Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Times have really changed.

The newly released Hurun 2022 China Rich list shows that a total of 1305 entrepreneurs with a wealth of more than 5 billion yuan are on the list. Judging from the industry distribution of the rich, the new energy industry is like a new "wealth-making machine".

In the past, the rich from the real estate and Internet industries "dominate the list" all the year round, but in the context of the major real estate adjustment and the Internet recession, their wealth has shrunk, so they fall off the list one after another.

The proportion of people on the list has fallen from 50 per cent two decades ago to 20 per cent a decade ago, 15 per cent five years ago and 10 per cent this year. The entrepreneurs with the biggest decline in wealth this year also come mainly from real estate and Internet platforms.

In contrast, in the raging new energy industry, tycoons in photovoltaic, wind energy, new energy vehicles, power batteries, lithium battery materials, energy storage and other fields continue to emerge, with more than 150 entrepreneurs on the list.

Among them, Zeng Yuqun, founder of the global power battery giant Ningde era, once again beat Internet bigwigs such as Ali Ma Yun, Tencent Ma Huateng and NetEase Ding Lei, ranking third in the country with a fortune of 230 billion yuan. In addition, there are six rich people from the Ningde era, with a total wealth of 224.5 billion yuan. The Ningde era can be called a "fighter" in the "wealth-making machine".

Among the top 10 companies in power battery market share are Wang Chuanfu (145 billion yuan) from BYD, Liu Jincheng (60.5 billion yuan) from Yiwei LiNeng, Wang Mingwang (13.5 billion yuan) from Xinwanda, and Li Kun (9.5 billion yuan) from Guoxuan Hi-Tech.

By combing the entrepreneurial history of power battery entrepreneurs such as Zeng Yuqun, Wang Chuanfu, Liu Jincheng, Wang Mingwang and Li Kui, this paper tries to explore the commonness of these five entrepreneurs and to explore how they will play differently in the face of increasingly fierce competition.

1. Entrepreneurs Zeng Yuqun, Wang Chuanfu, Liu Jincheng, Wang Mingwang and Li Kui are called the "five tigers" of Chinese power batteries, and they have a lot in common.

The "five tigers" are both post-60s, and the largest age difference is only 4 years. Among them, Li Gong and Liu Jincheng were born in 1964, Wang Chuanfu in 1966, Wang Mingwang in 1967, and Zeng Yuqun in 1968. From the perspective of the life cycle of entrepreneurs, the "five tigers" are still worth fighting for.

Unlike most relatively young Internet bosses, the "five tigers" are entrepreneurs who come out of the countryside and are generally poor before adulthood, but they have taken the first step to change their lives through the college entrance examination.

Before the mid-1990s, the job distribution system allowed college students to find jobs as soon as they graduated, with "iron rice bowls".

In 1985, Zeng Yuqun was admitted to the ship engineering major of Shanghai Jiaotong University. After graduation, he was assigned to a state-owned enterprise in Fujian. In 1983, Wang Chuanfu was admitted to Central South University of Technology (now Central South University), majoring in metallurgical physical chemistry, and then as a graduate student at Beijing Nonferrous Metals Research Institute. After graduation, he stayed in Room 301 and worked as director.

When Zeng Yuqun was admitted to the university, Liu Jincheng had just graduated from Chengdu Institute of Telecommunication Engineering (now University of Electronic Science and Technology) and was assigned to work in the state-run 752 factory under the Ministry of Electronic Industry, which was the largest comprehensive battery factory in China at that time.

Li Gou and Liu Jincheng were both admitted to the university in 1981, but Li Kun was not a famous university, but an ordinary Chizhou Teachers College (now Chizhou College). After graduation, Li Gou worked as a propaganda officer in the political Office of 9419 Factory in Anhui Province. Factory 9419 is a "third-line" armor factory hidden in the mountains of Anhui Province. It is located in Maotanchang Town, where the famous Maotanchang Middle School is located.

As an exception, Wang Mingwang was not admitted to university, let alone an "iron rice bowl". He began to enter the world after graduating from high school. He is a continuous entrepreneur with "lack of resources" and the first entrepreneur to start a business among the "five Tigers."

Wang Mingwang came to the forefront of reform and opening up in Shenzhen, new to nowhere to join, working in a lithium battery company, working even longer than the current 996. In order to make up for the lack of professional knowledge, Wang Mingwang studied in the electronics major course of Sun Yat-sen University for two years in the early 1990s, and then got an EMBA from Sun Yat-sen University.

1992 is a special year, how many Chinese entrepreneurs started the transition of fate in this year.

In 1992, Wang Mingwang founded Jialida Electronics Factory, which failed again after the first business failure. In 1997, Wang Mingwang and his brother Wang Wei started their business for the third time and established Xinwangda Limited, starting with Ni-MH batteries, mainly used in mobile phones, pagers and other communication products.

It was also in 1992 that Li Gou started a business within the system, and through fund-raising by employees, he took the lead in establishing the Hefei Economic and technological Development Center. Ten years later, the company was officially approved as a private enterprise, which can be regarded as a real "sea".

