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

Battery field competition, has always been the focus of attention in the industry, now, the power battery competition is about to appear.

Ningde era is currently leading, but competitors such as BYD and LG Chemical are also closely chasing, and rising stars such as AVIC Lithium Battery and Honeycomb Energy are also gradually exerting their strength.

According to research by South Korean research institute SNE research, the global installed capacity of power batteries is divided among China, Japan and South Korea, with China alone accounting for 60% of the world's share. From the specific ranking point of view, Ningde era is the absolute first, monopolizing 35.3% of the world; followed by South Korea's LG new energy, accounting for 13.8%; BYD rushed to the third place, accounting for 13.2%, installed capacity and LG new energy only 2.2GW difference, has been very close.

However, this is not all the data. The most critical data is that the gap between manufacturers in China, Japan and South Korea is widening further. Compared with the same period last year, Chinese manufacturers basically showed a high growth momentum, among which Ningde era increased by 98.6%, BYD increased by 171%, No.8 Xinwangda ranked the highest, with a growth rate of 345%; while South Korean companies grew at an average growth rate of only 50%; the worst was Japan, Panasonic grew by only 5.5%.

01. The biggest suspense in the power battery industry,"who is the third" power battery is a winner-take-all industry, with huge capital investment, complex process and strong scale effect, which brings great advantages to the leader. Looking back on history, the strong monopolize the market and the "city wall changes the king flag" alternately occur.

From 1991 to 2000, Japanese companies monopolized the global lithium-ion battery market, with Sanyo, Panasonic and Sony accounting for more than 60% of the global share. From 2000 to 2010, South Korea rose strongly and its market share was close to 40%. Until 2010, China began to dominate the lithium battery market under the support of industrial policies.

Today, on the one hand, China has an overwhelming advantage in manufacturing, producing 70% of the world's lithium batteries, nearly 80% of cathode materials and more than 90% of cathode materials. On the other hand, China itself is the world's largest app market, accounting for 60% of the world's installed capacity in the first ten months.

In the past six years, Ningde era has been the first, accounting for nearly half of the domestic market. BYD, which has ranked second since 2017, saw its share rise to 20 percent this year as sales of BYD electric vehicles grew rapidly. But no one is a long-term third. In the early days of the electric car tide, this position was the bankrupt Watma, and later, the Korean leader LG. In recent years, it has been the alternation of Guoxuan High-tech and Zhongchuang Navigation.

It can be seen that the biggest suspense of today's power battery pattern is "who is the third"? Who is third and why is it important?

First of all, it is because the technology gap is not large, and the third is a great threat to the industry leader.

Today, there is no essential difference in technology and volume between the third and tenth places in China. Technically, the core technology of battery industry is material chemistry, structural design and manufacturing process. There is no big difference between mainstream companies, and the gap will be gradually smoothed out by production experience. In terms of volume, the market share gap between three and ten is only 5 percentage points, and it is possible that an order from a car factory can rewrite the pattern.

Zeng Yuqun, founder of Ningde era, once predicted that by 2030, the installed capacity of global power batteries will reach 4800GW, more than 10 times that of today, which will be a big cake of 5 trillion yuan. Since the cost of batteries accounts for 40 to 60 percent of a car, car manufacturers will not rely on only one supplier, and it is difficult for the industry to form a monopoly. Such a huge industry, there will not be only two or three competitors, the industry is difficult to form a monopoly.

According to forecasts, according to the current growth rate, China's third place is likely to sit in the fourth place in the world. Note that although this position share is small, the absolute income is very large. 7% of the global installed capacity corresponds to an annual income of 350 billion yuan, equivalent to two Ningde eras today. In other words, this is a huge opportunity worth $300 billion. In any case, it is worth fighting for.

Secondly, the companies competing for the third place in the industry are all qualified in terms of product strength. Under the gap between Ningde era and BYD, they are more agile, easier to find their own power point, and more representative of different technical routes in the future.

02. If the challengers who attack upwards want to take stock of the "challengers who attack upwards" in the battery power industry, they can sum up in one sentence: "there are big advantages and small strategies."

For example, China Innovation Airlines, which is defined as "the biggest challenger in Ningde era."

CNAC's explosive growth was achieved by poaching the corner of Ningde era.

Earlier, under the leadership of "White Knight" Liu Jingyu, AVIC completed more than 2,000 technical requirements put forward by GAC, successfully cut into each other's supply chain, and established its position in the industry at one stroke. From 2019 to 2021, the number of AVIC passenger car customers increased from 4 to 19, and the shipment ranking jumped from the ninth in the industry to the third, overpowering LG and Guoxuan Hi-Tech, which supplied Tesla Model 3 / Y, Hongguang MINIEV and other explosive models. Become a batch of "black horses" in the industry.

However, if it stops here, AVIC may not become a challenger of Ningde era. In 2021, China Innovation Airlines extended its hand to Xiaopeng Automobile, the third largest customer of Ningde era, and replaced Xiaopeng Automobile with 48.9% penetration rate in the first quarter of this year.

Technically, what China Innovation Airlines does is differentiation.

