With the advent of the era of new energy vehicles, lithium batteries have become very important as a new source of vehicle power. But as a car manufacturer, few car companies are able to independently develop batteries. Therefore, many battery suppliers have been born.
At present, the global battery suppliers are concentrated in China, Japan and South Korea. China’s CATL, South Korea’s LG, Samsung SDI, SK Innovation and Japan’s Panasonic occupy a dominant position. On the contrary, there are very few battery development and production companies in Europe. North Volt in Sweden is considered to be a larger scale, while British Volt in the UK is even a start-up company.
[1] European new energy vehicle sales have grown rapidly due to policy reasons
In 2020, the sales of electric trucks in the European market will increase sharply. Taking Germany as an example, 190,000 vehicles were sold, an increase of 3.1 times, and the market share increased from 2% in 2019 to 7.4%. The sales of electric trucks in France and the United Kingdom have exceeded 100,000 a year, with a market share of 10%. In these three countries, plug-in hybrid vehicles increased by 4% to reach a market share of 6%. On the other hand, the share of diesel vehicles dropped by 4%. Diesel vehicles now account for 28% in Germany and 31% in France.
This is the impact of the EU's phased implementation of new carbon dioxide (CO2) emission regulations from 2020 to 2021. If the emission reduction target is not reached, a huge fine will be imposed, so automakers will continue to invest in electric vehicles to save a lot of money.
In addition, the United Kingdom and France have set a timetable for banning the sale of diesel vehicles (such as diesel vehicles), which is also a positive environmental policy. In addition, the expansion of subsidies for the purchase of electric trucks has also played a role as an economic countermeasure to the "anti-epidemic". In Germany, the subsidy was increased to 9,000 euros.
As a result, the share of battery electric vehicles increased significantly in December 2020, with 14% in Germany, 11% in France, and 17% in the UK. The countries that set targets to ban the sale of gasoline vehicles in 2025 and 2030 are Norway and the Netherlands, which accounted for 67% and 69% of battery electric vehicles in December, respectively.
[2] Chinese and Korean battery manufacturers have begun to compete for the European market
As the sales of electric vehicles in Europe increase, their dependence on Asian battery companies has increased. In fact, all EU countries want to get rid of the excessive dependence of Asian battery companies and achieve battery self-sufficiency.
Britishvolt, a British start-up company, will start construction this summer with an investment of 2.6 billion pounds and build a giant factory in the port of Bliss in the northeast of the UK. The goal is to be completed by 2023. The plant will be constructed in three phases and plans to produce at least 300,000 lithium-ion batteries per year by 2027. By 2027, 3,000 employees will be employed, and 8,000 employees will be created, including related industries.
Currently, South Korea and China account for approximately 80% of the global production of electric vehicle batteries and lithium-ion batteries, but it is expected that Europe’s market share will increase in the future. In Europe, South Korean companies currently operate factories ahead of schedule including LG Chem, SK Innovation and Samsung SDI. All are expanding existing factories or promoting new factories.
Northvolt has production plants in Sweden and Germany, while the Chinese battery company CATL builds a plant in Germany, and Tesla builds an electric car and battery plant near Berlin, Germany.
[3] South Korea, China, and European battery company capacity plans
Korean companies are ahead of European battery production. South Korean battery manufacturers such as LG Chem, Samsung SDI, and SK Innovation have extensive presence in Europe. LG Chem’s Polish plant and Samsung SDI’s plant began operations as early as 2018, and their production capacity increased to 65GW. SK Innovation plans to build the plant in Hungary in 2020. The Hungarian plant has a capacity of 3GWh and plans to increase its capacity to 23GWh by 2023. However, at the end of January, Hungary’s third plant also announced a construction plan.It will then increase to 125GWh, which is greater than the original target of 100GWh. After all the target values of Korean companies are completed, it will reach 193 GWh.
In addition, China's S-Volt Honeycomb Energy is setting up a factory in Germany. The goal is to produce 24GWh in Germany by 2023, Germany's CATL will produce 14GWh by 2022, and the German Parasys Energy's goal is to produce 10GWh batteries by 202. The total is 48GWh.
Sweden's Northvolt announced the European company's battery plant plan in 2021 and announced that it will build a plant with a capacity of 32 GWh by 2024. By 2023, the Norwegian start-up Freyr will reach 43 GWh, and by 2023 the British Volt. 30 GWh. The French PSA Group will jointly build 24GWh with Saft in 2023 and 16GWh with Belka in 2023. By 2024, Volkswagen and Northbolt will jointly build 16GWh. The total is 161 GWh.
After the production facilities of these Korean, European and Chinese companies are completed, they will reach 402GWh by 2025.
Tesla, which has attracted attention, announced plans to build a gigabit plant in Berlin, Germany, to immediately produce 100GWh of production capacity, with a long-term goal of 250GWh.
[4] The enthusiasm of battery manufacturers is closely related to European countries’ policies to withdraw from internal combustion engines
The British government with the fastest electrification announced in November 2020 that it would ban the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2030 New car. In February 2020, it was decided to move the original 2040 target to the faster 2035.
British Prime Minister Johnson proposed 10 measures, including electrification and the promotion of renewable energy. This is known as the "green industrial revolution" and will have zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It plans to invest 12 billion pounds and create 250,000 jobs.
By 2020,The number of new cars sold in the UK is approximately 1.6 million. Among them, the share of electric trucks rose to 6.6% from 1.6% in the previous year. With the government banning the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles in 2030, this proportion is expected to increase further.
Since 2019, France and Germany have been jointly developing and investing in electric vehicle batteries at the government level. In order to develop electric vehicle batteries, the two countries have jointly invested between 500 and 6 billion euros. The name of the project is "Airbus Battery", named after the aircraft manufacturer "Airbus" jointly developed by major European countries. Over the next four years, it set a goal of building a production plant in Germany and France, each employing approximately 1,500 employees.
The new factory produces batteries that use electrolyte, and plans to start producing all-solid-state batteries in 2025-26. 35 companies in the automotive and energy sectors in Germany and France have expressed their intention to donate 4 billion euros to the project.
[5] The EU wants to achieve battery self-sufficiency
The European Commission approved a project worth 2.9 billion euros (3.5 billion US dollars), and the public supports Tesla and BMW to support Production of batteries for electric vehicles. This project follows the European Battery Union launched in 2017 to support the battery industry and is expected to run until 2028. Not only Tesla and BMW, but also 42 companies including FCA Group and Sunlight Systems will participate in the project. In this way, the EU is expected to achieve battery self-sufficiency by 2025.
The United Kingdom and the European Union reached a free trade agreement (FTA) at the end of 2020. Although a tariff-free agreement was reached in 2021, there is a rule of origin that does not include tariff-free products that import large amounts of raw materials from overseas. If the proportion of non-UK-made parts exceeds 45% of the parts used in the entire vehicle, no tariffs will be levied, and a maximum of 10% tariffs can be levied on passenger cars.
In response to this rule of origin, the United Kingdom and the European Union have established a phased grace period for battery electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles. By the end of 2023, up to 60% of offshore parts will be free of tariffs.From 2024 to the end of 2026, tariffs of up to 55% will be imposed.
By 2020, UK car production will be 920,000 units, a 29% decrease from the previous year. This is the lowest level since the production of 900,000 cars in 1984. In addition to the uncertainty caused by Brexit, there is also the impact of the epidemic.
The UK auto industry will perform the worst in 2020 due to Brexit. This is not only a problem facing the UK. In 2020, British engine production fell by 27%, which inevitably affected 61% of exports. It should be noted that in this case, the battery war will accelerate the change of the industry structure.
.-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-