Diversified technical routes compete for the front, and the development of power lithium battery industry accelerates
In the context of rising raw material prices, my country's power lithium-ion battery industry has withstood the pressure and once again achieved a good result of doubling its performance. According to the data released by the Power Li-ion Battery Application Branch, from January to November this year, the installed capacity of power lithium-ion batteries in the Chinese market was about 128.3GWh, a year-on-year increase of 153.1 percent , and the annual installed capacity is expected to reach 150GWh.
Attack "big and strong"
Since 2015, my country's new energy vehicle production and sales have ranked first in the world for six consecutive years, and domestic brands have risen rapidly. According to the statistics released by the my country Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to November this year, the new energy vehicle market was still hot, and the production and sales volume reached a new high.
In addition, the penetration rate of the new energy vehicle market has also increased rapidly this year, from 5.4 percent last year to 12.7 percent today. An important factor is the substantial increase in the proportion of private consumption, which provides strong support for the increase in sales of new energy vehicles. This also shows that with the continuous maturity of power lithium-ion battery technology, consumers' acceptance of new energy vehicles has become higher and higher, and the new energy vehicle market has shifted from policy-driven to market-driven.
Gao Yanmin, former director of the Consumer Goods Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the vigorous development of the new energy vehicle industry has driven the rapid progress of the power lithium-ion battery industry. Today, the power lithium-ion battery material technology is constantly being developed and innovated, and the process technology is constantly iteratively upgraded, and the battery manufacturing cost is decreasing year by year. It can be said that the progress of the new energy vehicle industry is inseparable from the help of power lithium-ion batteries.
Statistics from the Power Li-ion Battery Application Branch show that in the first 11 months of this year, the market share of the top 10 companies in my country's market by installed capacity reached 92 percent , of which 9 are independent brands; among the top 10 companies in the global market by installed capacity, Chinese companies occupy 6 seats.
In this regard, Liu Yanlong, Secretary-General of my country Chemical and Physical Power Industry Association, pointed out that in a fully open and competitive market, my country's top battery companies are in the world's first group in terms of product research and development, technological breakthroughs, cost control, and service capabilities. Achieving the goal of "big and strong".
In order to ensure the standardized development of the power lithium-ion battery industry, the relevant state departments have issued a number of policies and planning measures. In November this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued the "Lithium-ion Battery Industry Standard Conditions (2021 Version)" and "Lithium-ion Battery Industry Normative Notice Management Measures (2021 Version)", and publicly solicited opinions from the whole society, aiming to guide Lithium-ion battery companies reduce manufacturing projects that simply expand production, strengthen technological innovation, and improve product quality. In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other five ministries and commissions jointly announced the "Administrative Measures for the Echelon Utilization of New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries" to further guide car companies, battery companies, recycling companies, and echelon utilization companies to jointly promote the use of waste power lithium-ion batteries. The cascade utilization and recycling work will truly realize the green development of the new energy vehicle and power lithium-ion battery industry.
Raw material prices continue to rise, the industry is under severe pressure
While the power lithium-ion battery industry is accelerating its development, it is also facing enormous pressure. The rising price of raw materials has brought great challenges to the supply chain of power lithium-ion battery companies.
Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of Honeycomb Energy, pointed out that since the beginning of this year, the sales of new energy vehicles have risen rapidly, but the coordinated development of the supply chain has significantly lagged behind the overall growth rate of the industry. The prices of lithium hexafluorophosphate, LFP (lithium iron phosphate), negative electrode graphitization, PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride), and SP (conductive carbon black) continued to rise, and the supply was very tight. He predicts that this imbalance of supply and demand will continue, and other materials will also experience tight supply in the future due to long production expansion cycles, environmental impact assessment declarations for chemical production expansion, and insufficient equipment output.
According to data, since the beginning of this year, the price of lithium cobalt oxide, a cathode material, has increased by more than 200 percent , and the price of electrolyte has increased by more than 150 percent ; the supply of anode materials and other materials has continued to be tight, resulting in a substantial increase in the comprehensive cost of power lithium-ion batteries. Under continuous pressure, battery companies such as BYD, Penghui Energy, and Guoxuan Hi-Tech have issued price increase letters. Among them, BYD adjusted the unit price of C08 and other battery products, and the unified increase was not less than 20 percent . In this regard, BYD said that the price adjustment is mainly due to market changes and the increase in raw material prices caused by power and production restrictions. Guoxuan Hi-Tech also admitted in the price adjustment letter that as the price of raw materials for battery cells continues to rise, the power lithium-ion battery company is currently facing the biggest difficulty since the new crown epidemic.
