Note: This analysis article only represents Cui Dongshu's personal views, if you have any objections, please leave a message. In the past two years, the new energy vehicle and energy storage industry has been highly prosperous, the demand for batteries has grown rapidly, and the proportion of batteries for new energy vehicles has declined. Due to the high prices of nickel and cobalt, the differentiated growth of ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries has been formed. With the growth of long-life products, ternary batteries have picked up, and the total proportion of lithium iron phosphate batteries has decreased slightly. With the adjustment of the tax-free purchase policy to improve the range of electric vehicles, low-end small and micro electric vehicles have shrunk, the trend of pure electric vehicles has weakened, and range extenders and plug-in hybrids have continued to strengthen. As the vehicle purchase tax policy inhibits the development of short-range micro electric vehicles, the growth of battery loading demand for electric vehicles continues to be slower than the growth of total vehicles.
1. The proportion of power battery loading
At present, the proportion of installed batteries in the production of power batteries is constantly decreasing, and the installed capacity of power battery installed batteries will reach 76% in 2020, 70% in 2021, 54% in 2022, 50% in 2023, and 46% from January to April 2024.
With the development of energy storage and other industries, especially the world energy crisis brought about by the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the demand for batteries in energy storage and other industries has grown rapidly, resulting in a significant decline in the proportion of batteries installed in vehicles. Power batteries and energy storage batteries are overproduced and inventory is relatively under pressure. In 2021 and 2022, the growth rate of power batteries will be lower than the growth rate of vehicles, and the loading of power batteries in 2024 will be low, and the output of batteries will be higher than the growth rate of loading.
2. The ternary proportion of battery loading of domestic model certificates has gradually recovered
The growth of demand for power battery loading is fluctuating. 10% increase in demand in 2019; In 2020, the installed power battery of domestic models will be 64GWh, with a demand increase of 2%; In 2021, 155GWh of power batteries will be installed, with a demand increase of 143%; In 2022, 295GWh will be installed, with a demand increase of 91%; In 2023, 388GWh will be installed, with a demand increase of 32%.
In April 2024, 35 GWh of lithium batteries were installed, an increase of 41% year-on-year. 10GWh of ternary batteries were installed, accounting for 28%, lower than the same period; The installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries was 26GWh, accounting for 66%, and the growth of ternary batteries slowed down. From January to April, 121G of lithium batteries were installed, a year-on-year increase of 33%.
3. The demand for automotive batteries continues to grow strongly
The demand for batteries for passenger cars continues to grow strongly, with battery demand for pure electric passenger vehicles increasing by 14% in 2024, while battery demand for plug-in hybrid passenger cars increasing by 94%, continuing to grow strongly. Due to the low base factor of subsidy withdrawal, the battery demand for buses has recovered relatively well, and the battery demand for special vehicles has also increased significantly.
From the perspective of the proportion of battery loading, the demand structure of power batteries has been changing rapidly in recent years. In 2020, it will still be the first pure electric passenger car, the second pure electric bus, and the third pure electric special vehicle, while the plug-in hybrid passenger car is only the fourth state. This year, pure electric passenger cars still maintain the first place, while plug-in hybrid passenger cars have risen to second place, pure electric special vehicles have risen to third place, and pure electric buses have fallen to the fourth level.
In recent years, the pure electric bus market has declined sharply, while the number of batteries used in pure electric special vehicles has increased rapidly. At present, pure electric buses have dropped from 18.5% to 1.1% in 2024, a decrease of 17 percentage points. The battery usage of plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles has grown relatively rapidly, from 7% to 22%, an increase of 15%, while pure electric vehicles have dropped to 66%, maintaining the absolute core battery demand characteristics of passenger cars accounting for more than 90%.
4. Output of automobile certificate
According to the calculation of the number of certified batteries, the output of certified products in April 2024 is 750,000 units. From January to April, 2.56 million units were strong, including 1.41 million pure electric passenger cars and 1 million plug-in hybrid passenger cars. There are 128,000 pure electric special vehicles, which is still a good output figure.
5. Supporting battery companies are far from being fully competitive
The competitive landscape of the battery market has not changed significantly over the past few years. Due to the relatively slow technological progress of the power battery market and the relatively obvious growth of scale, battery companies have obtained strong characteristics of production and loading growth.
The pattern of the original battery has not changed significantly, to see who invests more, and then who can obtain a larger market share, so the main battery enterprises continue to expand the characteristics of strong performance; Small and medium-sized battery companies also have the opportunity to achieve certain growth by technological or other breakthroughs. Therefore, the battery pattern should be said to be relatively stable in the rapid growth.
