The development trend of power battery

Expand, definitely will expand! Whenever it comes to whether the expansion will continue, the power battery companies interviewed by the economic observer will not hesitate to give the above answer. A domestic battery executives admitted that he for overcapacity concerns, but the expansion is still determined, "the ministry recently released draft (the conditions of automobile power battery industry standard (2017)" (draft), have a certain request for capacity, excess expansion may, but if not then, companies may go not bottom go to, can only be out of business."

At the end of 2016, with the completion of the fraud investigation, the introduction of new energy subsidy policies, and the official lifting of the ban on three-yuan batteries, new energy vehicles resumed rapid growth, and the power battery industry ushered in a new round of investment boom. Catalyzed by a combination of an annual capacity threshold of up to 8 gigawatt-hours and higher subsidized technology standards, a lot of capital has poured into the planned capacity expansion of power cells.

According to industry insiders, the annual production and sales of new energy vehicles will continue to grow to over 700,000 units in 2017, up about 50% from 500,000 units in 2016, as the cost of "three-power" (battery, motor and electric control) of new energy vehicles decreases and industrial capital is supported. On the other hand, due to the slowing growth of passenger cars and the small amount of batteries carried by passenger cars and logistics vehicles, the industry is expected to only increase the battery demand by 20% to 31GWH in 2017. However, the current data shows that the effective capacity of power batteries in 2017 has reached nearly 90GWH.

Power battery enterprises are not unaware of the risks, but most of them still choose to run fast in the splint of policy urging and lagging demand.

But again the decline of the subsidy policy or to the development of new energy vehicles played a question mark. With the reduction of subsidies, the price of new energy vehicles has begun to rise. Under the premise that the cost of vehicle manufacturing has not been reduced, consumer enthusiasm will inevitably be hit. The battery, which accounts for 40% of the cost of new energy vehicles, is inevitably pushed into a conflict.

On the one hand, under the cover of demand, the battery industry has a lot of problems. Firstly, it is the contradiction between the abnormal speed of growth driven by a large amount of hot money and the primitive state of the industry with backward technology and chaotic order. Secondly, unhealthy competition between different technology routes and the increasingly intensified contradictions in the industrial chain caused by the price conflict between upstream and downstream. As the hottest technology route in the battery industry, lithium battery has become the most concentrated area of all contradictions.

Industry experts have warned that China's new energy vehicle development is now entering a critical second five-year period, which may be from the early stage into a real outbreak of time, or may be a difficult five years. This tuyere, since the east wind, will also become a tornado, power battery industry to do is to really demand oriented, avoid being involved in the "eye of the wind", was raised high, fell heavily.

Tuyere: "work fast" under the policy stimulus

On January 9, zhuoneng's lithium battery 2 project with 5 billion kilowatt-hours was officially launched. When the whole project is completed, zhuoneng's capacity in two bases in shenzhen and guangxi will reach 8Gwh. And that's just the tip of the "great leap forward" in China's power-cell expansion.

According to the released in October 2016, energy saving and new energy vehicle technology road map, the future of new energy vehicle market scale rapid expansion, to 2020, 2025, 2030, car production and sales scale respectively 30 million, 35 million, 38 million vehicles, including new energy vehicles in sales accounted for more than 7% of total sales, 15% and 40% respectively, namely sales total more than 2.1 million, 5.25 million, 15.2 million, respectively.

On December 29, the ministry of industry and information technology, the ministry of finance, the ministry of science and technology, and the national development and reform commission issued a "notice on the adjustment of fiscal subsidy policies for the promotion and application of new energy vehicles." Among them, passenger cars, the new 100 km power consumption requirements and encourage high energy density content.

Wide hair negotiable securities pointed out that the new rules in new ways, one is to make clear a regulation passenger car according to vehicle weight step, must meet certain hundreds of kilometers of power consumption requirements, the second is the energy density is higher than 120 wh/kg models according to 1.1 times the standard subsidies, due to the lithium iron phosphate and 523 type three yuan energy density is usually between 90 and 120, so the policy is to encourage energy density can do three yuan more than 120 high-energy battery.

