Source: Economic Daily
The picture shows the pre-process material preparation production workshop of the Lighthouse Factory in CATL in Fujian. (Data picture)
In May 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized during his inspection at SAIC Group that "developing new energy vehicles is the only way for my country to move from a major automobile country to a strong automobile country. We must increase R&D efforts, carefully study the market, make good use of policies, and develop products that meet various needs, so as to make it a strong growth point." We will adhere to the theme of promoting high-quality development, enhance the effective driving of the industry for green consumption and the innovative support of a strong automobile country, and new energy vehicles are of the weather vane.
Expand domestic demand, products must adapt to market demand; a strong automobile country cannot be separated from industrial supporting facilities. As one of the core components, power batteries can be called the "heart" of new energy vehicles, and their importance is far greater than that of engines to traditional fuel vehicles. Power batteries account for nearly 40% of the vehicle's cost, twice as much as the power system of traditional fuel vehicles, and become the commanding height of the automobile value chain reconstruction. It can be said that in the industrial transformation driven by the "dual carbon" goal, power batteries have become the key to strengthening the competitive level of new energy vehicles and building competitiveness in the automobile industry.
At present, in the process of automobile electrification, power battery technology innovation has played a main role in promoting it. If the power battery is strong, new energy vehicles will be strong; if the power battery is weak, new energy vehicles will be weak. Focusing on the present of the power battery industry means paying attention to the future of the development of the new energy vehicle industry. After more than 10 years of hard work, China's power battery industry has not only broken through the European and American technology patent blockade, but also broken the Japanese and Korean market monopoly, becoming the leader in the new round of global power battery competition.
Why did latecomers come to the top
The counterattack of China's power battery industry has attracted worldwide attention.
A video of 3 minutes and 57 seconds, a tweet. On June 23 this year, CATL released the third-generation CTP (Cell To Pack) battery pack technology in this minimalist way, and announced that "Kirin Battery" will be mass-produced and launched next year.
Such a low-key new technology and new product release has received more than expected responses. Shortly after Kirin Battery was released, Ideal Auto founder Li Xiang gave a comment on Weibo that "See you next year". Since then, car companies such as Avita and Nezha have also interacted with CATL. On August 27, CATL announced the first batch of series of car brands equipped with Kirin batteries, namely Geely's high-end electric cars "Zekr" and Huawei and Cialis' cooperation.
The Kirin battery launched by CATL not only attracted the attention of global automakers, but also attracted various technical experts to interpret it. Some commentators believe that the emergence of Kirin Battery has an important impact and significance on the existing new energy vehicle industry structure and the competition in the new energy vehicle industry in China and the West.
CATL has not been in the power battery industry for a long time. The earliest lithium battery patent was bought by its founder Zeng Yuqun from Bell Laboratory in the United States. 11 years ago, Zeng Yuqun returned to his hometown to establish CATL; in 2012, he took over the orders of BMW Brilliance; in 2015, the installed capacity exceeded South Korea's Samsung and LG for the first time; in 2017, it outperformed Japan's Panasonic , becoming the global power battery overlord, and has been ranked there until now. In the first nine months of this year, CATL's cumulative installed capacity reached 119.8 GWh, accounting for 35.1% of the global market share. This means that "one of every 3 electric vehicles in the world is equipped with CATL batteries."
The rise of CATL is a microcosm of the high-quality development of China's power battery industry. From the perspective of the development history of power batteries, the United States invented lithium batteries in the 1970s, Japan commercialized lithium batteries in the 1990s, and South Korea expanded the scale of lithium batteries in the first 10 years of the 21st century. In 2010, Japan accounted for half of the global lithium battery market share and South Korea owned 30%, while China, as a "latecomer", has not yet entered the market. However, we soon achieved a perfect counterattack.
Data from SNE Research, a Korean market research firm, shows that in the first half of this year, China accounted for nearly 60% of the world's power battery shipments calculated in countries, South Korea fell to 20%, while Japan only had more than 10%, and Europe and the United States could ignore it.Among the installed capacity calculated by enterprises, 15 of the top 20 manufacturers in the world's power battery installation capacity are from China; among the 12 power battery manufacturers with a growth rate of more than 100%, 11 are from China. Among the top 10 lists, Chinese power battery manufacturers occupy six seats. Among them, CATL's market share reached 34%, 20 percentage points ahead of the second place South Korea's LG New Energy, ranking first in the world; BYD 's market share reached 12%, surpassing Japan's Panasonic and jumping to third in the world. China Innovation Airlines, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Xinwangda and Honeycomb Energy ranked seventh to tenth respectively; Japanese and Korean power battery manufacturers only accounted for 4 seats in the top 10, with a total market share of 35.4%.
