It is a matter of 6 companies! Guoxuan Hi-Tech and others may be included in the "prohibited mining" list by the United States, industry insiders responded
Reporter: Dong Tianyi Intern reporter: Miao Shiyu Editor: Pei Jianru
According to a report by Huanqiu.com on January 21, the U.S. Congress has banned the Pentagon from purchasing batteries produced by six Chinese companies including CATL and BYD. According to the relevant content, the U.S. Department of Defense will ban the procurement of batteries from CATL, BYD and four other Chinese companies from October 2027. According to the relevant list, CATL, BYD, Envision Energy, EVE Lithium Energy (300014. SZ), Guoxuan Hi-Tech (002074. SZ) and Hichen Energy Storage were both included in the prohibited procurement list.
In recent years, it is not uncommon for Chinese battery products to go overseas to be "restricted" and "investigated", behind which is the significant acceleration of the large-scale and global development of China's battery industry.
According to a new round of statistics on the global power battery market released by SNE Research, in January ~ November 2023, the global registered battery loading capacity of electric vehicles (including EV, PHEV, HEV) is about 624.4GWh, an increase of 41.8% over the same period in 2022. Among the top 10 companies in the world in terms of installed power battery capacity, Chinese companies occupy six seats, namely CATL, BYD, China Innovation Airlines, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, EVE Lithium Energy, and Funeng Technology.
Image source: Visual China
According to data from the China Chemical and Physical Power Industry Association, in January ~ November 2023, the cumulative export value of lithium-ion batteries in mainland China will be 59.702 billion US dollars. Among them, the largest export market is still the United States, with an export value of 12.326 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 42.9%, accounting for 20.7% of the mainland's lithium-ion battery exports, and the second and third largest export markets are Germany and South Korea.
From the current point of view, the United States is the largest market for China's lithium-ion battery exports. Because of this, the news of this restriction also means that Chinese battery companies may face certain challenges in "going overseas".
In this regard, the reporter of "Daily Economic News" contacted relevant people from CATL, BYD, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, EVE Lithium Energy, Envision Energy, and Haichen Energy Storage, but did not receive a response as of press time.
Image source: Photo by reporter Kong Zesi (data map)
However, a person close to the above-mentioned company told reporters that "at present, we have not heard any discussion on this matter internally, and we are not sure how big the impact (of the news) will be."
A number of people related to the power battery industry also unanimously told reporters that it is not possible to see the impact of the news for the time being, but if it is judged by the effective time in 2027, the short-term impact may not be large.
"Judging from the detailed rules, the restrictions on the commercial market are not large, and a certain buffer time is reserved, and the impact on domestic enterprises may not be large in the short term. An insider of a listed company in the lithium battery industry also told reporters.
The same is true for the energy storage market. A relevant person from a listed company in the energy storage industry told reporters that the above-mentioned relevant restrictions on the United States will have an impact on the above six Chinese battery companies if they involve the commercial market. After all, from the perspective of demand, the United States has a large market share. However, for other companies that have laid out the energy storage market, the impact may not be so great, because the core of the current energy storage market is the European and Middle Eastern markets.
According to a report by Huanqiu.com, the commercial procurement of U.S. companies will not be affected by the relevant restrictions. For example, Ford uses CATL-licensed technology to produce electric vehicle batteries in Michigan.
The reporter learned from CATL that CATL is currently helping Ford build a battery factory by using an authorized service model. Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, also said that CATL plans to provide similar service models for many automakers and even battery manufacturers in Europe and the United States.
National Business Daily