Zidan could be seen in the streets and alleys. The data shows that in the first half of 2020, lead-acid power batteries accounted for 93.4% of Chaowei's total revenue, most of the revenue came from the two-wheeled electric vehicle industry, accounting for 64.9%, and electric tricycle batteries and special-purpose batteries accounted for 28.5% of total revenue.
Martial arts masters are all exquisite to the point, even the best hands are afraid of close-knit fighting, especially in the strength is not far apart or the competition with the rising star, Chaowei met and his own villagers, also grew up in a piece of land Fa Xiaotianneng. Both companies are headquartered in Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, both are mainly led-acid batteries, are industry leaders, both have listed companies in Hong Kong stocks, and their sales and profits in the lead-acid battery market in the past few years are comparable. A competition drama that is both shengyu and he shengliang is very interesting.
Fortunately, the market can accommodate two or more excellent power battery manufacturers, like two-wheeled electric vehicle manufacturers, although in the price war, many small and medium-sized enterprises have been eliminated, Chaowei and Tianneng not only survived but also became the light of the countryside.
Since 2017, Tianneng has dominated the price war, and in the close struggle of constantly pulling down prices in the intention of dragging down opponents, it has unexpectedly achieved faster sales growth, grabbing some shares from Chaowei in some regions. This vicious fight has reduced Chaowei's gross profit margin from 13% in 2016 to 11.9% in 2017, while the gross profit margin of Tianneng's lead-acid battery has remained basically the same as in 2016 in the case of additional price reductions than Chaowei.
Although some analysts say that Tianneng used the method of using bank factoring and providing guaranteed loans to dealers to make a large operating cash flow, the cruelty of industry competition made enterprises make their own tricks, and Changxing County tried to match two mutual shareholdings to reduce the damage of the price war, which had little effect.
In 2018, the new national standard was introduced, two-wheeled electric vehicle manufacturers turned their attention to lithium batteries, under the double attack of the price war and the new national standard, many dealers did not dare to stock goods, the most serious loss of Chaowei, net profit margin fell sharply. In the uncertain lead-acid battery market battle, Tianneng stood out, forming a duopoly competition pattern with Chaowei and monopolizing 90% of the lead-acid battery market for light electric vehicles.
According to the financial data of 2019, the operating income of Tianneng lead-acid batteries was 29.822 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 70% of the main business, the industry market accounted for 29.47%, and Chaowei accounted for 19.72%.
In 2020, Tianneng has occupied 40% of the lead-acid battery market, and its brand power, product strength and channel penetration rate occupy the top spot in the industry.
As of April 2022, Tianneng and Chaowei are still ranked in the first echelon of China's lead-acid tram industry revenue level of 10 billion. In the Hong Kong stock market, Tianneng Power is 6.9 yuan and has a market value of HK$7.7 billion. Chaowei's share price of HK$1.7 and market value of HK$1.9 billion have been completely surpassed by Tianneng.
Category controversy: lithium battery and lead acid
Among the powertrain players of two-wheeled electric vehicles, the rise of Xingheng lies in choosing the right lithium battery route.
When the price war between Chaowei and Tianneng was in full swing, founded for 18 years, Xingheng, which has been immersed in the lithium manganate front, took the lead in developing a special lithium battery product for electric bicycles in 2005. In the era of lead-acid batteries in the field of two-wheeled electric vehicles before 2018, there is almost a lonely spirit, and the industrialization process of lithium batteries has been developed and implemented, which is more likely to be an industry leader than those who see hot spots and bring capital in, halfway out of the house.
From the first development of two-wheel electric vehicle lithium battery in 2005 to the first launch of lithium battery modular product 481X series in 2012, to the follow-up more intelligent 482X series, Hengkun, Hengpeng series lithium battery, S7 super lithium series. The iterative upgrade of Xingheng lithium battery technology is almost the performance upgrade history of domestic lithium battery bicycles. It has always adhered to the manganese lithium route and made the price of lithium batteries infinitely close to lead-acid batteries, which is also the dream of Xingheng.
Compared with ternary lithium and lithium iron phosphate, lithium manganate has the advantages of good power performance and low temperature performance, higher safety than ternary and high cost performance.
For C-end users of two-wheeled electric vehicles, the safety and life of the battery are the focus. Where there is demand where there is innovation, Xingheng will lithium manganate as the main technical development route, is to see the huge potential of lithium manganate, on this basis on the normal temperature and high temperature circulation, low temperature discharge and other performance to do further improvement and improvement, can directly hit the pain points of two-wheeled electric vehicle users, extremely high cost performance is conducive to the popularization of lithium battery, is the most competitive lithium battery route in the field of light vehicles.