"In the past, my country mainly used battery integration, and now it has formed the most complete and largest power battery industry system in the global industrial chain from material research and development, battery production, recycling and equipment support. The four major raw materials of positive electrode, negative electrode, electrolyte and diaphragm have basically gotten rid of import dependence. The domesticization rate of lithium battery equipment has also reached more than 90%, among which the domesticization rate of equipment for key processes has reached more than 80%. Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman and secretary-general of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred People Association, said that the cost-effectiveness of electric vehicle in my country has rapidly improved, and the mileage has developed from the past 100 kilometers to 600 kilometers to 800 kilometers, and even further. The costs of some models have begun to be competitive compared to fuel vehicles, and the safety and charging problems that were worried about in the past have also been constantly improving. The development of the power battery industry has played a key role in promoting the market's acceptance of electric vehicles.
sorted out the development history of new energy vehicles and power batteries in my country. Miao Wei, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, believes that there are five experiences worth summarizing: First, strengthen the Party's leadership over economic work, give full play to the advantages of the socialist system of , and concentrate efforts to accomplish major tasks. General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions on the development of new energy vehicles in my country have pointed out the direction for us to build consensus and unify our actions. Practice shows that as long as everyone is in harmony, division of labor and cooperation, and advances together, this powerful force of unity is incomparable to any country. The second is to seize the opportunity of pure electric drive development of "changing lanes to overtake". We carefully analyze and make advance deployment, and the "first move" of new energy vehicles has created opportunities for the counterattack of the power battery industry. The third is to maintain strategic determination. Even in the face of various doubts, we insist on drawing a blueprint to the end in industrial development and do not repeatedly "pull the drawer". Fourth, build an innovation system with enterprises as the main body, and enterprises become the main body of innovation in new energy vehicles and power batteries, and are also the main body of industrialization of new technologies. Fifth, the government guides it from all aspects such as top-level design, technological innovation, standard system, fiscal and taxation policies, and creates a good environment for the development of new energy vehicles and power battery industries.
In the initial stage of global new energy vehicles, my country has foresightedly included them in strategic emerging industries, and the central and local governments have successively issued a series of policies to guide and support them. As of the end of 2021, my country has formulated and issued more than 300 policies and measures, covering 12 major aspects, issued 106 national and industry standards, and has built a comprehensive, systematic and multi-dimensional new energy vehicle industry policy and standard system. At the same time, in terms of the technical route, we insist on using pure electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, as the "three verticals" to lay out the overall technological innovation chain; using power batteries, motors, and electronic controls as the "three horizontals" to build a technical supply system for key components. The formulation of these policy measures and the establishment of technical routes have not only effectively promoted the market-oriented application of new energy vehicles, but also promoted the great development of the power battery industry and energy storage technology.
In large-scale market applications, core technical indicators such as energy density, safety performance, and service life of power batteries have been improved, and the cost has dropped rapidly. In 2011, the specific energy of mainstream power batteries was only about 100 watt-hours/kg, and the system cost was 4 yuan/watt-hour, and the battery accounted for more than half of the vehicle's cost. By 2021, the battery specific energy will reach 270 watt-hours/kg, the system cost will be reduced to less than 1 yuan/watt-hour, and the battery will account for about 1/3 of the vehicle cost. The significant changes in these technical indicators show that the cost of some new energy vehicles has dropped to a level that can compete with fuel vehicles without relying on fiscal subsidies.
"The initial cost of lithium batteries is quite high, and it is impossible to popularize without subsidies." Dong Yang, chairman of the China Automobile Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, believes that innovative subsidy forms have not only promoted the rapid development of my country's new energy vehicles in the past 10 years, but also advanced the development process of new energy vehicles in the world by 5 to 10 years.
Through innovation-driven, Chinese power battery companies are constantly shaping new advantages in scale, cost and technology, and have also pushed China's power battery industry to the top of the world. Statistics from the China Automobile Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance show that in the first nine months of this year, China's power battery production reached 372.1 GWh, and increased by 176.2% year-on-year. Among them, the loading volume was 193.8 GWh, accounting for about half. The export volume reached 90.6 GWh, close to 1/4. my country's power battery sales are expected to exceed 500 GWh this year, and the output value of exceeds 500 billion yuan.
Where is the focus of innovation
Open the world power battery industry map, and the pattern is clearly visible: China, Japan and South Korea are firmly in the first camp; innovative products represented by CATL Kirin Battery, BYD blade battery , and Tesla 4680 batteries are all leading the way; new technologies such as sodium ion batteries and semi-solid state batteries are still on the eve of mass production, and are far from meeting the conditions to change the existing industrial structure. Obviously, it is difficult for European and American companies to shake the status of battery companies in China, Japan and South Korea.