In Liu Yanlong's view, the "price surge" caused by the mismatch between supply and demand in the industrial chain is rooted in the "disease" of insufficient attention and layout of resources and materials, and a series of chain reactions have occurred. In the future, the power lithium-ion battery industry should keep in mind the lessons and pay enough attention to the layout of key resources and materials.
However, it is worth mentioning that under the circumstance that the gross profit margin of power lithium-ion batteries continues to decline due to the sharp rise in raw material prices, leading companies still show strong anti-risk capabilities. Recently, CATL plans to invest 13.5 billion yuan to build a new lithium-ion battery production and manufacturing base in Yichun City, Jiangxi Province. Industry insiders believe that the battery base is expected to help accelerate the upgrading of the lithium-ion battery industry. For other power lithium-ion battery companies, customers, production, and cash flow are still the important starting points for their stable development under the skyrocketing raw materials. Recently, Honeycomb Energy announced the completion of the B plus round of financing with a total of 6 billion yuan. The funds raised from this round of financing will be mainly used for the research and development of new technologies, the construction of the Changzhou Phase IV production base, the Changzhou RD center and the Changzhou headquarters management center. At the same time, Honeycomb Energy stated that the global production planning target in 2025 has been raised to 600GWh.
Diversified routes flourish
In the process of the development of new energy vehicles to the market, the phenomenon of multiple technical routes competing for power lithium-ion batteries has appeared. In this regard, Liu Yanlong said that from the perspective of battery technology, lithium iron phosphate batteries have gradually been recognized by users due to their advantages in economy and safety, and market demand has increased. From January to November this year, the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries in the Chinese market reached 64.8GWh, which was higher than that of ternary batteries (63.3GWh) for the first time.
The cost advantage of lithium iron phosphate batteries has also attracted the attention and favor of many large car companies around the world, including Tesla, Volkswagen, Daimler, GM, Ford, Hyundai and other international mainstream car companies have expressed their intention to introduce lithium iron phosphate Ion batteries, LG New Energy, SKI and other battery companies are also accelerating the layout of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
In addition to the original technical route, thanks to the development of new materials and new processes, more and more new technologies for power lithium-ion batteries have begun to emerge.
For example, the large cylindrical battery technology that Yiwei Lithium Energy focuses on laying out is also the battery technology direction that Tesla, Panasonic and other companies focus on. It is reported that Yiwei Lithium Energy has a complete technical reserve in the field of large cylindrical batteries, and plans to invest in the construction of a 20GWh large cylindrical battery production line and auxiliary facilities for passenger vehicles.
In addition, silicon anode batteries and sodium-ion batteries have also set off a lot of heat. The new nickel-cobalt-manganese ternary lithium-ion battery equipped with GAC AIONLXPlus has a system energy density of 205Wh/kg. Different from ordinary nickel-cobalt-manganese ternary lithium-ion batteries, silicon wafers are added to the negative electrode of the new battery. This design makes the expansion and contraction of silicon during charge and discharge process limited and buffered (not broken), and at the same time absorbs water like a sponge, allowing the silicon anode to exert the advantage of large capacity, and its core feature is to greatly reduce the quality of the battery and volume.
From the perspective of the development of silicon anode technology, the focus of improving the energy density of power lithium-ion batteries has expanded from the positive electrode to the negative electrode and other components. In this industry context, lithium metal secondary batteries using metallic lithium as anode materials have also received more attention.
Recently, the hybrid lithium metal battery supplier SES announced the Apollo lithium metal battery with a capacity of up to 107Ah.
In recent years, the independent research and development of power lithium-ion battery systems by vehicle companies has become a new trend. From BYD's "Blade", GAC Aeon's "Magazine", to Great Wall's "Dayu", to the "Amber" and "Mica" self-developed by Lantu Auto, the battery systems independently developed by car companies have their own characteristics. , In addition to high safety, the selling points such as improving driving ability and energy-saving management are also attractive.
Industry insiders pointed out that as the market's driving force for the new energy vehicle industry continues to increase, the demand for power lithium-ion batteries for vehicles has also begun to differentiate, which also promotes power lithium-ion battery companies to conduct diversified explorations of technical routes. In the future, under the market-oriented use, there will be multiple tracks on the battery technology route, advancing in parallel.
