On the development of power battery industry

"This year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles are expected to reach about 700,000, accounting for 2.4-2.5 percent of the total." Wu wei, director of the mechanical equipment department of the industrial coordination department of the national development and reform commission, said at the 2017 second international summit on power battery applications and the third China battery industry intelligent manufacturing seminar on nov 16.

The development of new energy vehicles has given birth to the prosperity of the relevant industrial chain. According to wu wei, China has emerged a number of power battery drive system enterprises with international influence, with the continuous development of charging service system, industry technical service testing and certification platform and operation monitoring data system, and in these aspects are in the forefront of the world.

There are also hidden worries behind the prosperity: enterprises' insufficient intelligent manufacturing capacity, cost squeeze, serious inventory, policy stability to be further improved, etc., which have become the obstacles to the development of the industry.

Industrial scale leading the world

"From the perspective of industrial scale, from last year to the first three quarters of this year, China's power battery shipments accounted for nearly 70% of the world, the world's top 10 power batteries, China occupies seven, the world's leading industrial scale. China chemical and physical power industry association power battery application branch senior adviser, the national science and technology achievements transformation fund new energy vehicle venture capital sub-fund partner and President of jianhua fang said.

Despite the rapid development of China's power battery industry, in the view of liu yanlong, secretary general of China chemical and physical power industry association, the whole domestic power battery industry in 2017 was "ups and downs". This is mainly reflected in the beginning of the year, by the new energy car subsidies and new energy car promotion catalog review, the first quarter of the vehicle enterprises and power battery enterprises are busy with product adjustment, especially the latter in the production line, technology, process, product specifications and other aspects of the adjustment range is large.

Under the good expectation of the market demand of power battery, the field of power battery becomes the hot spot that the capital market pursues. Data statistics, the first half of the lithium ion battery industry related project investment of more than 120 billion yuan. Scale expansion is accompanied by technological progress and innovation. According to liu yanlong, "the battery energy density has increased by more than 10% on average every year in the past five years. Now, the battery energy density produced by many leading industrial enterprises has reached 180Wh/kg, 200Wh/kg or even close to 220Wh/kg."

With the development of technology and mass production, the price of power battery has also entered a rapid decline. According to introducing, the average annual average that nearly 5 years battery price falls fast to amount to 10%, 15%. "In addition, China has a complete set of industrial chain in the power battery industry. From the perspective of battery core materials, the four core materials, such as positive electrode materials, lithium iron phosphate, ternary, and negative electrode materials, such as artificial graphite and natural stone, have all been completely localized. "" it will go a long way to improving competitiveness, especially reducing costs." " Liu yanlong admitted.

Overcapacity, profit compression

While power batteries are a good place to invest, they need to remain calm during this capital boom. "At present, the investment in the power battery industry is hot, and a lot of money wants to enter the industry. Yang yusheng, academician of the Chinese academy of engineering, told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

Yang yusheng bluntly, "the current power battery enterprises have a large inventory, the industry has overcapacity." According to the data, in the first three quarters of this year, the cumulative output of domestic power batteries reached 31.5Gwh, while the installed capacity of various new energy vehicles was only about 14.7Gwh.

"In addition, the raising of capacity threshold in the power battery specification at the end of last year has also prompted a large number of power battery enterprises to expand capacity. It is expected that the overall capacity of power battery will reach 228Gwh by the end of this year, an increase of 125% over last year, which will further cause severe overcapacity in the industry." Mr Liu is worried.

The direct effect of capacity expansion is a squeeze on profits. In the buyer's market, the industry competition is fierce, "many enterprises have to sell at a lower price, this kind of financial pressure is beyond the level of the whole industry to bear, is bound to cause serious consequences. Liu yanlong further said. In addition, since the beginning of this year, the power battery industry has been squeezed at both ends. One is the upstream materials lithium carbonate, cobalt raw materials prices continue to rise, profit margins are a little bit swallowed.

Many participants also said at the meeting, the future of the power battery industry should also continue to improve the manufacturing capacity, management level, safety. "In terms of intelligent manufacturing, China's power battery enterprises have just started to transform from the past manual semi-automation to automation, but there is still a long way to go before intelligent manufacturing; In terms of management level, there is still a big gap between China and enterprises from Japan, South Korea and Germany. In addition, to strengthen security concerns, we need to attach importance to security at the national, industrial and corporate levels. Fang added.

Industrial concentration is rising

With the rapid development of the industry, the concentration of the power battery industry continues to increase, and the leading role of the industry leader continues to emerge. Data shows that in the first nine months of this year, the market share of ningde times and byd has reached nearly 50%, and the market share of the top 10 companies has reached 75%. First-tier enterprises are gradually encroaching on market share through technological advantages, while second-tier and third-tier enterprises are facing the crisis of elimination of low-end production capacity. Raising the level of industrial concentration is the industrial requirement for the new energy automobile and power battery industry.

Liu yanlong judged that in the future, the new energy automobile and power battery industry will concentrate most of its production capacity in a few large enterprises, while other new energy automobile and power battery enterprises with scattered production capacity will face more brutal market competition. "The vehicle enterprises need to adjust, power battery enterprises also need to adjust, whether it is with the upstream and downstream enterprises for the integration of various resources, or with large enterprises restructuring or enter other more subdivided market, power battery enterprises should start to consider and plan. "Enterprises should take the initiative to change their development mode and shift from expanding production capacity to improving quality and efficiency," liu suggested. Through technological innovation, production automation and standardization of management, accelerate the realization of intelligent battery manufacturing.

Wu Weize suggested, "power battery enterprises should pay attention to further extends in two ways, one with car companies have more depth, more closely, more related cooperation and participation, with energy companies have more depth, more widely, and a variety of forms of cooperation, finally is product technology competitive battery enterprises into service and related industry development ability of enterprise."

Policy stability also became the common appeal of participants. Since 2009, subsidies and government fiscal and tax policies have played an important role in promoting the development of the power battery industry. "The subsidy policy for new energy vehicles should not be adjusted frequently. After the adjustment of technical conditions, the verification process of all supporting experiments should be redone. In the current context of greatly reduced subsidies and enlarged market scale, it is mainly up to the market to play a role in promoting industrial technological progress and let users choose technologies. The state should strengthen the supervision of the application market and blacklist power battery enterprises with more problems. "Liu yanlong pointed out.

"A truly market-oriented and competitive industry should not be affected by too many fiscal and tax policies. Fiscal and tax policies are supportive and complementary, but should never be the dominant factor of the market." "Relevant authorities should study policies to maintain stability and create a better market environment for the development of the industry, and non-fiscal and taxation policies may be more important and sustainable," wu said.

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