However, the current power battery technology is not perfect. "Compared with China's innovation in applied technology, Europe and the United States have strong basic research capabilities, and the automobile industry and chemical industry are developed, and it is not impossible to see disruptive innovative technologies." Zhang Yongwei said that my country should extend from production-led to basic innovation fields and strengthen the construction of basic research capabilities such as chemistry, physics, and materials. At the same time, as power batteries move towards the "T era", we must also strengthen innovation in battery manufacturing technology and manufacturing process, improve yield and reduce production costs.
"The United States, Japan, South Korea and Europe are increasing their support for the next generation of batteries, and my country still has the risk of being dumped due to technological changes." Zhang Yongwei gave an example. For example, the United States plans to achieve large-scale mass production of solid-state batteries and lithium metal batteries by 2030; Japan plans to achieve mass production of all-solid-state batteries by 2030; South Korea will invest 306.6 billion won from 2023 to 2028, striving to achieve commercial application of solid-state batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries and lithium metal batteries in advance; the EU has approved 3.2 billion euros assistance to the seven member countries participating in the battery project to support battery technology research and project innovation.
Judging from the development plans of major countries and regions around the world, 2030 is a key node. "It is expected that next-generation batteries such as solid-state batteries, lithium-sulfur batteries, , etc. will enter the market on a large scale around 2030." Zhang Yongwei suggested that my country should increase its investment in R&D in the next-generation batteries, improve the new technology industry chain, and seek appropriate application scenarios to promote the implementation and iteration of technology.
Only by accurately identifying changes can we seize opportunities; only by grasping trends can we win the future. Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Tsinghua University, told reporters that "low-carbonization, high-end and intelligentization" are the development trends and innovation directions of the power battery industry.
——Low carbonization, including low energy consumption, low emissions, and low losses. "Now the material cost of our power batteries accounts for more than 75%. For example, the electricity bill per ton of graphite negative electrode accounts for nearly 60%. "How to solve this problem? Ouyang Minggao said that the preparation of key materials should be low-carbonized to grasp the recycling link of power battery materials to reduce costs, emissions and energy consumption. "The carbon emissions can be reduced by more than half through physical recycling. Combined with green electricity , the entire process can achieve near-zero carbon emissions."
- High-end, including high quality, high safety and high technology. In the past 10 years, China's battery innovation breakthroughs have achieved a significant decline in costs and a significant increase in competitiveness. However, safety accidents also occur from time to time, which shows that the industry is still facing safety challenges. From current structural innovation to material system innovation, this is an inevitable trend in the development of power batteries. At present, a new round of competition for innovation and breakthroughs in battery material systems is emerging around the world.Before 2025, existing lithium batteries are expected to achieve an energy density of 350 watt-hours/kg; before 2030, they will gradually transition from liquid to solid state to achieve an energy density of 400 watt-hours/kg; before 2035, they will achieve the industrialization of a new system battery with an energy density of 500 watt-hours/kg, etc.
—Intelligent, including intelligent design, intelligent manufacturing, and intelligent control. First of all, intelligent design, from trial and error, to simulation drive, and then to intelligent and fully automatic, has gone through three stages of development. This method can greatly reduce costs and save 70% to 80% of R&D costs. The core technology in the middle is high-precision modeling technology and high-efficiency optimization algorithm; secondly, intelligent manufacturing, battery manufacturing is an ultimate manufacturing, and no impurities can be introduced, otherwise there will be safety hazards. For this reason, intelligence must be adopted, from digital production process simulation to digital production workshops, and then to industrial Internet , and the production process must reach more than 3,000 quality monitoring parameters; secondly, intelligent control, "For temperature, gas, and pressure, we can only manage it now, and can only control it when charging." Ouyang Minggao said that the next step is to put the sensor into the battery and carry out comprehensive control. In terms of software, artificial intelligence should be introduced. In short, China's power battery industry must also achieve the full-chain intelligence from material selection, battery design, manufacturing, use and recycling.
production capacity is there any excess
Driven by the "dual carbon" goal, the new energy industry, including power batteries, has become a golden track with long slopes and thick snow. It is not only strongly sought after by the capital market, but also an important tool for local governments to promote industrial transformation and upgrading and a "hot commodity" for attracting investment.
htmlOn September 21, Xinwangda Co., Ltd. issued an announcement that its subsidiary Xinwangda Electric Vehicle Battery Co., Ltd. plans to sign a "Project Investment Agreement" with the Yiwu Municipal People's Government to invest in the construction of a new energy power battery production base in Yiwu . The total project planned investment is about 21.3 billion yuan, which will form a 50 GWh production capacity. Since last year, Xinwangda has signed contracts with several local governments to accelerate the construction of production bases in Huizhou , Nanchang, Nanjing, Zhuhai and other places. The planned investment amount exceeds 70 billion yuan and the total planned production capacity exceeds 220 GWh.More companies expand production "even worse than anything". According to the public information, with 2025 as the time node, the capacity of Honeycomb Energy is planned to be 600 GWh, China Innovation Airlines is planned to be 500 GWh, Guoxuan Hi-Tech is planned to be 300 GWh, CATL is planned to be 839 GWh, BYD is planned to be more than 600 GWh, and 00 Lithium Energy is also produced to be more than 200 GWh. The production capacity plan of the above six companies alone reaches 3,000 GWh, more than 10 times the power battery production last year.
It is inevitable that people will worry about overcapacity of power battery production. Ouyang Minggao said that as global electric vehicles enter a stage of rapid development, battery production capacity has expanded rapidly. Based on industrial investment information forecast, my country's power battery production capacity may reach 3,000 GWh in 2025, with an oversupply.
While visiting enterprises and places, the reporter also contacted several ministries and associations in an attempt to get a more accurate number. However, as new expansion plans for enterprises are being released every week and new production bases are constantly being started or put into production, this number is always changing.
In fact, it is not easy to judge whether an industry has overcapacity. Internationally, capacity utilization rate or equipment utilization rate is often used as evaluation indicators. If the equipment operation rate exceeds 90%, it is considered insufficient capacity, while if it is less than 79%, it is considered that there is overcapacity. Many experts have suggested that such evaluation indicators are not applicable for a rapidly growing emerging industry. What's more, planned production capacity does not equal actual production capacity. The capacity targets announced by some power battery manufacturers are mainly used for competitive publicity and local preferential policies, and are very rich. In actual production activities, enterprises often regulate the scale and speed of production capacity implementation according to market changes. Therefore, we cannot carve a boat and seek a sword, and we can generalize it.
"At present, there is no scientific statistical method for the effective production capacity of power batteries." Dong Yang said, "Power batteries are not general products, and their product models vary from car to vehicle."This is not a simple addition calculation problem." Moreover, from the current market feedback, "the high-level power batteries required by new energy vehicles are still in a shortage, and this trend will continue until at least the end of next year."
Driven by market rules, the power battery industry has shown a good industry concentration . Dong Yang told reporters that five years ago, when the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers compiled the whitelist of automotive power battery supply, more than 200 manufacturers; and by the first nine months of this year, the number of effective new energy vehicle power battery suppliers in the country has decreased to 48, and the number of market concentration of the top three, top five and top ten power battery companies reached 76.6%, 83.9% and 94.4% respectively.
The power battery industry's "competition" of production capacity has been affected by the "competition" of the production capacity of Influence of heavy factors: First, the rapid growth of global new energy vehicles has caused a "battery shortage", which has forced car companies and battery companies to accelerate capacity expansion; Second, in order to seize more customer resources, battery companies have reserved production capacity in advance; Third, the research and development and application process of new power battery materials is relatively long, and the technology iteration caused by the relatively stable existing material system is slow, and the improvement of the level of intelligent manufacturing processes has made the scale effect an important means to reduce costs and improve market competitiveness, and the willingness of main battery companies to expand continuously; Fourth, local governments continue to increase investment in the fields of new energy vehicles and power batteries, while promoting industrial agglomeration and development, and also encourage enterprises to have the motivation to accelerate the increase in investment scale.
" The domestic power battery production capacity, industrial chain, talent, scale and technology iteration speed have already had competitive advantages around the world. Under this competitive advantage, lithium battery corporate brands will have a development window of 2 to 3 years. "Honey Cable Energy Chairman and CEO Yang Hongxin admitted, "We must complete a series of layouts within the above window period. The core keyword is to be fast, to quickly expand production capacity, develop iterative technology, develop customers, improve supply chain, and supplement talents. Everything must be fast! "
There are also experts who analyze that with the industrial transformation caused by electrification and intelligence, automobile products, supply chains, and industry and market ecology are also being reshaped in a comprehensive manner. In the past, due to insufficient technology and product strength, in the traditional fuel vehicle market, my country's annual exports of complete vehicles were very small, and most of them could only be sold in China. Now new energy vehicles have global comparative advantages, and exports account for an increasingly large proportion of complete vehicles. Therefore, to measure whether the power battery capacity is oversupply, not only do domestic demand need to be considered, but also We must have a global perspective.
is the key to building a new power system with new energy as the main body. Under the vision of the "dual carbon" goal, energy storage projects have accelerated their launch, which has also provided strong support for the scale of power battery production capacity. "Climate change has forced energy transformation, especially the European energy crisis caused by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has caused the energy storage industry to grow rapidly. In addition, the energy storage price profit is good. In the first nine months of this year, energy storage batteries have accounted for nearly 50% of power demand. "Cui Dongshu, Secretary-General of the National Passenger Car Association, believes that to determine whether the power battery capacity is overcapacity, we must not only consider the demand of the automobile market, but also consider the growth space of the energy storage market.
