"The characteristic of our industry is that you want to roll, but you are not qualified, you can't. The two bosses in front, who can get past BYD, who can get past the CATL era, and the brothers below can only live and die together. ”
Talking about the current situation of the battery industry, Liu Jincheng, chairman of EVE, is anxious.
The cake is so big, Ning Wang and Fodi share 70%, and the remaining 30% is distributed by other enterprises. There is a saying in the market: the power battery industry is now showing a situation of "two superpowers and many strong". The two supers are obviously King Ning and Fodi, but these "how strong" they are, according to their own complaints, are not very strong.
In March, Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of SVOLT, proposed large-scale layoffs on social media: "Since January this year, we have implemented major reforms with 'pursuit of high-quality management' as the core, mainly including strengthening the elimination mechanism for underperforming employees, optimizing the performance evaluation system, and adjusting the compensation structure, aiming to stimulate the vitality and creativity of the team and employees." ”
It is reported that power battery companies such as China Innovation Airlines, Tianjin Jiewei, Ruipu Lanjun, and Xinwangda are laying off employees. A large number of fresh graduates were terminated by China Innovation Airlines, affecting 2,000 people, and several departments of Tianjin Jiewei announced that "unified organization of full-time training" and unified vacation for non-grassroots personnel.
Second- and third-tier power battery suppliers are struggling to survive, and the reason for this is that they have encountered a set of combination punches.
The first is the issue of capacity. The data shows that the production capacity of power batteries has been declining year by year since 2022, and the capacity utilization rate of power batteries in mainland China will be 51.6% in 2022, 41% in 2023, and is likely to drop to about 35% by 2025. And most of the excess capacity has fallen on the shoulders of second- and third-line power batteries.
The second is the collapse of raw material prices and production reductions: the price of lithium carbonate has plummeted from 500,000 yuan/ton at the beginning of 2023 to 100,000 yuan/ton at the end of the year. China Innovation Airlines' production base in Changzhou has also been exposed to the news of reduced production capacity and shortened working hours, and Jiewei's Tianjin factory has actually stopped operating for three months.
The crazy involution and expansion in the past few years ushered in a backlash.
There is a little story in which the teacher asks the students, "Who is the highest peak in the world?" and the students reply, "Mount Everest." The teacher asked, "What about the second peak?" and the student was speechless.
This story teaches us the importance of being number one. Try your best to be the first line, and no one cares about who the second or third line is.
Since 2024, the charging pile market has been particularly lively, and the overseas demand for charging piles on Ali International Station has increased by 218% year-on-year.
In addition to opening up new tracks, going overseas is also a window opened by God for power battery companies: data shows that in 2023, the mainland's "new three" products of electric manned vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar cells will be exported to a total of 1.06 trillion yuan, breaking through the trillion yuan mark for the first time, an increase of 29.9%. Judging from the current situation in the first 11 months of 2023, the total export value of lithium batteries in the "new three" is the highest, accounting for more than 4 percent, and the year-on-year growth rate has also reached 32.7%.
On February 27, Yang Hongxin summarized the three core strategic tasks of SVOLT in 2024, one of which is to increase the layout of overseas markets.
At the moment when they are surrounded and suppressed by giants, regardless of the level of technical barriers, these second- and third-tier power battery suppliers strive to go to sea, or transform to the direction of charging piles, will it be the way to break the situation?