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Ten thousand words review of China's lithium power decade: Europe and the United States rush, Japan and South Korea overtake, Chinese enterprises catch up from behind

2025-02-18 Update From: SLTechnology News&Howtos shulou NAV: SLTechnology News&Howtos > IT Information >

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Editor's note

In the past decade, China's new energy vehicles have almost experienced the development from scratch, from small to large, from weak to strong. With the development of new energy vehicle industry, China's lithium battery industry has also experienced unprecedented subversion. This rapid but thorough change is bound to be born, but it is also doomed to be full of surging waves and bright willows. This paper focuses on reviewing the critical decade of the development of lithium power in China, from the story of ten thousand words, to understand the key figures, companies and technological changes in the competitive tide of the lithium power industry.

Lithium, the third most active metal in the periodic table, is becoming the key to driving the century-old transformation of cars.

Lithium battery industrialization began in Japan, and Sony began to produce 18650 lithium batteries in the early 1990s. From then on, lithium batteries began a vigorous process of industrial change. Until more than 10 years ago, lithium batteries were mainly used in 3C digital products.

In a short period of 10 or 20 years, lithium battery has started the industrial transition, shining brilliantly in the new energy vehicle industry, and becoming today's "white oil".

It is gratifying that, driven by a series of policy support and industrial acceleration, the domestic lithium battery industry began to catch up. From Ningde New Energy to the era of BYD and Ningde, with its differentiated positioning and low-cost advantages, it gradually occupies an important position in the lithium battery industry chain and has a big say in the international market.

In the past ten years, China's new energy vehicles have almost simultaneously experienced the development from scratch, from small to large, from weak to strong. With the development of new energy vehicle industry, China's lithium battery industry has also experienced unprecedented subversion. This rapid but thorough change is bound to be born, but it is also doomed to be full of surging waves and bright willows.

On October 9, 2019, there was an uproar at the headquarters of Asahi Kasei, Japan, with all eyes focused on Akira Yoshino, the company's R & D boss, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. As early as 1981, Dr. Akira Yoshino has been engaged in basic research on lithium batteries. In 1983, he developed a new type of rechargeable battery that uses polyacetylene as anode and lithium cobalt oxide as cathode.

Along with Akira Yoshino, there were two other winners, Whitingham of the United Kingdom and Goodnauf of the United States, in which Dr. Goodnauf discovered lithium cobalt oxide, the first cathode material containing lithium ion. The award words say "they have created a rechargeable world", and this "rechargeable world" is inseparable from the birth and application of lithium-ion battery technology.

The three winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: in Nobel Media.1991, Sony released the first commercial lithium battery in human history. The 18650 cylindrical lithium battery with lithium cobalt as positive electrode and carbon material as negative electrode was put into its own product camera by Sony, thus opening the way for commercial use of lithium battery.

Other Japanese companies have followed suit, such as Panasonic, which began battery research and development in 1923, early mainly provided consumer batteries for home appliances and 3C digital products, successfully developed rechargeable lithium batteries in 1994, and began to lay out the automotive power battery market.

At that time, with the commercial use of lithium batteries, Japan's consumer electronics industry can be said to be ahead of the world, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sanyo and other Japanese companies, firmly occupy the leading position. After 2000, the lithium batteries produced by Japanese enterprises were almost monopolized, accounting for more than 90% of the world's lithium batteries. However, Japanese lithium battery companies have not advanced by leaps and bounds when they have the advantage of first mover.

Although Japan has made a great breakthrough in lithium battery technology and contributed to the commercial landing of lithium battery, Japan, as a big automobile country, has failed to judge the power battery development path of new energy vehicles, coupled with the pressure from Toyota and other car companies. Japan's national bet on hydrogen fuel cells has led to a sharp decline in the status of lithium batteries.

During the 2008 financial crisis, when Panasonic continued to lose money and failed to expand into areas such as mobile phones, it acquired Sanyo Motor, a supplier selected by Tesla, which made it the exclusive supplier of Tesla, providing it with 18650 cylindrical batteries. However, the cooperation between Panasonic and Tesla is not sweet, and Musk has complained about Panasonic's inefficiency more than once.