Moderate overcapacity not only helps enterprises to compete fully, but also helps improve industry efficiency and optimize industrial structure. However, serious overcapacity will lead to a series of problems such as vicious market competition, duplicate construction, and decline in corporate economic benefits, which not only hinder the sustained and healthy development of the industry, but also cause great harm to the development of the macro economy. "Production capacity is essentially driven by demand, especially advantageous enterprises with advantageous products, and are eager to consolidate their market position. However, capacity expansion, which is interactively bound with high local investment subsidies and obviously lacks technological advantages and market competitiveness, poses great risks to both enterprises and local governments. "Zhang Yongwei said. The risk of overcapacity hidden under the investment boom in
has also attracted the attention of relevant ministries and commissions. On September 15, Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, publicly responded that new energy vehicles have become a hot industry, attracting the convergence and gathering of a large number of technologies and capital. In addition, some local governments also have the desire to transform and upgrade. Under the joint action of all factors, some provinces, cities and localities do have blind investment and duplicate construction.He also said that these problems are developing problems and will be gradually digested and solved as the industry grows and matures.
How to control raw materials
Vehicle companies do not make much money, and battery manufacturers do not make much profit. So where did the profits of the new energy vehicle industry go?
answers this question. In the power battery industry supply chain, there are upstream, middle and downstream. The upstream raw material suppliers represented by Tianqi Lithium and Ganfeng Lithium , representing the upstream raw material suppliers, CATL and China Innovation Airlines representing the midstream battery manufacturers, and GAC and Xiaopeng representing the downstream vehicle companies. Since last year, the prices of raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel have soared, especially lithium carbonate has soared from more than 500,000 yuan per ton to the current level of more than 500,000 yuan per ton. Upstream lithium ore suppliers have made a lot of money.
If the core technology is not in your own hands, it will be "bottled"; similarly, if the key resources are not held tightly in the supply chain led by you, it will become a "worker".
On July 21 this year, at the 2022 World Power Battery Conference held in Yibin, Sichuan, Zeng Qinghong, chairman of GAC Group, complained in his speech: "The cost of power batteries has accounted for 40% to 60% of our cars. Am I not working for CATL now?"
"I usually encounter customers complaining to us, saying that the vehicle factory is not very profitable. Have your battery factory taken away all the profits?" CATL chief scientist Wu Kai couldn't help but complain at this conference, "Although our company has not lost money this year, it is basically struggling on the brink of profit, which is very painful."
"Half is sea water, half is flame." Announcements from 11 lithium mining companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets showed that their performance in the first three quarters of this year achieved significant growth. Among them, Tianqi Lithium's net profit attributable to shareholders in the first three quarters was 15.981 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2916.44%; Ganfeng Lithium's net profit attributable to shareholders in the first three quarters was 14.795 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 498.31%. The leading new car-making forces such as , NIO, , Xiaopeng, and Ideal, as well as new energy brands such as Lantu, Jihu, Zhiji, and Avita are all in losses.
Regarding the reasons why lithium prices continue to rise, industry analysis: First, the battery production capacity increase at the demand side is faster than the mining salt lake mining on the supply side, resulting in a phased mismatch between supply and demand. For example, it only takes 6 months for lithium battery companies to expand their production capacity of 30 GWh, it takes 1 year for upstream positive electrode materials to expand, and 2 years for lithium salt production capacity to expand; the lithium mine development cycle takes 3 to 5 years, and the lithium extraction development cycle takes 5 to 8 years. Second, foreign-funded enterprises that have a large amount of mining resources, such as Yabao Group, are very cautious in expanding their production capacity. Third, the country does not have the right to speak for lithium and related commodities, and the current price is "led by the pace" by international speculators. In addition, the price of commodity futures has risen in a trend, with lithium mine sellers reluctant to sell, buyers hoarding goods, and middlemen hoarding, which has led to a rapid tight supply, which has been misread by the market as a possible problem on the supply side; and the major development of the electric vehicle market beyond expectations seems to confirm the market's judgment that supply is insufficient, which has triggered the price of lithium carbonate soaring.
