Six major trends of new energy power batteries in 2021

As the core components of new energy vehicles, the cost, technology, and production capacity of power batteries have a huge impact on the industry.

 "Electric Vehicle Observer" combined the market, data, and relevant information disclosed by companies to predict the power battery industry in the next year, and summarize the past year, attached to the forecast.

　　 1. Six predictions of power battery

　　 It is predicted that the energy density of a battery cell will increase and the cost will decrease, and the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries will continue to rise

With the continuous expansion of production scale, the cost of power batteries is expected to continue to decline.

The energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries still has potential. A few days ago, