"Internal" power lithium battery
The media coverage appears to be lagging behind the battery companies' production expansion. While we are still discussing whether the global power lithium-ion battery production will be excessive in 2025, battery companies have already started a new round of production expansion. On December 8th, on the second battery day of Honeycomb Energy, the company, which was established less than four years ago, raised its target for the Nth time - challenging 600GWh of production and 450GWh of shipments in 2025. At the first Battery Day in 2020, it aimed to reach 40GWh of shipments in 2025.
While Honeycomb Energy increased its target by 10 times within a year, on the other hand, on December 8, CATL signed a cooperation and investment agreement with the Suzhou Municipal Government; on December 7, LG, which ranked second in the world, New Energy also announced that it plans to raise tens of billions of dollars to go public... Driven by new energy vehicles, power lithium-ion batteries have become one of the most lively tracks this year. And like all potential and competitive tracks, involution is inevitable in this industry.
Production planning, another round of "go ahead"
There are two "famous" rumors in the battery industry: one is that Xiaopeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng stayed in the Ningde era for a week in order to get the battery; the other is that there are at least seven "bosses" of OEMs in Ningde every day. The times stand guard. Although both He Xiaopeng and CATL denied the rumors in the end, the lack of battery supply is evident. So this year's power lithium-ion battery industry has a clear trend - expanding production has become one of the main themes.
From the statistics, it is not difficult to find that from the first-tier CATL and BYD, to the second-tier Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Zhongxinhang (China Aviation Lithium), Honeycomb Energy, Yiwei Lithium Energy, and then to the third-tier Funeng Technology, Ruipu Energy , Xinwangda, etc., all mainstream power lithium-ion battery manufacturers have started production expansion this year. Even regardless of the current scale, they have almost all set themselves an ambitious 2025 production target this year:
In addition to Honeycomb Energy's announcement that it will challenge 600GWh of production in 2025 and ship 450GWh, some institutions have previously predicted that its output in 2025 will also be about 600GWh according to the production plan of CATL;
BYD has news that its production in 2025 may reach 430GWh;
Guoxuan Hi-Tech stated in its semi-annual report that it will strive to achieve a production scale of 300GWh in 2025;
In the strategy announcement meeting, China Innovation Airlines clearly stated that the planned output in 2025 will reach 500GWh;
Liu Jincheng, chairman of Yiwei Lithium Energy, bluntly stated that the goal in 2025 is to produce 200GWh of power storage batteries;
The production plan of Ruipu Energy in 2025 is 200GWh;
With the blessing of Mercedes-Benz, Funeng Technology also announced that its production target in 2025 is expected to exceed 120GWh;
...
In this way, just these companies, the production plan in 2025 is already close to 3000GWh.
In the predictions of most research institutions, the demand for power lithium-ion batteries in 2025 will be around 1TWh. In other words, if the current production plan is advanced, the overproduction of the entire power lithium-ion battery industry will become inevitable. However, in the context of the rising demand for downstream batteries, every company in it is more willing to believe that it can take advantage of the wind. As for whether they will face excess production, they all showed absolute confidence.
Previously, Liu Jincheng, chairman of Yiwei Lithium Energy, once said that in the face of this risk, the company must continuously improve the quality and performance of its products. And Liu Jingyu, chairman of China Innovation Airlines, said bluntly, "As long as the company's technology passes the test, there will be no excess production." When the entire industry is in a frenzy, the competitors in the industry will inevitably fall into a strategic position of either advancing or retreating. In the head company to expand production, others can only be coerced forward. Otherwise, there will only be an outcome of being eliminated.
The competition for raw materials is as "crazy" as the land
At the end of October this year, Australian miner Cattlin released a set of data. The average price of lithium concentrate, an important raw material for power lithium-ion batteries, reached $1,650/ton in the fourth quarter, up 112% from $779/ton in the third quarter. This has never been the case before. Along with the expansion of production, the "mine grabbing war" in the upstream of the power lithium-ion battery industry is also in full swing.
Take lithium ore as an example. Since this raw material is highly dependent on imports, domestic battery manufacturers have gone overseas to buy lithium mines overseas with banknotes. Among them, I have to mention the "Ning Lithium War" between the Ningde era and Ganfeng Lithium Industry. When it initially planned to acquire Canadian lithium company Millennium Lithium, Ganfeng Lithium expected the transaction to be worth no more than C$353 million.
But who knows that in September, the Ningde era crossed the bar and raised the price to 376.8 million Canadian dollars. In the end, Ganfeng Lithium, which was unwilling to give up, had to raise the price again to about 500 million Canadian dollars. In this regard, some people in the industry once sighed, "Now grabbing upstream lithium resources is just as fierce and crazy as the previous soil auction market."