No matter what the specific reason is, if you cannot guarantee that there is reasonable profit for each link, the industrial chain will be difficult to say that it is stable and safe. In fact, there is currently no shortage of lithium resources in the world. USGS (USGS) data in 2021 show that the world's proven lithium resources are 88.56 million tons and reserves are about 22 million tons. Ouyang Minggao did some calculations: Taking the NCM (nickel-cobalt-manganese) 811 battery as an example, a 227 terawatt-hour power battery can be produced. Based on the 100 kilowatt-hour battery per car, it can accommodate more than 2.27 billion cars. Due to the rising value of materials, the recycling industry has ushered in opportunities, with an estimated 125 GWh of recycling in 2025. Overall, resources are fully sufficient.
"A lot of lithium ores have been discovered in China recently, but the mining is not so fast, and supply is tight." BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu insists that China's lithium resources are generally enough to meet the comprehensive electrification needs of more than 300 million cars in China. However, he also pointed out that cobalt and nickel are scarce compared to lithium resources and need to be prepared for the future.
"my country's power battery industry chain has obvious advantages in smelting, battery materials, battery processing and other links, but the core upstream resources have limited reserves and high dependence on foreign countries. Although lithium resources are not scarce, and the reserves account for about 6% of the world's global reserves, their endowments are poor and their development costs are high, and their dependence on foreign countries is still more than 70%; nickel and cobalt resources reserves only account for about 2% of the world's global, and 's dependence on foreign countries has been more than 80% for a long time." Zhang Yongwei told reporters that in recent years, although my country's government and enterprises have increased their acquisition of overseas related mineral resources, large European and American multinational giants have been mastered by a large number of high-quality lithium, cobalt, and nickel mineral resources for a long time. Once a national-level resource war is formed around the world, it will increase the difficulty and cost of resource acquisition in my country's enterprises and reduce the cost competitiveness of my country's power battery products.
Zhang Yongwei suggested that the country should include key resources upstream of power batteries in strategic resource considerations, increase the exploration and development of related resources, strengthen guidance and differentiated management in resource allocation, fiscal revenue, major projects, mining land, etc., and establish a national guarantee and reserve system for key resources. At the same time, we strongly support enterprises to deploy lithium, nickel, cobalt and other resources globally, and strengthen policy support for enterprises in the acquisition of scarce resources overseas.
recycling problem How to solve
simple disassembly tools, scattered and disorderly batteries, black liquid flowing everywhere... , deputy general manager of , Greenmei Co., Ltd., Zhang Yuping, deputy general manager of , showed reporters several photos of small power battery recycling workshops, and the picture was shocking.
power battery "decommissioned" from new energy vehicles does not mean that it has been exhausted, but has great potential for recycling development and reuse. For example, the cascade utilization method can be used to "downgrade and use" the battery through modification, remanufacturing, etc., and can be used in power grid energy storage, communication base stations, low-speed electric vehicles, and other fields to maximize the utilization of residual energy.
"In the past two years, the battery recycling industry has received more and more attention." Bao Wei, general manager of Zhejiang Huayou Loop Technology Co., Ltd., sighed, "Some investors say this is the only blue ocean in the industrial chain. In addition, the EU Battery and Waste Battery Regulations put forward a proportion of recycled materials, which further increases the industry's popularity."
At present, different market entities are taking advantage of their own advantages to accelerate the layout of power battery recycling. The main participants in the domestic battery recycling industry are roughly divided into four categories: one is vehicle companies represented by BYD, NIO, BAIC New Energy , etc.; the second is battery companies represented by CATL, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, etc.; the third is material companies represented by Huayou Cobalt Industry , Xiamen Tungsten Industry , etc.; the fourth is third-party companies represented by Greenmei , Tianqi Co., Ltd. , etc.
"Power battery recycling can greatly alleviate the tight supply of raw materials. By 2050, half of the materials of power batteries in the entire industry will come from the recycling of scrapped batteries." Zeng Yuqun said.
Although this statement has caused considerable controversy in the industry, it still makes people look forward to the prospects for power battery recycling. However, the power battery recycling industry has obviously not yet developed to a mature stage, and it is still a long way to take on such a heavy responsibility.
