Author 丨 Zhang Zhidong
Responsible editor 丨 Cui Liwen
Edit 丨 Chic
Although full of thorns, Chinese battery manufacturers with ideas and beliefs are bound to be able to take this road of "technology for market".
The origin of lithium batteries is not China, but the fertile soil in China has made lithium batteries fully grow.
In 1991, Sony of Japan developed the first commercial lithium-ion battery; in 1996, Nissan successfully developed the first electric vehicle with a cylindrical lithium-ion battery, the Prairie Joy EV; in 2008, the Tesla Roadster became the first commercial vehicle to use lithium-ion batteries...
In general, the early development and application of lithium batteries did not spread to China, so that most of the history of power batteries in the first decade was the story of Japan, South Korea and the United States.
However, since 2010, the State Council identified seven strategic emerging industries such as new energy vehicles, and in the following ten years, enterprises such as Ningde Times, BYD, China Innovation Airlines, and Guoxuan Hi-Tech have taken advantage of the policy to grow rapidly.
Today, the step-by-step style of play has made China further become a world power battery power. But what cannot be forgotten is that the development of power batteries in the past ten years is far from being as simple as imagined.
01
China's power battery market defense war
It is no exaggeration to say that the early Chinese power battery industry, like a grass bench team, was not only weak, but also suffered from malicious patent bullying from foreign countries.
The story begins with a Canadian hydropower company called Québec Hydropower.
Hydro Quebec, Canada's largest power company, is also the second largest business in Canada.
In the early days of the development of power batteries, Professor Goodenough of the University of Texas invented lithium iron phosphate batteries. By chance, Professor Goodenough licensed the technology to Hydro Quebec, making it one of the first companies to patent lithium iron phosphate batteries.
In 1997, the "big three" lithium iron phosphate battery, the United States Vaillant Technology, The Canadian Quebec Hydropower, and the United States A123 system began to apply for lithium iron phosphate patents worldwide, in a vain attempt to control the development of lithium iron phosphate in the world and profit from it.
In 2003, Hydroquesque Applied to the State Intellectual Property Office of China for a patent that covered almost all manufacturing techniques for lithium iron phosphate batteries.
In 2005, Vaillant Technology and A123 began to set up a factory in China to produce lithium iron phosphate batteries, and lithium iron phosphate officially opened the door to China. From this time on, the relevant patents have become a sword and a shackle hanging over the head of China's power battery industry.
There is no doubt that this kind of patent hooligans cast nets and staking land, which greatly limits the development of China's battery industry, and it is even difficult for major battery companies to develop their core competitiveness.
Without the support of power battery technology, the development of the new energy automobile industry will be subject to people, and then fall into the situation of China's fuel vehicle era again, not to mention the rise of Chinese cars.
Perhaps also aware of the seriousness of the problem, in 2009, the China Battery Industry Association filed an invalidation request for lithium iron phosphate related patents of Quebec Hydropower Company in Canada, and the Patent Reexamination Board of the State Intellectual Property Office declared its patent invalid after trial.
So far, China's power battery industry has been given a breather. However, the good times are not long, the ensuing ternary lithium battery war has once again cast a layer of haze on China's power battery industry.
Around 2010, driven by a series of strong state subsidies, nearly 1,500 battery companies emerged in China. Including today's industry leaders, BYD, which was founded in 1995, the national team AVIC lithium battery (China Innovation Airlines), the Ningde era established in 2011, etc.
However, it is worth mentioning that before 2014, most of China's power battery companies were producing lithium iron phosphate batteries, but for the technical accumulation of ternary lithium batteries, it was very little.
It is understood that most of the core technologies of ternary lithium batteries are in the hands of 3M companies in the United States, Umicore in the Netherlands, BASF in Germany, etc., and they have licensed patents to Japanese and Korean companies such as Panasonic, LG Chemical, and Samsung SDI.
Therefore, in the domestic ternary lithium battery technology accumulation is insufficient, BYD "avoids the war" to study lithium iron phosphate batteries, and the Ningde era does not have the current invincible situation, Japanese and Korean battery manufacturers have drilled a big hole.
After 2015, the ternary lithium battery war officially began. Samsung SDI in Xi'an, LG Chem in Nanjing have built factories, in order to monopolize the vast Chinese market, Korean battery manufacturers have also engaged in a price war.
You know, at that time, the production cost of batteries was generally around 2.5 yuan / wh, but in order to quickly occupy the market, Korean battery manufacturers reduced the factory price of batteries to 1 yuan / wh, losing money to sell.
The practice of killing a thousand enemies and inflicting eight hundred self-inflicted wounds in this way quickly worked quickly. Soon after, about 60% of the new energy passenger cars in China chose Samsung and LG as suppliers. Even buses and buses that previously used lithium iron phosphate batteries have begun to turn to Korean companies.
For LG New Energy and Samsung, losing money is certainly not the goal, and its ambition is to control the Chinese power battery market. If the monopoly is formed, not only will China's new energy automobile industry be subject to people, but even more wealth will be plundered.
At the time when China's power battery companies were losing ground, the state sacrificed a big killer - "white list".
From October 2015 to June 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released four batches of power battery enterprise catalogs. The role of such a white list is also very simple, let the government subsidies be linked to it, and if the automaker wants to get financial subsidies, it must use the batteries provided by the companies on the white list.
The result is obvious, LG new energy, Samsung SDI or not, South Korean battery manufacturers in the domestic market "mighty wind" situation is gone. What's more, at that time, it was still in the fermentation period of the "THAAD Incident", and under the influence of political factors, it was difficult for Korean enterprises to set off any storms, and the same was true for Korean cars.