Price changes of lithium carbonate raw materials in 2019-2021
In order to obtain more upstream resources, these battery manufacturers who originally focused on manufacturing also had to start learning capital operations and use capital to invest in the industrial chain to expand their voice in the industry. In April of this year, Honeycomb Energy officially established Honeycomb Capital, spending 2 billion yuan to set up two funds for growth and innovation, and to participate in and control some suppliers.
Coincidentally, in September, AVIC Lithium also invested in a capital company, Kaibo (Hainan) Private Equity Fund Management Co., Ltd. The leader, Ningde Times, invested and participated in the establishment of 8 private equity investment funds this year, with more than 40 foreign investments. It can be said that the competition of power lithium-ion battery manufacturers is no longer limited to technology and output. Even the dominant companies must be proficient in all eight kinds of martial arts in the entire business field.
From naming to mass production time, technical route, comprehensive involution
Even when it comes to naming the batteries, they have to know exactly the right way.
Before the emergence of BYD's blade battery, people's cognition of the category of power lithium-ion batteries mostly stayed on ternary lithium-ion batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries. After BYD's blade battery became well-known with its technical strength and simple image, the naming of power lithium-ion batteries even began to be rolled out.
From the sodium-ion batteries of the Ningde era to the short-knife batteries of Honeycomb Energy, even car companies have come to join in the fun. GAC's magazine battery, Great Wall's Dayu battery, Lantu's amber battery, Zhiji's silicon-doped lithium-ion battery... Some of these are new names brought by new technologies, and some are trying to use simple and easy-to-remember names. To package and summarize your selling point, so that people can quickly remember.
As a result, today's power lithium-ion battery industry has become like the automotive industry. "A good name is not everything, but no good name is absolutely impossible." Even the involution of this marketing continues to who can mass-produce solid-state batteries first. In recent years, solid-state batteries have gradually been recognized as the next-generation battery technology solution that could disrupt the entire automotive industry. Therefore, in order to attract the attention of consumers, battery companies and car companies have recently begun to announce the mass production time of solid-state batteries to the outside world. And the first of them is Weilai.
At the end of last year, Weilai announced a 150kWh solid-state battery at NIODay, saying that the solid-state battery can achieve an ultra-high energy density of 360Wh/kg. The NIO ET7 sedan equipped with this battery pack will have a range of more than 1,000 kilometers, and the product is scheduled to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2022. But after this news was announced, it attracted a lot of doubts. Many practitioners said that according to the current technology, solid-state batteries cannot be mass-produced for electric vehicles.
Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde Times, even admitted that in 3 to 5 years, all solid-state batteries that can be used in cars are not all-solid-state batteries. Whether Wei Lai will be slapped in the face or will prove himself, and give it to time. However, in order to enhance the competitiveness of their new energy models, some domestic and foreign car companies not only cooperate with battery suppliers in joint ventures, but also personally develop their own battery technology and build their own battery factories, which is a solid trend.
Earlier, Zeng Qinghong, chairman of GAC Group, once mentioned, "The global auto industry has already started the battle for battery talent, and GAC poached some core talents from LG, Samsung, and Japan's Yuasa five years ago. ". Through independent research and development in the past few years, GAC has indeed made good progress in super-speed batteries and sponge silicon anode sheet batteries.
However, while constantly challenging the difficult liquid lithium-ion battery technology, in order to increase future bargaining chips, many car companies are also adopting diversified battery paths. Taking GAC Group as an example, according to Zeng Qinghong, they will accelerate the development of hydrogen fuel-powered lithium batteries and solid-state batteries.
write at the end
Not long ago, SNEResearch, a South Korean market research institution, announced the global power lithium-ion battery installed capacity rankings for October and January-October 2021. The data shows that in the ranking TOP10, Chinese companies occupy 6 seats. At the same time, CATL has a market share of 34.2%, which is far ahead of the three Korean giants LG New Energy, SK Innovation, Samsung SDI, and Japan's Panasonic.
However, in recent days, Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice chairman of the my country Electric Vehicle Hundred People's Association, said in an interview that although my country is currently in an absolute leading position in the supply of automotive power lithium-ion batteries, it is still in solid-state batteries. In the field, it will take at least five years for my country to catch up with Japan. For domestic battery companies, while competing with each other, don't forget to look up and look further ahead.
Some information reference:
Voting China.com "Really The Most Inward Rolling Track in History, 350 Billion in Half a Year, 7 Bosses Are Rumored to "Squat and Take Goods""
Die Zeit "Fairy Fights! The Ningde era and Ganfeng Lithium rushed to buy lithium mines overseas, as crazy as the previous local auctions"
autocarweekly "The hardest part of making a battery is naming it"
Yicai "Car companies get together to bet on solid-state batteries, what are the chances of winning this technical route? 》