The first problem facing the industry is the difficulty of recycling, or to be precise, the difficulty of recycling through formal channels.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the end of August this year, more than 190 automobile production, power battery comprehensive utilization and other enterprises have set up 10,235 recycling service outlets in 326 municipal administrative regions in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across the country. Car owners can go to these outlets and hand over the retired battery according to the valuation of capacity residual value . The reporter randomly contacted some outlets in these directories, but staff from many outlets reported that the business had not been carried out yet, and a few outlets said that they only collected retired batteries from their own brands. Some outlet staff are not even aware of their stores being included in the list.
is different from the "slow heat" of regular outlets. Due to the huge profit margin brought by the rising prices of raw materials, a large number of private enterprises or individuals are attracted to the team of stockpiling and reselling retired power batteries. Recycling prices have also risen, and at the highest they are even 40% more expensive than new batteries.In the view of Wu Songquan, senior chief expert of and chief engineer of China Automobile Technology Research Center Co., Ltd., the price of power battery raw materials has increased by nearly 10 times, which has driven the increase in the prices of used batteries. It is a normal market rule, but the phenomenon of "the price of waste is more expensive than new goods" is very abnormal.
recycling price continues to rise, resulting in the intensification of the phenomenon of "bad money driving out good money" in the industry. What Wu Songquan is worried about is that the power battery recycling market is often "those who are more expensive will get it." However, those with higher prices may not necessarily have the ability to recycle and utilize used power batteries, which causes standardized enterprises to fail to receive batteries and cannot develop; while non-standard enterprises are popular, bringing higher safety and environmental risks, thus affecting the healthy development of the entire power battery recycling industry.
"Although my country's power battery recycling has been developing for a period of time, the current amount of waste power batteries recycling through formal channels is still relatively low, and it is concentrated in cities such as Shenzhen, Hefei, and Beijing, which are more vigorous in promoting new energy vehicles." Wei Honglian, chief engineer of the Solid Waste and Chemicals Management Technology Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, revealed that the current recycling of power batteries mainly comes from waste power batteries generated by R&D and testing and production, and there are still very few retired batteries truly recycled from new energy vehicles.
For the construction of power battery recycling service outlets, Wei Honglian suggested that the formulation of national standards such as outlet construction, recycling and utilization, and cascade utilization design guidelines should be promoted, and a unified recycling and utilization process should be designed, and all enterprises should be required to strictly implement it in accordance with the process.
In addition to promoting the construction of offline outlets, some companies have also begun to make arrangements for online business. Chen Xionghui, deputy general manager of Huayou circular operation, said that Huayou can currently achieve cobalt recovery rate of more than 98% and lithium recovery rate of more than 95%. In the future, there will be no problem in using recycled materials to continuously recycle them into the supply chain. The difficulty lies in whether the effective recycling rate can be gradually expanded in the future. To this end, Huayou made a recycling APP to assist sales staff in each district to do a good job in online recycling and adopt the "Internet + recycling" model.
Although there are more than 40 companies in the "Industry Specifications for Comprehensive Utilization of Waste Power Batteries in New Energy Vehicles" released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, this policy is only a guiding document and is not mandatory. On a second-hand trading platform, searching for "new energy vehicle waste power battery recycling" can find a large number of merchants. Tianyan Check data shows that there are currently more than 68,000 power battery recycling-related companies in my country. Among them, more than 23,000 new power battery recycling-related companies were added last year, an increase of 182% year-on-year; 31,000 new related companies were added in the first nine months of this year, an increase of 35.8% year-on-year.
Zhang Yongwei proposed that special regulations on the recycling of retired batteries should be formulated, the industry's supporting management system should be continuously improved, and the asset closed-loop implementation should be ensured. For example, accelerate the formulation of special regulations on battery recycling with compulsory enforcement, encourage the broad model of "vehicle-electrical separation" at the policy level, prompt the divestment of battery ownership to battery asset companies, and study and formulate incentive policies and punishment measures for the battery recycling industry, and regulate the industry through legal constraints.
In the long run, the core of the waste power battery dismantling industry is still technological competition. Even for formal enterprises, the difficulties in dismantling the process exist. Zhang Yuping said that during the dismantling process, enterprises still face problems such as difficulty in fine dismantling, rapid detection of cascade utilization, low resource recovery rate, difficulty in recycling, and difficulty in safety control.
GEM tried to seek breakthroughs in the direction of intelligence. Zhang Yuping introduced that Greenmei built the first digital recycling factory in Wuhan, Hubei. The factory uses all links together, records all processing processes through digitalization, and transmits them to the central control large screen as soon as possible to realize product traceability. At the same time, in recent years, teams have been organized to tackle "intelligent disassembly", hoping to handle used batteries through special robots. "If this is done well, it is the state that my country's leading power battery recycling industry should be."