While Japan was banging on hydrogen fuel cells, South Korea next door seized the opportunity and continued to buy lithium battery patents with the money-style style of the chaebol, resulting in the emergence of giants in the lithium battery industry chain led by Samsung SDI and LG.

Source of LG New Energy headquarters: LG is different from the Japanese government in supporting the development of hydrogen fuel cells, while the South Korean government directly subsidizes lithium batteries while introducing policies to subsidize the construction of pure electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.

LG New Energy has been developing lithium-ion battery business since 1995 and can be called a veteran of the industry. Its predecessor is the LG Chemical Battery Division, whose products include power batteries, energy storage and consumer batteries. LG New Energy is the first company in the world to mass-produce ternary cathode materials. In 2007, LG New Energy mass-produced NCM523 small batteries in the world for the first time, and in 2014, it mass-produced NCM811 batteries for the first time.

In 2012, South Korea's LG beat Panasonic and other companies to become the first in the list of global power battery manufacturers' production share, while Samsung SDI ranked seventh with 2.2%.

At this time, Japan and South Korea are engaged in a battle between consumer and power batteries, with Japanese companies accounting for half of the global lithium battery market in 2010 and South Korean companies accounting for 30%. Chinese lithium battery companies have just got their cards, but they haven't had a chance to sit on the table yet.

However, we did not wait long, because the rapid development of the new energy vehicle industry is opening up a path for domestic players to become "professional players".

02 opportunity comes, the curtain gradually unfolds with the saturation of the consumer battery market, the promotion of new energy vehicles has become the vanguard of energy saving and emission reduction strategy. as an indispensable part of it, the power battery industry has gradually become a new battlefield for lithium battery enterprises.

In 2007, LG Chemistry aimed at the timing and won the Hyundai car order. Two years later, the first power battery of LG Chemistry and the model jointly developed by Hyundai Kia landed. In 2008, LG Chemistry successfully held hands with GM and became the exclusive supplier of power batteries for GM Chevrolet Volt electric vehicles. Finally, in 2010, Chevrolet Volt,LG Chemistry opened up the situation in the field of new energy vehicles.

Also in 2007, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "New Energy vehicle production access Management rules", which clearly stipulated that China began to support the development of the new energy vehicle industry in the way of subsidies, so as to realize lane overtaking in the automobile industry. this is the prelude to a brand-new track.

In fact, before this blue ocean is completely opened, some industry players have found a more hidden fertile ground.

In June 2007, BYD, which had already seen the slowdown in the consumer battery market, first smelled the tuyere and registered Huizhou BYD Battery Co., Ltd. the legal representative is Wang Chuanfu, who has a professional background. The company's business scope includes lithium battery materials (lithium iron phosphate, electrolyte, diaphragm paper) and so on.

BYD signed a contract with NOKIA: relying on its early manufacturing experience in mobile phones and PC batteries, BYD quickly set up a production base for lithium iron phosphate power batteries and began to prepare for future power in new energy vehicles.

At almost the same time, Zeng Yuqun, who was still in ATL (New Energy Technology Co., Ltd.), was also optimistic about the future of new energy vehicles, and he decided to use his resources and advantages to join the batteries of new energy vehicles.

In 2008, ATL set up a power battery department under the leadership of Zeng Yuqun, which is also the starting point of Ning Wang, which ranks first in shipments. At that time, Zeng Yuqun also received a doctorate in condensed matter physics from the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and became a professional.

When Zeng Yuqun was just about to enter the power battery, Tesla on the other side of the ocean has launched his first electric car, Roadster.

At the time, Roadster was powered by a battery pack of 7000 Panasonic 18650 batteries and completed its first delivery that year at a price of $110000.

Tesla Roadster source: Tesla's Roadster battery cost was high at that time, but the actual cost of the Roadster, which was originally planned to sell for 100, 000, was as high as 120000, which was far from the established cost of 70, 000, 000, so Musk had to raise the price to 110000.

So in the power battery market at that time, cost reduction was still a top priority.

