Power battery whitelist to lift waves, the downstream car companies how to recognize?

On April 26, dong Yang, executive vice President of the China association of automobile manufacturers (caam), announced in public that the white list application for the automobile power battery and hydrogen fuel cell industry would be started. After more than a year, the white list of power batteries is back again. In recent years, the development of power battery industry is summed up as "ups and downs" by some industry giants, but "waves still".

The past and present of whitelist

In March 2015, for the implementation of the state council on energy saving and new energy vehicles industry development planning (2012-2020), the circular (guo fa [2012] no. 22), according to the general office of the state council about accelerate the "instructional advice on the popularization and application of the new energy vehicles (countries do hair [2014] no. 35) requirements, guide the healthy development of power battery industry norms, the state ministry of formulated and issued the auto motive battery industry standard conditions, and from the basic requirements of enterprises, the production conditions, technical skills, seven aspects such as quality assurance ability, To the automobile power battery industry gives the standard opinion, conforms to this standard condition enterprise directory, is called in the industry the power battery white list.

Since November 2015, there have been four batches of 57 power battery and system enterprises entering the white list. Although no department has explicitly proposed that the whitelist of power batteries is linked to the recommended list of new energy vehicles, the "tacit linkage" between the whitelist of power batteries and the recommended list of new energy vehicles for a period of time once made the power battery industry regard the whitelist as a supporting model that can be listed in the new energy vehicle catalog as an "unspoken rule". For this reason, domestic power battery enterprises in order to meet the whitelist requirements, in production capacity, technology and other aspects, increase investment. It can be said that the emergence of the white list at that time did promote the development of the whole power battery industry to some extent.

In November 2016, the ministry of industry and information technology (miit) organized and formed the "specification conditions for the automotive power battery industry (2017)" (draft for soliciting opinions) on the basis of the "specifications and conditions for the automotive power battery industry", and publicly solicited opinions from the whole society. However, due to the "draft for comments" in the production capacity requirements than the 2015 version of the standard conditions 40 times, the industry caused a stir. Many domestic power battery enterprises believe that the over-emphasis on capacity requirements in the draft will lead to the blind expansion of some enterprises in the industry, which is not conducive to the healthy development of the industry. In addition, the relevant standards are too harsh, resulting in a lot of arguments. As a result, the final policy after the consultation has not been issued so far. The resulting knock-on effect is that domestic power battery enterprises have realized the industry development expectations of the superior authorities for "supporting the excellent and strengthening the strong", and began to increase investment in many aspects, and the power battery industry also ushered in a round of "production expansion competition". Perhaps because some enterprises do not fully understand national policies, the blind expansion of production during this period allowed some relatively weak enterprises to enter the "elimination channel".

And a white list is different from the first two rounds were by the ministry of industry and according to the conditions of automobile power battery industry standard management, the organization to carry out the white list management and release work is the Chinese power battery industry innovation alliance, and the white list of enterprises to implement dynamic management, every three years the dialogue list for a review of enterprise, white list companies such as an illegal their white list status will be revoked.

It can be said that the first round of whitelist for the power battery industry brought prosperity and sobriety, industry concentration has been improved, and the pattern of industry reshuffle is beginning to emerge. The second round of whitelist due to the production capacity and other indicators too high to make the industry a lot of controversy, the end of the end. The white list of power battery once again out of the news, immediately triggered many questions in the industry, in the end "what is intended"?

Is it linked to subsidies?

According to some media reports, the white list of this round of return is mainly from the perspective of industry self-discipline, so it will not be linked to the subsidy of new energy vehicles. But China's chemical and physical power industry association secretary-general yan-long liu said in an interview with battery China, due to the power battery products before entering the new energy vehicles recommended directory, go through a series of strict examination and review procedures, therefore, if the white list is not linked to subsidies, completely independent choice by the enterprise, so the possibility of power battery enterprises participate in the white list declaration will be greatly reduced, could eventually lead to a figurehead white list, eventually cannot execute it.