At the beginning, Wang Chuanfu also worked in enterprises within the system. In 1993, Wang Chuanfu's research institute established Beagle Battery Company in Shenzhen, where he served as general manager. Wang Chuanfu founded BYD Technology in 1995 after leaving the BYD battery. Before he founded Huizhou Jinda Electronics (the predecessor of Yiwei Lithium Energy) in 2001, Liu Jincheng also had a long experience, but did not leave the battery industry.

In contrast, Zeng Yuqun started the latest business and worked for people for the longest time.

After just three months of working in a state-owned enterprise, Zeng Yuqun joined the Dongguan Xinke Magnetic Power Plant for ten years. In 1999, Zeng Yuqun and others co-founded New Energy Technology (ATL). In 2005, ATL was acquired by Japan's TDK and began to work again. It was not until 2011 that Zeng Yuqun founded the Ningde era.

However, it started late but grew fast, and Ningde era ranked first in the global power battery market share in only six years. As the saying goes, "A good meal is never too late."

According to the early experience of the "five Tigers" of China's power battery, a person's success has nothing to do with his family circumstances, whether he or she will be admitted to a university, nor whether he will be admitted to a prestigious university. What is more important is his or her personal struggle.

2. It is of course important to strive to create "rich" individuals, and the process of history should not be ignored, except that some people have joined the Bureau earlier.

At the beginning of China's power battery "five Tigers" start-up, power battery is not a hot industry. In 2009, the "Ten cities and Thousand vehicles" project opened the curtain of China's new energy vehicle industry. The following year, Wan Gang, then minister of science and technology, said in a speech at the 25th World Electric vehicle Congress that China's electric vehicles "have begun to move from the stage of research, development and demonstration to the stage of industrialization and commercialization."

In 2003, BYD acquired Qinchuan Automobile and began to "build cars", becoming the second private car company after Geely. Tesla was also founded in this year. At this time, Wang Chuanfu is known as China's "battery king", and BYD's consumer Ni-CD, Ni-MH and lithium batteries are among the best in the world.

As for the car-building industry, which is not optimistic about by the outside world, Wang Chuanfu said at the time, "I build the car because I am optimistic about the development of electric cars in the future, and the iron phosphate battery I have will dominate the world."

In 2005, BYD began to develop power batteries, achieved mass production three years later, and has 100% independent R & D design and production capacity.

In 2009, when "battery king" Wang Chuanfu became China's richest man on the Hurun rich list with a fortune of 35 billion yuan, BYD's electric car business was far from what it is now.

Li Mu of Guoxuan Tech entered the field of power battery a year later than Wang Chuanfu. before that, Li Wei ran a car rental company and made the first bucket of gold in the real estate industry. He founded Gao Xue Tech in 2006 and entered the power battery market. This year coincides with the first year of industrialization of lithium iron phosphate.

In 2015, Guoxuan Hi-Tech backdoor Dongyuan Electric Appliances was listed and became the "first domestic power battery stock". The following year, Li Wei was on the Hurun China Rich list and was the most valuable entrepreneur in Anhui at that time.

Similar to Wang Chuanfu, Zeng Yuqun, Wang Mingwang and Liu Jincheng all started their businesses from consumer batteries such as mobile digital products, but they all gradually saw the bottlenecks of consumer batteries and realized the huge room for the growth of power batteries.

ATL was once a battery supplier to leading global mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung. In 2008, ATL set up a car power battery department internally, until 2011, when Zeng Yuqun and others separated the power battery business of ATL and established the Ningde era.

Zeng Yuqun also set up a separate door for a reason. At that time, ATL had been acquired by Japanese companies and belonged to foreign investors, and according to the Foreign Investment Industry guidance Catalog issued in 2011, foreign-owned enterprises were explicitly restricted from producing car power batteries. To some extent, this policy protects China's power battery industry from being strangled by foreign giants.

In 2017, Ningde era surpassed Japan's Panasonic for the first time to become the No. 1 power battery market in the world, and has not fallen to the top since. Share prices in the Ningde era soared, and the prices of managers within the Ningde era, such as Zeng Yuqun, rose.

By contrast, Wang Mingwang of Xinwanda and Liu Jincheng of Yiwei LiNeng entered the power battery late, but they also tasted the dividend of the times.

In the early days, Xinwanda was mainly engaged in consumer battery Pack business, and once became the leading enterprise of domestic consumer electronics battery. Dongguan Liwei was acquired in 2014, and the following year, the Power Cell Research Institute was established to formally open up the power and energy storage market.

In fact, as early as 2008, Xinwanda planned the power battery business. Wang Wei, Wang Mingwang's younger brother, once said that Xinwanda and BYD entered the battery industry at almost the same time. In the early days, we paid more attention to customer demand and profits, and did not pay enough attention to research and development. BYD is just the opposite.

