Power battery market in Japan and South Korea tripartite, the future development of lithium battery in China can not be relaxed

Wumengtao, general manager of Tianjin barmer, expounds the gap and countermeasures in the industrialization of lithium-ion power battery positive-electrode materials from three aspects, including the world pattern of lithium-ion power batteries, the gap between domestic and foreign positive-electrode materials industries, and how enterprises can enhance internationalization.

The power cell market, China, Japan and the ROK have formed a three-pronged world pattern. In the future, battery market demand has increased, and competition in the industry has also been extremely fierce.

Recently, Wumengtao, general manager of Tianjin balmo Co., Ltd., made a speech at a forum on "the gap between the industrialization of lithium-ion power battery positive electrode materials and countermeasures", which shows the hidden worries of lithium-ion power in China: the corner overtakes the car, we really have that fast? Number one, how long can we sit?

When talking about the global market for new energy vehicles, Wumengtao elaborated on the gap and countermeasures for the industrialization of lithium-ion power battery positive-electrode materials from three aspects, including the world pattern of lithium-ion power batteries, the gap between domestic and foreign positive-electrode materials industries, and how enterprises enhance internationalization.

In 2017, China's market share in electric vehicles further increased, accounting for 60 % of the total market. With a relatively large base of about 24 per cent year-on-year growth and 24 per cent year-on-year growth in the United States, China continues to be the world's largest competitive market.

Large gap between domestic and foreign positive material industries

The use of new materials such as lithium manganate, lithium iron phosphate, conventional ternary materials, and high-nickel materials for power cells requires a step step by step, mainly due to the limitations of safety and energy ratio. Conventional ternary materials and high nickel materials, ternary materials divided into unipolar and multipolar, the best manufacturers in China are using their own technology, but very few.

For example, 3C batteries are basically positive materials that are replaced once a year, while electric vehicles need to maintain a design for a period of time, but it is difficult to authenticate, but it is very difficult to enter suppliers.

How to Enhance Internationalization

The technological trend of global power cell technology toward high energy density and low cost has been very clear. Governments of various countries have also issued similar power cell development plans. China's technical specifications are more demanding, requiring higher safety and lower costs.

Now the domestic lithium battery industry has developed rapidly, but also accompanied by embarrassing problems, upstream minerals, raw materials prices have risen surprisingly. Wumengtao said: "The price of lithium carbonate in 2015 was 38,000 tons. It is now a maximum of 180,000. It is currently 170,000, and it is still high. It has soared several times.

In the equipment terminal price is serious, the industry's norms and industrial norms are not yet perfect, the market has bad competition, homogenization competition and even plagiarism is serious.

The distribution of profits in the industrial value chain is polarized, and the profits in the core link of the industrial chain are pressed inside and outside, and they are continuously thinned.

It can be said that in the current situation, there have been frequent incidents of overpricing of flour than bread, and it is difficult for advanced enterprises that attach importance to technological innovation to recover R&D costs, and profits are very difficult.

Wumengtao said, "The obvious contradiction in our power cell market is the continuous expansion of production capacity and the serious shortage of production capacity for high-end products, especially new materials. The market has grown rapidly, but the profits of advanced companies have continued to decline. "

Second, there is a huge gap between domestic and foreign positive materials industries. The top 10 international positive materials manufacturers occupy more than 80 % of the international market.

The international car market is now very poor, including Toyota, which eight years ago and even ten years ago, like Volkswagen, talked about the prices of some well-known Chinese materials, including the positive materials of Japanese and Korean companies, and now has a very long hand. Even BMW has gone to China to look for mineral resources, to many industrial chain nodes, and to extend further upstream.

After Chinese companies control raw materials, the world will look to China, including the U.S. government and Japan.

There are some products such as Japan-Asia Chemical, Sumitomo Metal, Samsung, Dangsheng, Hunan fir, and Peking University.

Japan-Asia Chemical focuses on Japan. Umicore's main customer is LG, and LGC is LG. Samsung is SDI. When I am LG, SK, Japan and South Korea, the core batteries will certainly not go to China. China can only do marginal, very competitive, patent, and intellectual property rights.

Wumengtao said they were talking to Samsung and one of his executives, and they think the power battery China is years behind and the material is at least three years behind.

The domestic high-end product technical index of lithium batteries has basically reached the international advanced level, but the product gap mainly reflects the gap between product quality control and product testing standards. For example, the magnetic foreign body index has not yet been concerned by Chinese companies in 2010. Foreign companies have demanded ppb levels.

The production environment Cu and Ze requirements have not yet been concerned by Chinese companies before 2013, and foreign companies have been completely banned. Foreign companies require the product index and keep their detection methods confidential. Palmer has drafted the first domestic magnetic foreign body detection standard and method. It is widely used by material companies and battery companies.

The gap analysis of domestic positive materials -- the gap of research and development time. In 1991, Sony Corporation developed lithium batteries, later lithium cobalt phosphate, ternary material, lithium manganese acid. The United States began technological innovation as early as 1979.

Compared with China, Japan and Japan, Japan is a manufacturing power, the United States is an innovation power, and China is a market power.

Wumengtao said: "Especially in terms of patents, we have recently been plagued by large companies in the entire industry of positive materials. We pay a patent fee of 50 million yuan and return it according to sales every year. Otherwise, the international community will definitely cause trouble. Domestic enterprises have signed the agreement, in the future our industry association must unite, otherwise the price will be passed on to our entire lithium battery industry. "Since 2013, the number of patent applications for domestic ternary materials has decreased, and this trend is also international. In the past, there were many patent applications for ternary materials.

The gap between domestic industrial production lines, abroad is a fully closed automatic production line, information-based data collection, high equipment accuracy, generally adopted to meet the lean production management of the automotive industry, the production environment control level is harsh.

The degree of automation in the country has been greatly improved, but information data collection has not yet been popularized, and there are also some semi-manual production lines. The precision of the equipment can not meet the demand of the power battery, and the control level of the production environment is poor.

In terms of quality control of positive materials at home and abroad, domestic requirements have reached CPK 1.0 in key processes, 1.33 in foreign countries, 1.1 in key processes, 1.67 in foreign countries, 95 % in domestic production, and 99 % in foreign countries. The detection platform is conventional powder detection in China, and microscopic detection and measurement detection in foreign countries.

Despite the difficulties, the future of lithium-ion industry is still full of opportunities. The application of the market's positive driving force and the government's joint guidance, the next five years will be the key period when China's lithium-ion battery industry enters a period of great change.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.