The effect of the whitelist is surprisingly good, and the government has also greatly used this tool to promote the development of power battery technology, including battery manufacturers with insufficient production capacity not giving subsidies, and cars with a range of less than 150 kilometers cannot get subsidies.
Such a "limited method" has brought a 4-year development period for China's power battery companies; "tempting it to profit" has greatly promoted the enthusiasm of battery manufacturers.
Laid for many years, although the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially abolished the relevant whitelist in 2019, and Japanese and Korean companies also made a comeback, at this time, the Ningde era and BYD have become big figures on the dominant side; even if there is another price war, the victory or defeat is still unknown.
02
Global encounters, beautiful traps?
The direction of the events after that is already very clear, although LG New Energy will appear from time to time in the list of loading volume, but its threat is really much smaller. At least in the Chinese market, the so-called midfield war has become a "civil war" between domestic battery manufacturers.
BYD has been widely recognized by the industry for its own vehicle business undertaking, coupled with the safety of blade batteries. The Ningde era has a comprehensive layout and an attitude of "casting a wide net", and has business connections with major car companies, and the snowball of interests is getting bigger and bigger.
Coupled with the succession of second-line power battery companies such as Zhongxin Airlines, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, and Honeycomb Energy, the domestic power battery market share at this time has basically been "solidified".
For many reasons, the desire of battery companies for the incremental market has become more and more intense, and an encounter to compete in the international market is inevitable.
It has to be said that Japanese and Korean battery manufacturers such as LG New Energy, SK on, and Panasonic occupy most of the power battery market share outside China because of the first-mover advantage in the international market.
However, as the second of the three major car markets in the North American market and the European market, its cake is obviously not swallowed by Japan and South Korea battery manufacturers. What's more, the so-called situation of one company being dominant is not the situation that the international market hopes to see.
Not long ago, foreign media came to the news that the battery factory to be built in the United States in the Ningde era has reached the final stage of review. It is understood that the factory will invest 5 billion US dollars, with a target annual production capacity of up to 80GWh, to provide products for Tesla, BMW, Ford and other car companies, settled in Kentucky or South Carolina.
Of course, in addition to the Ningde era, battery manufacturers such as Guoxuan Hi-Tech and Envision Power have also opened their overseas strategies. And not only in the United States, the European market has also begun to have domestic battery companies to layout, NINGDE era in Germany factory approval, is a good proof signal.
However, things are far from being so simple, and going to sea to build a factory seems to be a manifestation of "getting ahead", but it is also full of dangers. Especially after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic and the intensification of geopolitics, the risk of going to Europe and the United States and investing resources in the local area is not low.
The encounter of Japanese and South Korean battery manufacturers may be able to learn from it.
In March this year, South Korean media reported that "Korean battery manufacturers are being bullied by American companies", and South Korean companies such as LG New Energy and SK On have been required by relevant car companies to "share core technology information" in the process of investing and building factories in the United States.
It is understood that LG New Energy plans to establish a battery joint venture with General Motors and set up 3 factories in the United States. However, during the negotiation process, GM requested battery output experimental data directly related to battery stability from LG New Energy on the grounds of "in order to confirm the safety of the battery".
SK On was also asked to share battery density-related technologies when negotiating battery joint venture plans with Ford Motor. Although SK On said that because the technology of South Korea's Industrial Technology Protection Act is difficult to share, Ford directly visited the Ministry of Industry, Resources and Trade of South Korea to confirm that SK On's statement has a legal basis.
It is not difficult to find that in overseas areas, if you want to use the strength of local car companies to build joint ventures and factories, you may not necessarily be able to achieve a win-win situation. Among them, in addition to the distribution of various benefits, there are also some political factors lurking in the minutiae.
Just like not long ago, the US SEC once again included 88 Chinese stocks in the pre-delisting list, including JD.com, Pinduoduo and other companies. Up to now, the number of Chinese stocks on the "pre-delisted" list has risen to 105, including new car-making forces such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal.
To be fair, is the identity of China's power battery company today in the international market really as good as imagined?
In October last year, CATL authorized modern Mobis CTP technology, creating a precedent of "technology for market"; but the plan can not catch up with the changes, so the international environment under the zero-sum game, belonging to the road of Chinese battery manufacturers, how can it be smooth.
In fact, the opportunity of "technology for market" has always been there, but opportunities and risks coexist, and the more you desire, the more you will suffer from the storm of the same specifications. Everyone wants to make smart money, but at this moment, staying sober is especially important.
Since the beginning of this year, the price of upstream raw materials for power batteries has remained high, so that most new energy vehicle companies have begun to raise prices to cut costs. As an important part of the power battery industry chain, battery manufacturers such as Ningde Times and Guoxuan Hi-Tech are also caught in the strange circle of "increasing revenue without increasing profits" in the first quarter of the financial report.
If we start from this perspective, the domestic power battery industry and the new energy automobile industry are suffering from unprecedented challenges of the times. It can be corroborated that when people discussed the power battery industry last year, the most talked about may be the issue of capacity expansion; now, the most discussed is when the price of raw materials will return to normal.
But then again, if you have difficulties, you can only get carried away and not seek more growth?
The answer is obviously no, although the road of "technology for market" of China's power batteries cannot be smooth, but The Chinese battery manufacturers with ideas will certainly be able to find a balance and identify the traps on the road full of thorns to achieve their own value.
The so-called European and American "back garden", why not break into it?
Zhang Zhidong
What a great writer,
It's just writing
One-sidedness of their own.
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