However, the arrival of Tesla has also made electric cars that have been silent for many years jump into the tuyere, and since then, the market has smelled the opportunity for automobile transformation, from the upstream lithium battery raw material mines, to the mid-stream battery manufacturers, and then to the downstream car companies, are starting to rub their hands.

In March 2011, China issued the outline of the Twelfth five-year Plan, which listed new energy vehicles as one of the seven strategic emerging industries, and proposed to focus on the development of plug-in hybrid vehicles, pure electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles.

The development of new energy vehicles can not get around the battery, but at that time, China's new energy vehicle enterprises and supporting parts suppliers, the technical strength is relatively weak, especially in the lithium battery industry. So at this time, the state stepped in and issued the Foreign Investment Industry guidance Catalog, which clearly limits the production of power car batteries by wholly foreign-owned enterprises.

Because of this, China's lithium battery industry began to usher in a real outbreak.

In 2011, Zeng Yuqun walked into the office of Zhang Yujie, then CEO of Ningde New Energy (ATL), and expressed his ambition: to work alone and be a power battery.

He took away the whole power battery division of Ningde New Energy, and rented a factory opposite ATL to focus on the research and development and production of power batteries and lithium-ion battery systems for new energy vehicles, which was the embryonic form of the early Ningde era.

Source: Wang Chuanfu, who was in Shenzhen during the Ningde era, may not have thought that Zeng Yuqun, who became a monk in the battery industry, would take the Ningde era to compete with him for decades.

In fact, BYD is the first company in China to enter new energy vehicles. As early as 2010, BYD launched a pure electric car, BYD e6, which uses ET-Power iron battery technology independently developed by BYD, with a range of 300km, and the first models were delivered to taxi companies.

BYD e6 delivery source: BYD has crossed the river by feeling the stones in the new energy market, and the Ningde era has also begun to break through the first important "big customer".

In 2012, BMW, which saw the development trend of new energy vehicles, wanted to design a power battery for Zino, its first electric brand, and choose a Chinese battery supplier.

Wei Lande, president and CEO of brilliance BMW at that time, and Zeng Yuqun, the founder of Ningde era, were very good friends. Although they had a profound friendship, Wei Lande still muttered to himself, "is the Ningde era all right?"

Wei Lande, former president and CEO of brilliance BMW: fortunately, with the endorsement of ATL to Apple, Ningde finally won this order.

In order to serve BMW well, Ningde Times and BMW have set up a joint battery development team of more than 100 people. Although in the end, BMW's new energy vehicles did not achieve commercial success due to various reasons, Ningde Times and Zeng Yuqun established a complete power battery R & D and production system by virtue of their cooperation with BMW at that time. Also mastered the experience of how to deal with car companies, and thus entered BMW's supply chain system.

This is the first step of success in Ningde era, and it also lays a foundation for Ningde era to have super bargaining power in cooperation with car companies. With the endorsement of BMW, BAIC, Geely, Changan car companies began to cooperate with Ningde era, and Ningde era began to gain a firm foothold in the power battery industry.

Also in 2012, BYD iron battery production base received ISO / TS16949:2009 certification, which is the first ISO / TS16949 certification in China's electric vehicle power battery industry. This certification marks that the quality management level of BYD's iron battery production has begun to be in line with international standards in the areas of design, manufacturing, sales and service.

Everything is ready, and a hand-to-hand fight is inevitable.

03 domestic lithium power made its debut in 2011, sales of new energy vehicles nationwide were less than 10,000. By 2014, the number had risen to 75000. This huge blue sea has also made more and more lithium battery companies jealous.

In 2015, LG, Samsung and other Japanese and South Korean companies aimed at the opportunity to enter the Chinese market with their own mature ternary battery technology and speed up the production of power battery production lines.

When the ex-factory price of ternary lithium battery in China is generally 2.5-3 yuan / wh, Japanese and Korean enterprises gave a price of 1 yuan / wh, which quickly won the favor of many domestic independent brands with a loss price, and harvested orders from mainstream passenger car companies such as Chery, Geely, Changan and so on.