Fang jianhua, partner and President of the new energy vehicle venture capital sub-fund of the national fund for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, agrees. If the whitelist is not linked to an existing subsidy list, he argues, that means it is not binding, companies have less incentive to declare voluntarily and the whitelist loses its value. Liu also stressed that even if the whitelist is linked to relevant policies, relevant institutions should not increase the burden of enterprises in whitelist review and management release, so that enterprises can not be "tired" to cope with the "tasks" of whitelist, increase the economic burden of enterprises, and affect the normal development of power battery enterprises.

How to recognize downstream car companies?

In recent years, thanks to the sustained and rapid development of the new energy vehicle market and the rapid growth of the power battery industry, the downstream car companies have become a touchstone for battery manufacturers. Liu yanlong believes that once the white list is issued, it is also questionable whether it can truly reflect the situation of battery enterprises in the industry. The recognition of automobile enterprises has yet to be tested, and the evaluation of product quality and production capacity of enterprises may be the best for the whole automobile enterprises. Fang jianhua also said, to win the recognition of the downstream vehicle enterprises, can be used as a reference for vehicle enterprises to choose power batteries. Considering that new energy vehicle technology updates quickly and requires high technology and performance of power battery products, there may be lag in the technical evaluation and review of whitelist. Whether it can provide reference for automobile enterprises is also open to question.

There are also challenges in assessing vehicle power cells and hydrogen fuel cells. According to fang jianhua, the evaluation of power battery enterprises involves a wide range of aspects, including hardware conditions (equipment, scale, capital), software conditions (r&d ability, manufacturing ability, management level and supply chain strength), and product quality, especially operation effect. It is by no means easy to make comprehensive, impartial and real-time evaluation. It is difficult to provide a convincing white list to the society simply through material report and expert review, and it may even bring negative impact to the enterprise. Liu also worried that the white list could not truly reflect the real situation of the power battery industry. If the evaluation work is not solid enough, it is easy to see data falsification and human pushing, resulting in unfair evaluation results.

Zhang yu, secretary general of the power battery application branch of the China chemical and physical power industry association, also expressed concern that if the standard of the whitelist evaluation is not perfect, the evaluation process is not scientific and transparent, and even human factors interfere, then the evaluation of the whitelist will be difficult to achieve "fairness and justice." However, once the white list without credibility is issued, it may not only fail to achieve the purpose of promoting the development of the industry, but even hinder the healthy development of the industry.

In this way, the establishment of the whitelist evaluation criteria, the transparency and impartiality of the evaluation process, the implementation of the evaluation work and the implementation of the evaluation results will all pose severe challenges. How to ensure the authoritativeness of whitelist will also test the evaluation and review institutions of whitelist.

The role of "supporting the good and strengthening the strong" has weakened

The white list of the return, the starting point is still to promote the best, guide all kinds of resources to quality enterprises. It is also necessary for the development of China's new energy automobile industry to cultivate several Chinese enterprises with international discourse power in the power battery industry. Superior authorities have been actively guiding and trying in this regard.

Since 2015, the white list of power battery industry led by the ministry of industry and information technology has played a promoting role in guiding all kinds of resources to favor high-quality resources in terms of production capacity, technology and other requirements. China's new energy vehicle power battery installed 36 units in 2017, according to data from the power battery application branch. 45Gwh, in which the top 5 power battery enterprises total installed capacity reached 23. 05GWh, accounting for 61 of the total installed capacity. Industrial concentration increased by 8%. Therefore, some people in the industry believe that it is a little backward to support the industry from the aspects of enterprise scale, production and research and development, and it will not play a great guiding role for the development of the power battery industry.

Some power battery business leaders also said that at this time the industry's most difficult problem, not in the "help the good and help the strong", if really only for the reasons of industry self-discipline, may not be priority declaration. It is not difficult to see that although the white list again strong return, but the power battery industry seems to be "not cold".

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.