23 Years' Battery Customization

Some cold thinking behind lithium batteries

Jun 20, 2019   Pageview:563

Tesla electric vehicles have swept the global market and driven the hot market of upstream lithium batteries. However, the prospect of lithium batteries in China is not good. China does not master the core technology of lithium batteries.

Led by tesla overseas, listed companies related to lithium battery are wildly hyped. Most analysts believe that tesla concept will be no less than the previous hot apple concept.

Indeed, tesla has good prospects overseas, driving the demand for lithium batteries and charging piles in the upstream and driving the performance of the upstream companies. But in China, the lithium battery industry should not be too optimistic. Because China's lithium battery is low technology, overcapacity dilemma.

Technology lags behind overseas

In the past years, China's lithium battery industry has been committed to "import substitution" and has made some achievements in this field. By the end of 2013, lithium batteries in China were domestically produced in terms of raw materials (anode and cathode materials, electrolytes). Diaphragm technology, with a certain degree of manufacturing capacity, but domestic low-end diaphragm, performance can not meet the international high-end market standards.

At present, lithium battery technology (mainly diaphragm technology) is mainly controlled by the three overseas giants (asahi chemical co., LTD., dongphu, and Celgard), which have nearly monopolized the whole global market in the past few years. However, since then, south Korean companies SK and ube have mastered some lithium battery technology, cut into the supply chain, and reduced the market share of the three giants.

In China, lithium battery, especially the initial diaphragm gross profit rate as high as 70%. Attracted by high gross margins, domestic companies have invested in factories. By the end of 2013, nearly 50 large enterprises had invested in lithium battery diaphragm.

Big investment does not equal big return. Most foreign lithium battery companies have transferred from traditional batteries to lithium batteries and accumulated abundant technologies. But with the exception of a handful of battery makers, most Chinese companies were not originally in the business of making batteries. Take diaphragm as an example, at present, domestic enterprises come from two parts: plastic processing enterprise transformation, the miscellaneous army led by venture capital.

Compared with overseas enterprises, domestic production enterprises are backward in research and development. Asahi chemical co., LTD., dongzhan chemical co., ltd. and Celgard co., ltd. of the United States, with assets of 10 billion yuan, have invested a lot in research and development, and have set up independent laboratories. But the domestic lithium battery manufacturers of small and medium-sized enterprises, these enterprises only care about manufacturing production, do not pay attention to research and development, so backward technology.

For example, the listed company new zhou bang pointed out at the lithium battery industry summit a few days ago that the company's application of negative electrode film forming additives has been quite mature, but the anti-overcharge additive products are less used due to the high cost. In fact, the main reason for the high cost lies in technology. The core additive technology of lithium battery is in the hands of Japanese enterprises, and domestic enterprises have no advantages.

Industry insiders pointed out that at present, a set of mature research and development system investment needs 1 billion yuan, small and medium-sized enterprises simply cannot afford, only large enterprises have the ability to invest.

In addition, lithium batteries produced in China can often meet the standards of similar foreign products in the test stage, but after entering mass production, due to the precision of production equipment, the consistency of products cannot be guaranteed, and the yield rate is low. In the diaphragm, 10,000 square meters of production capacity may only be 40%~50% of the yield. At present, the price of a complete set of equipment is more than 150 million yuan.

Therefore, China's lithium battery is mainly used in the low-end market, domestic products for copycat mobile phones, power tools, mobile power supply of low-end applications.

On the other hand, China's lithium battery is still at the low end of the market, the forefront of overseas lithium battery has entered the next generation. This generation of lithium battery technology is liquid electrolyte, the next generation of lithium battery may be solid electrolyte, the advantages of solid electrolyte is high safety, do not need a diaphragm, if the use of solid electrolyte, the current high gross profit of the diaphragm process will not exist. Solid electrolyte lithium battery has been successfully developed in the laboratory, and Japanese enterprises will produce it in the next few years. If the solid electrolyte lithium battery is widely used, the investment of Chinese manufacturing enterprises in recent years will be wasted.

Overcapacity, price competition

In addition to the technology gap, lithium batteries have become overcapacity due to the great leap forward investment by Chinese manufacturers over the past few years, and if left unchecked, they will go the way of the photovoltaic companies of the past few years.

At the moment, tesla is driving a boom in electric cars, which use lithium batteries, so the market thinks that an explosion in demand for electric cars could spur upstream lithium batteries.

But according to the current data, China's lithium battery capacity is higher than the number of electric vehicles.

From the perspective of the industry, lithium batteries are mainly anode materials, cathode materials, electrolyte, diaphragm field, these four fields are in serious overcapacity.

As for the anode and cathode materials upstream of lithium batteries, Chinese enterprises have mastered the technology and technology, and the number of domestic manufacturers has exceeded 170. Domestic anode and cathode materials can be used in smart phones, mobile power supplies, new energy vehicles and other fields. But this one technical barrier is inferior, Chinese and foreign manufacturer already mastered. In recent years, Chinese and foreign manufacturers have expanded, increased production capacity, and then the market entered the era of price competition. In 2010, the average price of anode materials was 79,500 yuan/ton. In 2013, the average price of anode materials dropped to 65,000 yuan/ton, down by 6.5% every year. The industry gross profit was only 25%-30%, and the net profit was 5%-10%.

Moreover, in order to seize the market, the customary means of Chinese enterprises are low price and long repayment cycle, which leads to the high receivables of many enterprises and great risks. For example, the receivables of desai battery, a listed company, increased by more than 80% in 2013 compared with 2012.

Lithium battery electrolyte, the main component of the same excess capacity. By the end of 2013, there were about 45 domestic electrolyte manufacturers, with an annual capacity of 150,000 tons, far exceeding the demand. Moreover, according to the current construction capacity, excess capacity will continue for 2-3 years.

The same is true for the diaphragm with high technical barriers. In 2013, the global demand for diaphragm was 750 million square meters. In the demand of 750 million square meters, the high-end market is monopolized by overseas enterprises, the market share of the middle market is less than 20%, and the low-end market is contested by many domestic enterprises. More than that, at present, there are more than 40 diaphragm manufacturers, less than half of the factory products, less than 10 through the downstream user certification. In 2013, under the influence of price war, the price of domestic diaphragm fell by more than 30%. Before the Chinese enterprises entered the diaphragm industry, the diaphragm gross profit rate was 70%. At present, the domestic diaphragm gross profit rate is lower than 30%. A few years ago, the price of diaphragm was 7-8 yuan per square meter. In 2013, the price was mostly about 4 yuan per square meter.

In addition, even if tesla drives the consumption of electric vehicles and stimulates the production of lithium batteries, the increase in demand will be very limited. On the one hand, tesla models are expensive, targeted at high net worth people, and the final purchase volume will not be too high. On the other hand, recently, hangzhou began to limit the purchase of cars, which has been extended to second-tier cities, previously only Beijing, Shanghai, guangzhou, the three first-tier cities to limit the purchase. Heavy traffic in cities can discourage consumers from buying cars.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.

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