And with the new energy bus sanyuan battery from January 1 on the full lifting of the ban, the entire lithium battery plate to obtain capital attention. After several days of fermentation, on January 4, a collective blowout occurred in the lithium battery sector. When shengji technology, Tianchi materials, Keheng stock and other volume increased by the limit, Tianqi lithium, poly fluorine and other industries increased by more than 5%.

This vision has inevitably made power batteries a hot concept for capital to compete with. The capture of new markets means opportunities for industry status reversal, and capital swarmed to mainstream power batteries.

According to incomplete statistics, media in 2016, investment in the field of power battery has more than one hundred billion yuan of funds, including the porch high-tech, shanshan co, the lion, the wisdom of science and technology, green energy, 65 listed companies compete to through the direct participation of the industry chain upstream and downstream companies, non-public to raise funds, set up subsidiaries, expansion or power battery business.

, byd, wisdom, energy, Dagang shares, the porch tech center, Oriental seiko, hengdian east magnetic, more than 3 billion yuan one-time into power battery field energy, wisdom in the rich hin high-tech seiko, long science and technology, countries, western resources, kovalyov shares, nut, sky fire, east lumena electric LiYe, del home, Orient seiko, ST shares Jiang Quan, weft lithium can, the sky, corun, SMW power, strong fire, camels shares, the lion technology companies such as one-off investment exceeds one billion yuan.

On December 29, 2015, Chengduspecial integrated said that avic lithium power plan to start the second phase of the industrial park construction project. The total investment scale of the project is RMB 4373.4 million, and the annual output of 5 gigawatt-hour ternary material lithium ion power battery production line will be built. Chengfei integration said that the project is expected to achieve an average annual sales revenue of 4.783 billion yuan during the operation period, the project has good economic benefits, will have a positive impact on the company's business performance.

The company, which produces cathode materials, said it would add 4,000 tons of capacity next year, an increase of about 40 percent. Subsequent companies will promote new capacity planning according to the release of capacity and market conditions. In addition, tianci materials, which produces electrolytes, has raised more than 600 million yuan, and invested in the project of new lithium salt of 2300t/a, the project of solid lithium hexafluorophosphate of 2000t/a, and the project of battery grade iron phosphate material of 30000t/a.

December 30, Xiamen tungsten industry announcement, also optimistic about the development of three-yuan materials, the company intends to wholly owned subsidiary Xiabang new energy and Mindong electric power joint venture Ningde Xiabang new energy, joint investment in the construction of an annual output of 20,000 tons of lithium ion three-yuan material production line, mainly the production and sales of high-nickel three-yuan materials.

Some are moving into power batteries through restructuring and acquisitions. Guoxuan high-tech co., ltd. acquired Guoxuan high-tech co., ltd. which is engaged in lithium ion power battery (group) for new energy vehicles through private placement, and raised more than 800 million yuan of supporting funds to invest in the construction of an annual output of 240 million AH power lithium battery industrialization project, and the construction of a research and development center for power lithium battery and its materials. The company focuses on promoting the construction of the annual output of 600 million a-hour lithium power batteries in Hefei Guoxuan and the annual output of 300 million a-hour lithium power batteries in Qingdao Guoxuan.

According to statistics from the ministry of industry and information technology, there are now 227 single battery manufacturers in China, double the number at the beginning of 2014.

A person in the power battery industry said that capital is necessary for the development of the industry, whether it is a crossover enterprise or the original battery industry leader, the premise is capital, but also to see the cost, service, technology and other links can keep up. Follow the wind whether the enterprise can become windward growth depends on the specific enterprise.

Surplus: how is 170Gwh annual capacity consumed

"" now in the power battery space, it's probably not excess, it's definitely excess." " "The capacity of 170Gwh/ year is more than seven times the demand," Wang said. "who will use the remaining six out of seven?"