Liu Jincheng, of Yiwei LiNeng, also hesitated. When it was founded in 2001, Yiwei Lithium Energy was mainly engaged in lithium primary battery, that is, primary battery (power battery belongs to secondary battery), once ranked first in the country.

Liu Jincheng once said, "I have been very cautious. Before 2014, I was a skeptic in the field of power batteries and thought that power batteries were difficult." It was not until Liu Jincheng bought a Tesla at the end of 2014 that he realized the mistake. "in essence, a power battery is a highly reliable combination of lithium batteries. If you want to be a lithium battery, if you don't make a power battery, you just don't know the direction."

Nowadays, as global sales of new energy vehicles continue to rise, few people must doubt the room for the growth of power batteries. Of course, the power battery is still very difficult, the difficulty is that the market competition pattern is gradually solidified, the market share concentration of head manufacturers is getting higher and higher, and the competition for market share between Top10 manufacturers has become white-hot, and it may be even more difficult for latecomers to "grab food from the tiger".

3. To create a "new", it is determined that the prospect of power battery is broad.

According to the High Technology Industry Research Institute (GGII), China's power battery shipments in 2021 were 226GWh, an increase of 182.5% over the same period last year. GGII predicts that China's power battery shipments will reach 2230GWh by 2030.

What is uncertain is whether the "five tigers" of China's power batteries can go further, which depends on how they act. "the next generation of power batteries" is one direction.

In order to realize the substitution of lithium ore resources, sodium ion batteries have entered the field of vision of power battery manufacturers, knowing that sodium resources are far richer than lithium resources. In July 2021, Ningde era released the first generation of sodium ion batteries, which is expected to begin mass production in 2023. However, the commercial prospect of sodium ion batteries remains to be verified by the market.

In addition, Ningde era also entered the "skateboard chassis", or tried to further bind with car companies. The so-called "skateboard chassis" is to integrate the electric car's motors, battery packs, and all traditional components into a chassis that looks like a skateboard as far as possible, which can separate the body from the chassis and theoretically make it easier to build a car. therefore, the skateboard chassis is also considered to be a revolution in the car industry.

On October 31, Ningde Times and Vietnam VinFast announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding on global strategic cooperation, which will cooperate on projects such as skateboard chassis. 20 days later, the cooperation project between Guoxuan Tech and VinFast also made news, but it had nothing to do with the skateboard chassis, but the battery factory jointly invested by both sides officially opened.

Guoxuan Hi-Tech's "new trick" is to lay out solid-state batteries.

Solid-state battery is a kind of battery that uses solid electrode and solid electrolyte, which is due to the current liquid electrolyte lithium battery. Guoxuan Tech has a research center in Tsukuba, Japan, which focuses on solid-state battery research and development and plans to produce all-solid-state batteries after 2025. Guoxuan Hi-Tech has said that semi-solid batteries will be mass produced this year and are expected to be delivered next year.

One of Xinwanda's driving points is "super fast charging".

In September this year, Xinwanda released the SFC480 super fast charging battery, which has a maximum charging power of 480KW, with a mileage of 700km on a single charge and 200km in five minutes. At the same time, the super fast charging battery can be recharged up to 50,000 times. Xinwanda said the SFC480 super fast-charging battery will be mass produced this year.

Yiwei lithium can "find another way" and directly abandon lithium batteries.

In November 2021, Yiwei Lithium Energy invested in a fuel cell company and officially began to lay out a new fuel cell track. "fuel cell, hydrogen energy is the general direction." Wang Ying, director of Yiwei Lithium fuel Cell Research Institute, believes that.

Recently, there are rumors in the market that BYD's solid-state batteries and sodium ion batteries are "on the way." On November 22, BYD refuted the rumor that it was "all untrue", but BYD's battery business was not without "innovation".

In March 2020, BYD announced the launch of a "blade battery" to increase battery energy density by removing battery modules and specific packaging technology.

In fact, the top priority of BYD's battery business is not technological innovation, but how to achieve batch "external supply", which is of great direct help to the improvement of market share.

Unlike Ningde era, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Xin Wanda and Yiwei LiNeng, BYD also produces and sells complete vehicles. For a long time, BYD's batteries are mainly for self-use. Wang Chuanfu has said that in order to maintain BYD's leading position in the battery field, it will not be sold for the time being.

The turning point came in 2017, the year the Ningde era ranked first in the world, when BYD announced a separate spin-off of its power battery division and the following year to set up a power battery joint venture with Changan Automobile, taking the first step in battery external supply.

In March 2020, BYD battery accelerated the pace of "external supply" to form a "Fudi battery". In June this year, BYD admitted for the first time that it would supply power batteries to Tesla.

If BYD's battery supply goes smoothly, coupled with the power of Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Xin Wanda and Yiwei Lithium Energy, the global "overlord" Ningde era will certainly not sit idly by, and it can be predicted that the competition among Chinese power battery manufacturers will be unprecedentedly fierce.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: che Bai think Tank (ID:EV100_Plus), author: Qin Haiqing

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