In 2019, Ningde era launched a ternary battery with ultra-high energy density and endurance of 630 kilometers. Long endurance performance is achieved by increasing the nickel content, and the nickel content in the cathode material exceeds 50%. However, if the nickel content is high, the safety of the battery will be reduced. Both the Aian S and the Weilai ES8 equipped with this battery experienced spontaneous combustion events. As a result, the mainstream route of high-nickel batteries began to brake.

China Innovation Airlines firmly grasped this window period and began to turn. It chose another ternary battery route, using less nickel in the cathode material to ensure safety, but increasing the battery voltage to compensate for energy density. Later, China Innovation Airlines relied on this battery to snatch GAC Ai 'an from "Ning Wang," and its market share rose from 1.4% in 2019 to 7.5% in 2021.

For example, Xinwangda, who bet on fast-charging battery technology.

In the giant's view, fast-charging technology is not only expensive in itself, but also requires the construction of huge infrastructure, which is not worth the effort to lay out. But Sinwanda turned it into a market entry point. Although not mainstream, but there are certain customers, that is, the pursuit of high-end brands that bring differentiated experiences to consumers.

Xiaopeng's G9, and in the future there will be an ideal 800 volt high voltage platform. This year,"Wei Xiaoli" has participated in the capital increase of 2.4 billion yuan of Xinwangda, and the future growth potential is still very large.

In addition, it is the billion latitude lithium energy with different battery routes from the "giant."

From the route point of view, the packaging route of the battery is mainly divided into three parts, namely cylinder, square shell and soft package. Among them, cylinder technology is Tesla's favorite, and its future trend is the large cylinder route. The square battery of Ningde era is completely different from the cylindrical battery, because its system is relatively simple, so the battery factory is convenient for reuse and easy to expand production.

So what is the path that billion latitude lithium can take?

The answer is that the industrial chain is fully covered.

The year 2021 is a turning point in lithium energy at hundred million latitudes.

Power batteries must be cost competition in the end, which has been confirmed in the development of mobile phone batteries. In order to approach the theoretical cost infinitely, in addition to relying on technological progress, the last resort is to carry out the integrated layout of the whole industrial chain.

Yiwei Lithium Energy has achieved full coverage of the industrial chain.

In the upstream raw material link, participate in the fixed increase of Huayou Cobalt Industry and indirectly distribute cobalt resources; cooperate with Yongrui Holdings, Huayou International Cobalt Industry and LINDO to develop nickel in Indonesia; acquire 34% equity of Dahua Chemical Industry and 40.59% equity of Jinkunlun Lithium Industry to lock lithium resources.

In the middle reaches, we cooperated with German Nano to lay out lithium iron phosphate project; established joint venture company with Beiteri and SKI to lay out ternary cathode; jointly built integrated production base of anode materials with annual output of 100,000 tons with Zhongke Electric; jointly laid out separator with Enjie shares; and jointly laid out copper foil with Tongling Huachuang.

Downstream, establish a joint venture company with TELD, which ranks first in the market share of charging piles, to enter the charging business of new energy vehicles; cooperate with Greenway to recycle nickel-containing power batteries and related wastes.

Looking at all second-tier manufacturers, Yiwei Lithium Energy is the most complete enterprise with integrated layout. This advantage has not formed absolute competitiveness at present, but it will gradually appear with the continuous development of the industry.

Under such circumstances, Yiwei Lithium Energy chose a cylindrical battery completely different from the square battery of Ningde era. On the one hand, there are no big players with cylindrical batteries in China; on the other hand, Tesla, BMW and other big customers are laying out cylindrical batteries. Therefore, Yiwei Lithium Energy will focus on large cylindrical batteries from 2020, and now the expected mass production time is earlier than Ningde era, Panasonic and Samsung.

You know, billion latitude lithium can be involved in both ternary and iron lithium, both square and soft package and large cylinder. Soft package ternary supply Daimler, Hyundai Kia, square ternary supply BMW and Jaguar Land Rover, iron lithium battery for commercial vehicles, buses and energy storage field, last year planned 20Gwh "4680" large cylindrical battery capacity, keep up with Tesla pace.

The reason for doing so is the performance of the company's strategic background. It does not bet on a single technical route, but the rain and dew are evenly stained. It can not only effectively meet the diversified demands of the downstream, but also change the channel at any time to avoid being eliminated due to the change of technical route. Yiwei Lithium Energy, which does not make choices, actually makes the best choice.

Contrary to Zeng Yuqun's life creed of "strong gambling," Liu Jincheng of Yiwei Lithium Energy always believes in not putting eggs in the same basket, and tries to hedge the impact of single business risk exposure through diversified layout.

From the earliest PHS to two-wheeled electric vehicles, balance cars, and power batteries, in the past few years, every popular tuyere seems to have to be mixed with lithium energy. Translating this strategy into the field of power batteries is embodied in covering as many downstream scenarios as possible through the parallelism of multiple technologies.

The latecomers of the battery power industry, almost all according to their own ecological niche, find the gaps missed by the giants, turn flexibly, and strive for the third position in the market in the future.

This also reflects the growth philosophy of small players in large industries: finding goals from certainty in the future and building confidence in flexibility in the present.

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Automobile News Agency (ID: automobile-news), Author: Zhu Yujia

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