Zi-dong Wang is the north China institute of vehicle power battery lab director, national 863 electric cars special power battery testing center director, just two months ago, when he is 8 billion watts of power battery business capacity threshold economic observer reporter interview, think compared with the excess risk, China needs to borrow more economies of scale formation of international competitiveness in the field of power battery. But the impulse of domestic battery enterprises to expand production clearly exceeded his expectations. "According to the current expansion plan of power battery enterprises, the total capacity exceeds 170Gwh/ year. You can do the math. The expansion plan is only a little more than what I said. Wang zidong analysis said. According to statistics from the China association of automobile manufacturers, China's new energy vehicles sold nearly 490,000 units before 2015, and 517,000 units were sold in 2016. "If the market sales ratio of electric buses and electric passenger cars is 1:10, 170Gwh can meet the total demand of annual output of 500,000 electric buses and 5 million electric passenger cars, which may be the target after 2025 according to the development plan of China's new energy vehicles.

"" there has been a massive oversupply of battery capacity since 2016, with the gap between production and demand close to 20GWH, and it is expected to be around 60GWH by 2017." " "Said one industry analyst. Although the sales of new energy vehicles have been increasing, but the excess capacity of lithium battery power has been visible, and has been very serious.

In November last year, the ministry of industry and information technology (miit) issued the specification conditions for the automotive power battery industry (2017) (draft for comments), proposing that the annual capacity of a single lithium ion power battery enterprise should not be less than 8 gigawatt hours. Some experts said that the original intention of regulating conditions is to raise the threshold of capacity, to prevent a rush of capital into the battery industry. Culling the fittest from the perspective of production capacity may be easier for regulators to operate and supervise.

However, companies are not optimistic about what the proposed capacity limits will do for the industry. "The investment and scale of this round of expansion are very large," an official from a power battery manufacturer told the economic observer. "there are two kinds of enterprises. Not bad for the first category, but very risky for the second. But there is too much hot money at the moment.

"This is forcing companies to increase their inefficient capacity." "The rush to ramp up capacity is to meet the policy threshold, not to meet customer demand," said a Guangzhou-based head of a power battery company. Maybe in the future, the industry will be like the photo voltaic industry in the past.

Wang said that the urgent problem for China's new energy vehicle industry is not the expansion of power battery capacity or the development of new power battery market, but the improvement of the core competitiveness of enterprises, including the improvement of core technology and brand influence. "We now have a structural surplus, even though we have 170Gwh, how many good products are there?" "In the future, the government should limit the technical conditions and product access, so as to truly enhance the effective capacity and improve the quality of power batteries." The person in charge of the Guangzhou-based power battery manufacturer told the economic observer.

The in-depth analysis from the industry points out that due to the excess capacity of power batteries, at present, the country has considered allowing low-speed electric vehicles to use lithium batteries when formulating the standard of low-speed electric vehicles, so as to digest the explosive growth of lithium battery capacity.

By contrast, cicc is relatively optimistic about growth in demand for power batteries. According to cicc, from 2016 to 2020, the specific demand for lithium battery will increase by 2.2 times from 28Gwh to 89Gwh. Specifically, China's lithium battery production in 2017 /2018 /2019 is 65.6GWH/79.4GWH/101.4GWH, corresponding to a growth rate of 19%/21.2%/27.7%. However, some analysts pointed out that this figure, compared with the global demand forecast, means that in 2017 alone, China's capacity will account for 48.7% of the global demand for lithium batteries, and this proportion will gradually increase after that.

Have battery business personage to express, whether industry can appear oversupply, want to see demand side after all how old. The policy regarding the current production capacity of battery enterprises means that the current supply-side adjustment is more.

In addition, the excess capacity of lithium battery also depends on the specific type of lithium battery. If such models are popular, that in turn will boost the battery companies. If the car is not popular or the market does not accept it, then the battery is excess.

On December 9, Zhang tianren, chairman of Tianneng group, announced that the three green power energy projects, including the 5GWh new energy vehicle power (energy storage) lithium battery project with an annual output of nearly 5 billion yuan invested by Tianneng group, will be completed soon.

"In previous years, after October, we [orders and sales] would go into a slow season, but this year we are in short supply, which is a break from five or six years of practice." In his opinion, this is mainly because the company has carried out "supply-side structural reform" on its internal products in the past and realized structural adjustment and high-end products. We do less for those that are not profitable or make little or no money.