With the increase in sales and ownership of new energy vehicles, waste power batteries have also entered a period of rapid growth in scrapping since 2018 and 2019.According to the forecast data of the National Traceability Management Platform, the average annual retirement volume of power batteries will reach 20 GWh to 30 GWh in the next three to five years, and the cumulative retirement volume in 2026 will reach 142 GWh. Against the backdrop of the expansion of retirement volume, experts call on relevant departments to take the initiative to help the industry solve recycling problems and guide the low-carbon development of the industry.
Will lithium batteries be replaced soon
The first half was electrified and the second half was intelligence. This is the current industry's image description of the new energy vehicle competition. But Dong Yang believes that electrification will run through the audience. "We invented batteries and made electric vehicles, and the market formed its current scale is just the beginning. The sign of the real maturity of the industry is not something that a few people can use, but that most people are easy to use." He proposed, "In view of the main driving role of lithium batteries in industrial electrification, we need to rethink and reposition it."
"From the perspective of new energy vehicles, lithium batteries will be the main power source of automobile products for a long time. Internal combustion engines that use petroleum energy as the main power device of automobile products has a history of more than 130 years. The current power of automobile products is shifting from internal combustion engine power to electrical power. Looking ahead, electric power will have longer vitality than internal combustion engine power. The key is, will there be a better power source to replace the current lithium batteries in the future? If there is, lithium batteries may become a passerby in industrial products. If not, lithium batteries are a big product and should become a strategic industry of the national economy." During the investigation, Dong Yang repeatedly raised the "lithium battery question" to reporters.
2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the inventors of lithium batteries - John B. Goodenough, M. Stantley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino. Among them, Akira Yoshino is a researcher at Asahi Kasei, a giant in the field of Japanese diaphragm.
After the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, an article titled "They Created a Rechargeable World" was published on the official website of the Nobel Prize. The article points out that lithium-ion batteries, as lightweight and rechargeable batteries, are used in mobile phones, laptops, electric vehicles and other fields, and are spread all over every corner of our lives. Lithium-ion batteries can also store solar and wind energy, making a fossil fuel-free world possible.
Dong Yang analyzed that, first, lithium batteries, as the power source of automobile products, have no obvious shortcomings. Regarding mileage, safety and power failure in winter, all have been resolved or are being resolved. Regarding resource issues, they will not be more difficult to deal with than before oil and precious metals. Second, new technologies that may replace lithium batteries in the future, such as solid-state batteries, sodium batteries, and fuel cells, are difficult to completely surpass and replace lithium batteries from the perspective of comprehensive performance, manufacturing costs and usage costs. Third, as a pillar industry of the national economy, automobiles need to establish a long-term and stable ecology, and the ecology should include all aspects of the entire industrial chain and all aspects of the entire life cycle. It is foreseeable that lithium batteries may serve as the main power source in more than 80% of automotive products and can last for at least 30 to 50 years. Therefore, lithium batteries have great potential to become a strategic industry in the national economy.
How to build lithium batteries into a strategic industry of the national economy? Dong Yang suggested that at the industrial level, we must continue to comprehensively improve various performance. It includes safety performance, winter performance and a material system for market segments, as well as fast charging and battery swap technologies that can improve user experience. The second is to improve the manufacturing level around all aspects of the entire industrial chain. Including further expanding batches, improving yield and product consistency, and reducing costs. The entire industry must establish a lean production system, and pay special attention to the manufacturability and recyclability of power batteries. The third is to focus on building the ecology needed for industrial development. It includes improving the standard system, building a testing and certification system that serves the entire industry, respecting intellectual property rights and establishing a reasonable industry competition system.
At the government level, first, we must do a good job in top-level design, industrial layout and development planning. Lithium is "white petroleum", and the lithium battery industry and the petrochemical industry are of the same importance. Large state-owned enterprises should be properly arranged to enter the upstream materials industry and build a relatively stable supply system.Second, while paying attention to environmental protection and energy conservation, we support the development of the lithium battery industry. In terms of mining project approval and high-energy-consuming project approval, the current situation of rapid development of the lithium battery industry and the contribution of the development of new energy vehicles and energy storage industries to the whole society should be taken into account. The third is to include the availability of lithium battery material resources in the scope of international relations. Fourth, support the development of the lithium battery material futures market and strive for international pricing power. Fifth, further improve the construction of the lithium battery recycling system to ensure that most old lithium batteries can be recycled, reused and resourced. Sixth, strengthen supervision of the price of lithium battery materials.
In terms of new battery research, my country has already or is heading to the forefront of the world, and it is possible to lead the world in industrial applications. But as the largest lithium battery country, my country has the conditions and needs to better develop the lithium battery industry from a strategic perspective, and must not only "eat what is in the bowl" and "look at what is in the pot".