Japan and South Korea lithium battery companies are threatening, at that time the pressure of domestic power battery manufacturers can be imagined.

In order to cope with the competition, starting from the end of 2015, China has issued four batches of "Automotive Power Battery Industry Standard conditions" enterprise catalogue within a year. If the batteries used in the new energy vehicles purchased by consumers are produced by enterprises in the catalogue, then you can get the corresponding subsidies.

Foreign battery factories are not included in the list, so joint ventures that have invested in factories in China, such as Dalian Panasonic, Nanjing LG and Xi'an Samsung, are unable to declare subsidies, indicating that the first visit of Japanese and South Korean car companies to China is doomed to a dismal end.

With 2015 as a watershed, a large number of players have emerged in the domestic lithium battery industry.

Guoxuan Hi-Tech, which was founded in 2006, was successfully listed in 2015. It has new energy vehicle power lithium batteries, energy storage, power transmission and distribution equipment and other business sectors, and the installed capacity has been increasing since then.

Source of Guoxuan Hi-Tech New Energy Industry Base: Yiwei Lithium Energy, which was mainly based on consumer batteries in the early days of Guoxuan Hi-Tech, laid out power batteries in depth in 2015 and registered to establish a New Energy Research Institute. Sinovel, the predecessor of AVIC Lithium Power, was also founded in 2015 and successfully appeared on the fourth batch of enterprises, quickly gaining a certain market share in the following years.

Bic Battery, founded in 2005, developed power batteries a long time ago. In 2016, its power batteries loaded more than 50,000 new energy vehicles, accounting for nearly 30% of the ternary battery market.

Thanks to favorable policies, domestic lithium batteries began to overtake around the corner and ushered in an explosive moment surrounded by the times.

At the same time, the domestic new energy vehicle market has also ushered in explosive growth, a large number of new power car companies have been established, and traditional car companies have also begun to launch pure electric models, which has greatly increased the demand for lithium batteries.

"there are many monks and porridge," the war is inevitable. Zeng Yuqun and his Ningde era were the first to break out of the encirclement. In the catalogue of new energy vehicles released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2015, 3200 models used Ningde batteries.

Zeng Yuqun Source: in the Ningde era, Zeng Yuqun often said, "if we are not the first in the world, we have no value for existence." This also established the status of Ningde era in the future. The success of Fupanningde era mainly lies in the technological reserve advantage of early Ningde new energy and the strategy of walking on two legs of lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium.

Since 2016, subsidies for new energy vehicle policies have gradually shifted to high-life batteries dominated by ternary lithium batteries, while before that, lithium iron phosphate batteries were the mainstream of the market, accounting for more than 70% of the market.

The Ningde era, which walked on two legs, also became the biggest beneficiary. In 2016, the revenue of Ningde era increased by 161%, and the net profit of returning home soared by 206% compared with the same period last year.

In the 2016 global power battery sales ranking, the top 10 companies are from China, followed by BYD, CATL, Watma, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Lishen, Bic and AVIC Lithium. China's lithium battery is beginning to show its edge in the global power battery market and has a place. The top seller of that year was Japan's Panasonic, which sold 7.2GWh for the whole year.

The following year, Ningde era began to continue to make efforts, sitting on the throne of global sales of power batteries, Ningde era shipments reached 12GWh in 2017, slightly higher than the second 10GWh Panasonic, as for South Korea's LG Chemical and Samsung SDI shipments were only 4.5GWh and 2.8GWh.

This is the first time that a Chinese lithium battery company has topped the list of global shipments, and the world has seen the strength of Chinese unicorn companies.

04 ushered in its peak on April 27, 2017, when Ningde took its products and ideas to the European Battery Show, all employees of the company received an email entitled "can pigs really fly when a typhoon is coming?"

The person who sent this email was Zeng Yuqun, who was cooking oil on fire in the Ningde era, and many employees began to be complacent. However, Zeng Yuqun smelled a hint of danger. "when we are sleeping on the hotbed of policy, our competitors are facing a life-and-death crisis, and the gap between advance and retreat can be imagined."

