From the appearance of BYD blade battery and the results of acupuncture test to the response of contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd., it is a good thing that the development process of power battery can form a technological breakthrough regardless of the starting point geometry.
But the topic of acupuncture is not the focus today. Who is better than who, and to what extent, is the direction today. The monopoly of the battery market can be broken, and the diversified competition among enterprises is a benign market environment.
At present, the high-cost ternary lithium battery is still one of the key factors limiting the development of electric vehicles, and issues such as reducing the production cost of power batteries and improving energy density cannot be ignored.
With the rapid promotion and development of new energy automobile industry in China, contemporary Ampere technology has caught the express train conveniently, and due to the support of domestic policies and the strength of contemporary Ampere technology itself, contemporary Ampere technology has obviously become the first object of competition and cooperation among major automobile manufacturers in the field of power batteries. With the growth of market share, in recent years, it has achieved the first position in the world in the installed capacity of power batteries.
In 20 19, the installed capacity of domestic power batteries was about 62.2GWh, up 9.3% year-on-year. Among them, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. continued to lead with the installed capacity of 3 1.7 1GWh, accounting for 5 1.0 1% of the market share, and achieved an absolute leading edge.
BYD ranked second with the installed capacity of 10.76GWh, accounting for 17.3% of the market. Guo Xuan Hi-Tech ranks third with an installed capacity of 3.3 1KWh, followed by Li Shen, Funeng, Bike and Yiwei.
In terms of installed capacity of power batteries in the global market, in 20 19, Contemporary Amp Technology Co., Ltd. ranked first in the world for three consecutive years with an installed capacity of 32.3 1GWh.
Panasonic ranked second in the world with the installed capacity of 29. 1 1GWh, followed by LG Chem, with the installed capacity of power battery of 13.95GWh, and BYD ranked fourth with the installed capacity of10.78 gwh.
However, in the first quarter of 2020, the market share of power batteries changed subtly. Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., which ranked first for many years in a row, fell to the third place with a market share of 17.4%.
The first place and the second place were won by LG Chem (27. 1%) and Panasonic (25.7%) respectively. In the same period last year, the market share of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. reached 23.4%.
Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd.' s installed capacity of power batteries dropped sharply in the first quarter. First, due to the domestic epidemic situation, production suspension, load reduction and market sales are lagging behind.
At this time, 95% of the market share of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. is contributed by the domestic market, which has a great influence on Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. SAIC, Dongfeng, Geely, BMW, Weilai and Dongfeng are the main customers of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd..
The growth of LG chemical power battery market share is not only due to domestic models? The landing and delivery of 3, the sales growth of foreign Audi e-tron and Renault Zoe also brought a lot of contributions.
However, with the gradual resumption of production in China in February and the sprint in March, it is expected that the market share of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. will be greatly improved in the second quarter.
LG chemical Ohio factory
Of course, some people are happy and others are worried. As far as the market share of global power battery installed capacity is concerned, LG Chem is definitely a latecomer, but Panasonic, which is also a supplier of Tesla power batteries, is a bit embarrassed.
Here, LG Chem is in full swing, because it has received more orders from Tesla to meet Tesla's growing demand for installed capacity.
There, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. and Teslink formally cooperated, and the degree of cooperation was also very high. Grasping Tesla, a big customer, is definitely a big plus for power battery manufacturers.
At this point, Panasonic's situation is slightly embarrassing. Panasonic has always been a close partner of Tesla, whether it is the early 18600 cylindrical battery or the current 2 1700 battery, and was the only power battery supplier of Tesla before.
However, according to the premise of Panasonic's expansion of production capacity, "achieving profitability", it is obvious that the joint venture super factory between Panasonic and Tesla in Nevada, USA has not achieved profitability.
At present, the annual output of Panasonic factory is 32GWh, which really can't meet the demand of Tesla's annual output of 35GWh, so there are also differences in cooperation between Panasonic and Tesla.
Panasonic Super Factory in Nevada
In addition, Tesla has always wanted to make his own battery and take the greatest initiative and voice in his own hands. This is an open secret. Holding your destiny in your own hands is obviously more reliable than pinning your hopes on others, and Tesla's technical route for making batteries will be solid-state batteries.
However, according to Zeng Minqun, the chairman of Amperex Technology Co., Ltd., a real solid-state battery needs lithium as the negative electrode, which can improve the energy density of the battery and achieve a higher battery life.
Therefore, when getting off the train, the energy density of solid-state batteries is not as good as that of lithium-ion batteries. In addition to ternary lithium batteries, Contemporary Amp Technology Co., Ltd. also has its own technical solutions for lithium iron phosphate batteries and all-solid-state batteries under development.
Therefore, partners can provide sufficient production capacity and provide good power battery solutions, which will also reduce more concerns for Tesla.
The good news is that Panasonic made a profit in the third and fourth quarters of last year at the 20 19 earnings conference. Facing the close cooperation between Tesla and LG Chem and Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., the embarrassing atmosphere forced Panasonic to lower its posture. In March this year, it said that the super factory in Nevada was ready to produce 35GWh per year.
In our familiar fields, power batteries include lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries. As one of the main battery types in the early and present, lithium ferrous phosphate has always had great advantages in low cost, high stability and high safety.