The facts also corroborate Xingheng's judgment. From 2018 to 2021, the lithium batteries for light vehicles produced by Xingheng Power Supply have achieved the first place in global sales for four consecutive years; in 2021, the installed capacity of lithium batteries for light vehicles in the world will be 5.03GWh, and the cumulative sales volume will reach 21 million sets, accounting for 44.43% of the market, not only becoming the boss in the light lithium battery industry, but also ranking among the top five in the installed capacity of domestic power lithium batteries and ranking among the top ten in the world.
The three head enterprises of two-wheeled electric vehicles, Yadi, Emma and Tailing, all use Xingheng's lithium battery products, and their hot-selling models are equipped with Xingheng's latest S7 super lithium series. Recently, Xingheng and Yadi have joined hands to launch a lifetime warranty battery, which also comes from the continuous development and technological improvement of lithium manganate batteries over the years.
In the light lithium battery market, Xingheng is the only one. With the help of the new national standard, the new and old categories do not have too much fighting, Xingheng is almost victorious without a fight, with nearly 20 years of dedication to lithium batteries, choose the right path, one day will suddenly be cheerful, facing the sea, spring and warm flowers.
Tianneng and Chaowei naturally do not want to be eliminated by the sudden changes in the market, but the turn may be a little slow. At present, Tianneng has launched a new lithium battery product, and the company has invested 50% of the research and development costs on lithium batteries, returning to the A-share listed Tianneng shares, and also using its financing to invest in lithium batteries.
Chaowei, together with CICC Huirong, Henan Investment Group, Zhejiang Keneng Technology, etc., has carried out a new lithium battery project of 10 billion yuan, officially entered the new lithium manganate battery, and has passed the whole life cycle verification and acupuncture experiment.
This means that the lithium battery market for light electric vehicles of hundreds of billions of yuan in front of Xingheng has ushered in the competition of the old lead-acid giants. The duopoly of the old days may have become a troika, perhaps a single branch, perhaps a unique double arrogance, or perhaps some will be completely lost.
epilogue
Chaowei, Tianneng, Xingheng, the three leading enterprises in the light two-wheeled electric vehicle market, in the future competition, it is difficult to say whether they will win or lose in the end.
After the implementation of the new national standard, the mass of the whole vehicle does not exceed 55 kg, making it difficult to apply lead-acid batteries weighing more than ten kilograms at every turn. However, the soaring price of lithium, the consideration of lithium battery safety, the traditional lead-acid giant may improve the high energy ratio of the battery, such as the application of superconducting graphene batteries, so that the new national standard electric vehicle can also be loaded with 48V20Ah lead-acid batteries, and effectively improve the mileage, power, life and low temperature resistance, continue to hold 70% of the lead-acid battery share.
On the other hand, Tianneng and Chaowei also cooperate with car companies to improve the vehicle structure, such as replacing the bulky steel pipe frame with an aluminum alloy frame, which can reduce the body weight by one-fifth, plus the capacity of 21Ah, the weight of only 6KG of graphene batteries, the total weight of the vehicle is fully in line with the requirements of the new national standard.
If this series of lead-acid battery "revolution" can be successfully realized and landed, it will improve the endurance to 60-80 kilometers, and the cost of the vehicle will also drop by 20%, which will be the pinnacle of lead-acid batteries. For the light electric vehicle industry, which is hovering in the lithium sky, there is no doubt that there is more uncertainty about the future, which brings variables to the competition.
There is no doubt that in the field of two-wheeled electric vehicles under the background of double carbon and new national standard, new energy and lithium batteries will advance by leaps and bounds, and the rise of Xingheng represents the battle of the dragon of the new power of batteries, but traditional enterprises such as Tianneng and Chaowei still have opportunities, in addition to actively laying out the lithium battery market, the transformation and upgrading of traditional lead-acid technology has also greatly enhanced the competitiveness of enterprises and products.
For consumers, the most concerned is still the three core needs, if the graphene battery can be as light and durable as lithium battery environmental protection, then why not choose it to meet the price just needs? Of course, if lithium batteries can be as low as lead acid, it will surely become a popular king product.
In the end, the dispute between lead-acid and lithium batteries in the light electric vehicle market still depends on whether the market can be surprised or amazed, even if it is properly ironed the price in the hearts of consumers, it will also have long-term vitality and help enterprises to be invincible in the competition.
In this sense, Xingheng, Tianneng and Chaowei all have great opportunities.