"if foreign companies come back in the second half of the year, can we still sleep blindfolded?"

Behind the boundless scenery is not that there are no dark spots. In fact, it is not just Zeng Yuqun who is worried. One of the problems that all domestic lithium batteries have to face is: after the dividend period of the policy, how to spend the rest of life?

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Japanese and South Korean companies that ran aground a few years ago are making a comeback, and the danger signal for domestic battery companies is getting heavier and heavier. From July to December 2018, South Korea's LG Chemical and SKI and Samsung SDI successively announced the resumption of domestic battery production base projects or the construction of new factories, while Big Brother Panasonic did not fall behind, and announced that it would invest hundreds of millions of dollars to increase the production capacity of Dalian Panasonic Battery Factory.

Panasonic's domestic factory source: Panasonic foreign-funded enterprises stride quickly, for the domestic new energy vehicle market is also imperative.

What is more serious is that foreign enterprises frequently report ultra-low prices to seize orders in order to curb the development of lithium electricity in China. In 2018, LG Chemical even applied to the United States to ban the import of ATL batteries on the grounds that ATL exported a large number of low-cost and low-quality batteries made in China to the United States.

However, many years of "greenhouse protection" has made a good start for the development of China's lithium battery industry. More and more domestic lithium battery enterprises in Ningde era, BYD, Guoxuan Hi-Tech and Yiwei Lithium Energy occupy the share of global power batteries. Facts have proved that the domestic lithium automobile industry at that time has long been different from the past.

Whether it is the Ningde era, or Guoxuan Hi-Tech, the proportion of installed capacity did not decline, but the advantages of the Ningde era began to expand gradually, and even began to eat cake from Panasonic.

In July 2018, Musk flew across the sea from the United States to Shanghai and successfully signed the landing agreement for Tesla's Shanghai factory. After signing the agreement, Musk did not immediately return to the United States, but met with a man-Zeng Yuqun.

This also laid the foundation for the cooperation between Tesla and Ningde. In 2019, Musk often texted Zeng Yuqun, asking if he could control costs and provide Tesla with cheaper batteries. At that time, Tesla had just quarreled with Panasonic over battery prices, and Zeng Yuqun told Musk that "I must have a solution" on the cost problem.

In 2020, Ningde Times officially became Tesla's power battery supplier, and the share price of Ningde Times skyrocketed because of the holding hands of both sides.

Prior to this, Japan's Panasonic has been the number one supplier of Tesla power batteries, since 2008, the two sides have been holding hands for more than 10 years. Thanks to its deep binding with Tesla, Panasonic's power battery market share once reached 40 per cent.

As for why Tesla "abandoned" Panasonic to choose the Ningde era, the benefits are self-evident, first ensuring the battery supply of the Tesla factory in Shanghai, after Musk complained more than once that the production of the Tesla Panasonic 3 was limited because of Panasonic's inefficiency.

Musk and then Panasonic executive vice president Yoshihiko Yamada source: Panasonic and the Ningde era is also very powerful. Supplying Tesla's batteries can make Tesla cheaper $6000 to $12000 per car. Compared with Panasonic refusing Musk's request to increase production capacity and reduce prices, it is obvious that the Ningde era is more appetizing to Musk.

In addition to the Ningde era, Tesla is also looking for more power battery suppliers. For example, South Korea's LG Chemistry, whose NCM811 batteries also supply Tesla China's super factory, Panasonic's position as the big brother of lithium electricity has been unprecedentedly challenged.

In 2021, the total installed capacity of global power batteries was 296.8GWh, an increase of 102% over the same period last year. Ningde Times was absolutely dominant with 32.6% share, and LG new energy market share, which ranked second, accounted for 20.28%. SK ON and Samsung SDI, which ranked fifth and sixth, had a market share of 5.6% and 4.5%, respectively.

In fact, the dominant position of the Ningde era has been solid since 2017, and domestic companies firmly occupy more than half of the top 10 sales of global power battery companies, and this trend continues unabated. South Korean and Japanese companies are not far behind. Lithium battery companies in the three countries accounted for 90 per cent of the market share of the global power battery installed TOP10 in 2021. At this point, the lithium industry has gradually formed a situation in which China, Japan and South Korea are competing for hegemony.