However, as more car companies enter the field of electric vehicles, improving energy density, increasing cruising range and achieving faster charging speed have become a major demand. At this time, ternary lithium battery is everyone's first choice.
However, the high cost has always been a major disadvantage of ternary lithium batteries, which directly leads to the high price of electric vehicles.
In order to control the cost, the ternary lithium batteries (Ni-Co-Mn ratio) of NCM523 and 622 have become the entry choice for many car companies.
At present, many new energy vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles below/kloc-0.5 million choose NCM523 or NCM622 ternary lithium battery to achieve a balance between control cost and battery life.
NCM8 1 1 battery, as a star-rated product of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., has been purchased by many car companies such as Weilai and Tucki. Compared with 523 and 622, 8 1 1 batteries, higher energy density and more efficient charge and discharge can be achieved without changing the battery volume.
Therefore, reducing the occupation of vehicle space by battery pack, improving charging power and reducing charging time have become the advantages of 8 1 1, provided by Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd.? Among ternary lithium batteries, the shipment of NCM8 1 1 batteries is about 20%.
However, the cobalt content in ternary lithium batteries has a great influence on the cost of cathode materials. As a precious metal, Congo contributes more than half of the world's output.
With the increasing global demand for cobalt production, the market phenomenon of short supply and price fluctuation have great influence on the procurement of power battery manufacturers and the output of power battery cost, and also directly affect the product delivery rhythm of the main engine factory.
Therefore, "cobalt-free" is the direction that everyone is seeking to change now. The "cobalt-free" state of lithium iron phosphate battery has also ushered in its second spring, and many power battery manufacturers have begun to take "cobalt-free" as a new development goal.
Take the two "cobalt-free batteries" released by Honeycomb Energy in May 18. One is based on 590 module, which consists of 14 module, with capacity of 1 15Ah, up to 96 kWh, energy density of 245Wh/kg and cruising range of 600km.
This cobalt-free battery can guarantee1.20 thousand kilometers in 2005, and its long service life eliminates the trouble of short battery life. It was listed in June 2026 with 5438+0.
Another L6 flake cobalt-free long battery is larger than the 590 module battery, with a capacity of 226Ah, an energy density of 240Wh/kg and a capacity of 135 degrees. The package scheme of CTP is adopted, with a cruising range of 880km, and it will be launched in the second half of 202/kloc-0.
Honeycomb Energy introduced cobalt-free batteries, considering a series of problems caused by limited global cobalt production and excessive market demand, so cobalt-free batteries can avoid this problem.
In addition, the honeycomb cobalt-free battery has the characteristics of higher capacity, longer service life and better safety, and also improves the endurance and battery attenuation of electric vehicles. Even if it is an "improved" or "substituted" version of lithium iron phosphate battery, "cobalt-free" and "underestimation" are one of the important solutions to reduce the dependence of the whole industry on cobalt.
However, this method can not completely solve the problem at present. After all, the market share of ternary lithium battery in China is 72.8%, while that of lithium ferrous phosphate is only 22.93%, and ternary lithium battery is still the mainstream of the market.
Ternary lithium batteries will continue to play an important role for a long time to come. After all, the 8 1 1 battery has just started, and there are still some technical aspects to be improved, such as better thermal runaway management. The new products that car companies have made great efforts to overcome will naturally not immediately ruin the fate of this heavy product because of the appearance of cobalt-free batteries.
What's more, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. also has its own technical route of cobalt-free batteries, and it has been confirmed that it will provide cobalt-free batteries for Tesla. Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. will not launch its own cobalt-free battery, but kill the NCM8 1 1 product line.
Therefore, according to the current market volume and technological development, cobalt-free batteries will still exist as high-end mainstream products in the future and will be favored by everyone. Cobalt-free batteries with competitive prices may become one of the substitutes for ternary lithium batteries such as 523.
BYD Blade Power?
At the same time, power battery manufacturers such as LG Chem are interested in transforming the future research direction of new products into NCMA technology. After reducing cobalt by 70%, they can also reduce the cost and keep the battery cost within $65,438+000/kWh.
Whether it is "cobalt-free" or "underestimated", power batteries have always been an important factor restricting the development of new energy vehicles, and major car companies have also realized the importance of the problem.
Therefore, Tesla wanted to make its own battery, BYD could make its own battery, and Volkswagen chose to cooperate with Guo Xuan Hi-Tech, and signed the Share Subscription and Strategic Cooperation Agreement on the condition that Guo Xuan Hi-Tech Co., Ltd. issued A shares in a non-public way, with Volkswagen accounting for 26.47% of the shares.
In addition, BMW chose to cooperate with Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., and Mercedes-Benz chose to cooperate with Funeng ... It is particularly important to increase the right to speak on battery supply from the overweight of power batteries by these car companies, because as we all know, in this electrification war, we can grasp the biggest chance of winning.
"Cobalt-free" is the new technical direction of power batteries, and the "underestimated" and "cobalt-free" schemes of various power battery manufacturers are also following up, but ternary lithium batteries are still the key technical route at present, and the development of "cobalt-free" batteries needs time to verify, but there is no doubt that solving the supply chain problem of power batteries is one of the key points that car companies need to overcome.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.