Lithium battery hegemony: Japan KO Korea

Japan's sales of lithium-ion car batteries with 161,502 (77%) remain an absolute advantage in the US market. Another very interesting point is that only Sanyo Electric and LG Chem have a market share of nearly three-quarters. Among them, Sanyo Electric alone accounted for half of the US lithium-ion automotive battery market, and LG Chem's market share is also nearly 1/4. The above data shows that Japan has more obvious advantages in the battle for lithium battery in South Korea in the past two years, and its leading position is likely to continue to be consolidated in the next three years.

Recently, Tesla announced that Panasonic plans to provide about 2 billion lithium-ion battery batteries in the future, which may bring Panasonic revenues of up to 7 billion US dollars; AESC is also expected to significantly increase the supply of lithium batteries to Nissan. In addition, Japan's Leafs electric vehicle recently set up a factory in Michigan, USA.

In this context, it is still open to question whether Korea will maintain its leading position in the current global lithium battery market. On the one hand, before 2017, electric vehicles will gradually replace electronic products as the largest source of demand for lithium batteries, Samsung will be affected by this trend; on the other hand, GM and Hyundai have not yet shown a significant increase in lithium batteries in the near future. LG Chem will be affected by the signs of demand.

It is true that LG Chem is likely to supply lithium batteries to GM Volts plug-in hybrids, and Hyundai has announced that it will soon launch all-electric vehicles, but these are all in GM and Hyundai about the US market from 2014 to 2015. The decision to commercialize fuel cell electric vehicles is eclipsed.

What is puzzling is that although Japan has great potential in the future of the global lithium battery market, it has not yet shown great interest in maintaining this leading position by importing lithium mines. Perhaps time may prove that this is Japan. A not very positive attitude can help it become the "future overlord" in the global lithium battery market.

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