Route: "three kingdoms kill" of lithium ternary, lithium iron phosphate and lithium titanate

New energy car subsidy policies issued the day before, that is, on December 29, 2016, the ministry of industry and information technology released in the official website of the 291th batch of the announcement of road motor vehicle production enterprises and products, at the same time, this batch of statement released the new energy automobile application recommended models directory (5), including 95 enterprises of 493 vehicles. It is worth noting that earlier in the day, the ministry of industry and information technology (miit) briefly released a fifth batch of catalogue containing 498 models, but this catalogue was soon deleted.

Two of the five models removed from the subsidy list in one day were transporters for Dongfeng motor and shaanxi motor, while the other three were the Cadillac CT630E, the roewe eRX5 and the roewe ei6. Among them, the roewe eRX5 is an Internet model that saic cooperated with alibaba and is being displayed at the 2016 world intelligent manufacturing conference.

The industry's focus is on the latest battery in the roewe eRX5 -- the nickel-cobalt-manganese three element battery made by Nanjing LG chem new energy battery co., a joint venture between LG chem, a unit of South Korea's LG group, and China.

Different from the subtle and sensitive battery identity speculation, in the line of power battery technology, by lithium, lithium iron phosphate, lithium titanate staged "three kingdoms kill" is being publicly upgraded.

In addition to the ternary lithium batteries that capital is chasing, dong Mingzhu, who recently invested in Zhuhai yinlong as an individual, is betting on lithium titanate battery technology, while lithium iron phosphate is another route represented by Chinese companies such as BYD.

Ternary lithium battery in the world has an unshakable position, mainly in South Korea samsung SDI and LG chemical, Panasonic as the representative of Japan, a number of domestic mainstream passenger cars and commercial vehicles manufacturers of new energy products are used in these enterprises battery. According to statistics, ternary batteries currently account for more than 80% of the global lithium ion battery market.

Early because of BYD drive, and the influence of enterprise such as the United States A123 lithium electricity companies make lithium iron phosphate, China later reversed transmission policy and downstream demand, many Chinese companies have built three yuan project, during the period of 2013 to 2015, power battery is developing rapidly in China, three yuan may have a potential of super lithium iron phosphate lithium-ion batteries, at present, involving three yuan stocks materials including Jiangte motor, Shanshan shares, and shares, Xiamen, China baoan, Jiangxi tungsten industry front LiYe dozens of listed companies, etc. Nearly 100 listed companies are involved in the lithium battery concept, according to the company.

Under the advantages of light weight and high energy density, especially the industrial policies, EKG (energy density of single battery) is clearly limited to the minimum by 2020. The new energy subsidy policy implemented in 2017 also puts forward higher requirements in terms of technology and financial strength. In this case, Liu yanlong, secretary general of China chemical and physical power industry association, has been more optimistic about the ternary system, that it is the future direction of development.

However, due to the poor safety, the three-yuan lithium battery has been repeatedly "dragged into the vortex" recently. Although the restrictions on the application of three-yuan lithium battery in passenger cars have been lifted since 2017, the potential safety concerns have started to make the three-yuan battery share gradually divided among other products.

lithium iron phosphate battery developed earlier in China, mainly represented by Chinese enterprises such as BYD, Guoxuan high-tech, Tianjin lishen, Harbin Guangyu power supply co., LTD., Shenzhen votma, avic lithium power (Luoyang) co., LTD. The technology has outstanding advantages in reliability and long cycle, but has a bottleneck in energy density, and the preparation process is complex. With the change of policy and downstream demand, lithium iron phosphate enterprises will get more positive.

Dong mingzhu identified lithium titanate technology, is less involved in the enterprise, it is understood that the international only Japanese Toshiba company to lithium titanate. This technology sacrifices the high energy density index of lithium battery and gains excellent charging-discharge ratio performance and long cycle life. It is also applied in some electric vehicle products. But lithium titanate is controversial. Battery experts say the biggest problem with lithium titanate negative battery is its low energy density and high price, which makes it suitable for use on buses. Lithium titanate will be replaced by carbon negative rechargeable battery technology in the future. The future is uncertain. Wang, meanwhile, is interested in energy storage, not lithium titanate.

Chen guangzu, an expert in the automobile industry, once told the economic observer that in 2006 and even earlier, the second-generation nickel-metal hydride battery was more popular, and lithium battery belonged to the third generation, the fourth generation and the fifth generation. It was really unknown which material would become the king in the future.

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