However, the opportunity for change in the battery industry in the future is relatively large, and the trend of making batteries by vehicle companies or joint battery manufacturing by vehicle companies is becoming increasingly obvious in the future, and battery companies will gradually form the core supporting products of the whole vehicle.
At present, the demand for high-end electric vehicle market is not very strong, but similar to the "old man's music" upgraded to small and micro cars, the demand for low-end family transportation is greater, especially affected by the epidemic, the market demand for A0 class cars and A00 class cars is higher.
As far as the supply chain is concerned, vehicle companies will become stronger and stronger in the future, and the control ability of battery companies and the upstream industrial chain will be further strengthened, and the control of downstream brand marketing capabilities will also be further strengthened. Under the new energy system, the characteristics of "vehicle is king" will be further and continuously reflected.
6. The battery of lithium iron phosphate needs to be reduced
At present, the energy density of the main battery of pure electric vehicles is between 125 and 160. In particular, the outstanding performance in April 2024 is that the proportion of batteries from 125 to 140 will reach 45%, an increase of 5 percentage points year-on-year.
From January to April 2024, 16% of the models with a battery energy density of more than 160 will be used, which is a significant decrease compared to 19% in 2023, which is mainly due to the decline in energy density caused by the ternary substitution of lithium iron phosphate batteries. Products with an energy density of less than 125 have dropped from 9% in 2023 to 7% in 2024, and to 2% in April.
7. Battery enterprise pattern
The competitive landscape of battery companies has formed relatively strong characteristics of CATL and BYD. At present, the gap between BYD and CATL is still large. BYD's share rose from 15% in 2020 to 23.7% in 2024 and 28.5% in April. The proportion of CATL has dropped to 48%, and the proportion of other battery companies has also shown a significant trend. Battery companies have formed the characteristics of slowing down the agglomeration effect of leading enterprises, from 72% of the first two companies in 2022 to 70% this year, and the space of other companies is only about 30%.
The product differences of lithium iron phosphate batteries have obvious advantages. BYD is relatively good, but it entered a period of adjustment at the beginning of this year. The share of lithium iron batteries in CATL has surpassed BYD in the first quarter of this year, and BYD began to recover in April. EVE Lithium Energy, Xinwangda, and Jidian New Energy have improved significantly.
Due to BYD's comprehensive transformation into lithium iron phosphate batteries, the ternary battery advantages of the top three companies such as CATL are more obvious, and Honeycomb Energy has performed well recently.
Attached: A collection of recent information
*From January to April 2024, automobile production increased by 8%, consumption increased by 1%, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in April was 830,000 by 35%*Passenger car segment model trend in April*Auto market scan-Issue 17, 2024 (May 6-May 12)*National new energy passenger vehicles, wholesale 790,000 in April 2024, retail penetration rate of 44%
*Analysis of automotive market segment trends and manufacturers' competitive performance in April
*Analysis of the market structure of the passenger car price segment - April
*Analysis of the operating characteristics of the national passenger car market in April*【Monthly analysis】Analysis of the national passenger car market in April 2024*Discussion on the grading and calculation of new passenger cars—April*Auto market scan-Issue 16, 2024 (April 22-April 30)*[New Energy] April 2024 Wholesale Sales News of New Energy Passenger Vehicle Manufacturers*Analysis of the Bottleneck Improvement of New Energy Vehicle Development*Comparative Analysis of China's Automobile Exports*2024 China Automobile Exports Overseas Data Tracking-March* China accounted for 62% of the world's NEVs in January-March 2024*33% of the world's NEVs in March 2024
*Regional market analysis of new energy passenger vehicles in March 2024
*National Charging Pile Market Analysis - March 2024
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*In 2023, the double credit of fuel and new energy will skyrocket
*1.69 million used cars in January 2024, up 35%
* Trade-in to reduce logistics costs - promote the strong growth of gas heavy trucks
*Comparative analysis of the trend of the national residential property market and the auto market*Analysis of the national rental online car-hailing market - 2023
*The price war in the national passenger car market will continue to be fierce in 2024
*We should never be pessimistic about new energy vehicles*The brand of the Passenger Association will continue to be brilliant in the past 30 years*In 2023, China's automobiles have achieved remarkable results, and the potential is even greater
*Ministry of Public Security Licensing and Driver Data Analysis - January-December 2023
*Analysis of the first batch of new energy vehicles in 2024
*Tracking of the recall status of the national automobile market from January to December 2023*Analysis of automobile ownership and scrapping exports