From the perspective of development route, domestic lithium power enterprises have no small advantages in structural innovation.

Although lithium-ion power batteries are being made in various countries, the shape of the battery, the materials for the positive and negative electrodes, and the technologies used are different.

Domestic enterprises prefer NCM811 batteries (nickel, cobalt, manganese according to 8:1:1 ratio as cathode materials). At present, a number of power battery companies have announced mass production, and the previous NCM523 battery technology has been mature and has achieved large-scale mass production and commercial use.

While Japanese and Korean enterprises mainly use nickel, cobalt and aluminum as cathode materials for NCA batteries, the main reason is that the core technologies of NCA batteries are mastered by Japanese and Korean enterprises, and the monopoly of technical barriers makes it not easy for domestic manufacturers to invest in the research and development of NCA batteries.

In 2021, South Korea's LG New Energy had an insight into the market demand for new energy models with high mileage and high safety, and successfully developed a quaternary lithium battery and reached a cooperation with Tesla.

In contrast, domestic battery manufacturers focus on structural innovation. From a technical point of view, there are no advantages and disadvantages in national routes, but in terms of manufacturing costs, domestic lithium battery companies still have a lot of advantages.

The first is BYD, which launched a high-profile blade battery, which means that lithium iron phosphate with increased energy density is back, not only at a lower cost than ternary lithium batteries, but also with a great improvement in battery life. In BYD's own words, almost all car companies want to talk to BYD about cooperation on blade batteries.

Blade battery source: BYD in addition, Honeycomb Energy uses lamination technology instead of common winding technology, and launched a series of self-developed short-knife batteries, while Ningde era continues to iterate in CTP integration technology.

Although these technologies do not have much subversive innovation, they are also the most suitable way for new energy vehicles to reduce costs and increase efficiency, which is why more and more car companies choose domestic lithium-ion enterprises.

Japan and South Korea used to dominate lithium battery companies in the world, but with the development of China's new energy vehicles, domestic lithium battery came from behind. It took us 10 years to rewrite the global lithium battery industry, from Japan and South Korea to China, Japan and South Korea.

05 rise up to counter-attack, and the greater the voice of power battery companies, the more dissatisfaction of car companies. Especially in the tense international situation and the rising price of lithium battery raw materials, car enterprises have been subject to battery factories for a long time.

On July 21, 2022, at the World Power Battery Congress, Zeng Qinghong, chairman of GAC GROUP, publicly complained that "power batteries account for 40% of the vehicle cost, and the price is still rising, so am I not working for the Ningde era?"

GAC GROUP Chairman Zeng Qinghong Source: a month after GAC GROUP, SAIC Chairman Chen Hong also "cried" to everyone at the World New Energy Automobile Congress, which opened on August 27. In about a year, the price of lithium carbonate soared 10 times. The whole car factory and the enterprises in the middle and lower reaches are working for the upstream miners, under tremendous cost pressure.

Watching the battery manufacturers make a lot of money, car companies began to flee the Ningde era collectively.

GAC GROUP was the first to realize his reliance on the Ningde era, when GAC launched its first electric car, the GE3, in 2017, capacity was limited by the Ningde era, affecting delivery. To this end, GAC began to turn around to support Ningde's rival, China New Airlines.

At that time, China Chuangxin Airlines did not have enough strength to compete with the Ningde era. In order to meet the supply standards, GAC GROUP's battery research and development team often flew to Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, where Zhongchuang Xinhang is located. After putting forward more than 2000 amendments to CNAC, the latter gradually became stronger.

Behind the support of Sinovel is GAC GROUP's constant bet on self-developed batteries. GAC GROUP has a battery self-research team of 100 people, and the R & D team has a large number of PhDs from Tsinghua and Peking University, which also led GAC GROUP to develop magazine batteries and graphene-based batteries.

On one side is self-research battery, on the other hand is to support China New Airlines, GAC GROUP in order to achieve battery freedom, began to multi-hand preparation.

After GAC GROUP, the new power car companies also began to act. As early as 2021, Xiaopeng began to cut its supply share in the Ningde era and set its sights on China New Airlines.

The main reason is that prices rose too much in the Ningde era to cope with the pressure of rising costs. To this end, Ningde era Chairman Zeng Yuqun and he Xiaopeng also made unhappy. Xiaopeng, as a new power car company with high performance-to-price ratio, sales has been in the head camp, once the loss of Xiaopeng this customer, for Ningde era is not a small loss.

But Zeng Yuqun did not impress he Xiaopeng, who, like other car companies, began to diversify his suppliers. Gu Hongdi, president of Xiaopeng Automobile, said in an interview with relevant reporters in September 2022 that Xiaopeng has made diversified arrangements for suppliers of car power batteries, and Ningde Times is no longer the largest supplier of Xiaopeng Automobile. Xiaopeng has worked with a number of suppliers, such as Yiwei LiNeng and China New Airlines.

Or aware of the danger, the Ningde era has long been aware of China New Airlines. In July 2021, Ningde Times sued China New Airlines for patent infringement, saying that the patents involved included both invention and utility model patents, and that the batteries suspected of patent infringement had been carried on tens of thousands of new energy vehicles. The tort case lasted for more than a year, and the current lawsuit is still under way, and the amount of claims in the Ningde era has also risen from the initial 120 million to 640 million.

The negotiations between the two sides went back and forth, but this did not affect the development of Sinovel. On September 16, 2022, Wang Xiaoqiang, vice president of China Chuangxin Airlines, said that the patent infringement lawsuit filed in the Ningde era did not have a material impact on the listing of AVIC. According to the plan, Sinotrans will list its shares in Hong Kong on October 6.

In addition to the opponents of the Ningde era, the auto companies' counter-offensive is more active.

As early as 2019, Tesla successively acquired two battery manufacturers to prepare for self-development of batteries. Musk recently announced that the 4680 cylindrical battery developed by Tesla has started production and is expected to achieve mass production in 2023. The aim is to let more Tesla use 4680 batteries at an early date.

Geely is also a car company with few heavy battery factories. At present, Geely has invested nearly 70 billion in battery factories and nearly 30 billion in cooperation with battery manufacturers such as Ningde Times, Funeng Technology and Xinwanda.

Volkswagen is even more aggressive, spending 7 billion euros to build a battery plant and plans to build six battery plants in Europe by 2030 with a total capacity of no less than 240GWh.

For BYD, it is a good time. In a recent ranking of global electric vehicle battery sales released by SNE Research in July, BYD surpassed South Korea's LG New Energy again to be the second in the world after January and April this year.

So sitting on the throne of the Ningde era was not comfortable. First of all, the competition is becoming more and more fierce, the installed capacity is growing and declining, and then there is LG new energy, which is the first mass-produced ternary cathode material in the world, and Big Brother Panasonic's actions in China are more frequent.

The data is even more straightforward. South Korea's LG Chemistry and Samsung SDI ranked only fifth and seventh in the 2017 list of power battery suppliers, while SK ON didn't even make the top 10. But now LG New Energy, which has been spun off from LG Chemical, ranks second, while Samsung SDI and SK ON are also on the list. In short, the strength of established Japanese and Korean power battery companies is still something to be reckoned with.

The replacement of new energy vehicles came, the market was constantly squeezed, car companies began to develop their own batteries, and the blue sea of lithium electricity market suddenly turned into a red sea.

06 is not just about lithium? In fact, in the face of complaints from car companies, power battery companies also have difficulties, after all, they also have upstream raw material suppliers.

Since the epidemic, the price of lithium as an important raw material for power batteries has continued to jump, and the price of lithium has continuously set a price record. in more than a year, the price of lithium has risen by 355%, more than 1000% higher than the low price in July 2020. The price of battery-grade lithium carbonate once reached 517000 yuan per ton.

In addition to the shortage of mines, the upstream lithium mine is also very limited in terms of terminal resources. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world's proven lithium resources increased to 88.56 million tons in 2022, which is still too small compared with other elements in the periodic table of chemical elements, and high-quality lithium resources are unevenly distributed.

Global market share of proven lithium resources in 2022 (data source: USGSh Cartography: Super Electric Lab)

In 2019, Gudnauf warned immediately after winning the Nobel Prize: "Lithium is as important as strategic resources such as oil. Once there is a bottleneck in lithium exploitation, it may become the fuse of war like oil."

In addition to the limitations of raw materials, the safety of lithium batteries is also a problem that we have to face. The frequent fire and spontaneous combustion of new energy vehicles not only perplexes car companies, but also troubles power battery manufacturers. As a result, battery makers have to develop other metals in the periodic table of chemical elements.

Sodium and lithium, which rank 11th in the periodic table, are in the same main group and have similar chemical properties, but the reserves of sodium are much more than lithium. The content of lithium in the earth's crust is only 0.0065%, while the content of sodium is 2.75%. The difference is 400 times.

At present, it is generally believed that the comprehensive performance of sodium-ion battery may be between lithium-ion battery and lead-acid battery. As a new battery technology, sodium ion battery has rich resources and low cost, and with the improvement of the industrial chain and large-scale application, the cost of sodium ion battery is even the same as that of lead-acid battery.

On July 29, 2021, Ningde era released the first generation of sodium ion batteries. Its energy density reaches 160Wh/kg, and the charge can reach 80% after charging for 15 minutes at room temperature. In the low temperature environment of minus 20 ℃, the discharge retention rate is still more than 90%, and the system integration efficiency can reach more than 80%.

Source of the first generation sodium ion battery in Ningde era: in June this year, Ningde era launched the layout of sodium ion battery industrialization, which is expected to form a basic industrial chain in 2023. Officials said that the first generation sodium ion battery developed by the company has the advantages of high energy density and high rate charging, which can not only be used in various traffic electrification scenarios, but also flexibly adapt to the application needs of the whole scene in the field of energy storage.

In July 2022, an energy research team from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) published a study on sodium batteries in the journal Nature Energy, announcing the advent of longer-life sodium batteries.

Apart from the research on metal batteries, hydrogen fuel cells are considered to be the ultimate clean energy, and they are also another powerful substitute for lithium batteries. The future industrial structure needs to be built in advance. After all, you can only bet on the next blue ocean if you plan in advance.

Reviewing the history of lithium battery commercialization, it has been 31 years. The transition from digital products to new energy automobile industry and the ups and downs of the industry wave have led to the continuous iterative upgrading of lithium technology and the overtaking of domestic lithium enterprises in the corner.

However, the current defense has just begun, in the increasingly fierce competition, there is no unprovoked expansion and elimination, only continuous iteration in order to maintain competitiveness. The opportunities for all kinds of new materials and technologies are fleeting, and only when they are laid out in advance can they still shine after the tide fades.

Reference:

[1] the deity of the first elder brother of the battery. Zhu Shujing

[2] Lithium battery technology and industry in China have developed for 20 years. Liu Xingjiang

[3] the present situation, problems and future of China's electric vehicle industry. Zhao Dan, Ma Jian

[4] Analysis of the development status and trend of lithium-ion power battery. Li Lei

[5] the Battle of Lithium Battery for a hundred years: a history of China's rise to catch up. Battery front

[6] in-depth review of energy storage in Ningde era: from the first to the other first? 100 people with energy storage

[7] how can China break through the blockade between Japan and South Korea in the trillion lithium battery war? Two outstanding investors

After ten years of overtaking at the corner, China's new energy vehicles entered the second half. Beijing News

[9] Power Battery depth report-China's great power, the rise of lithium batteries. Guangfa Securities

[10] at the end of the battery manufacturer is the miner. Deep path

[11] LG's ambition. Chen Xiujuan

[12] the power battery market of new energy vehicles is dominated by Japan and South Korea. Zhu Mengjie

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Superelectricity Lab (ID:SuperEV-Lab), author | Liu Yu Editor | in Zhou

This article is jointly produced by Superpower Lab x Tencent Technology.

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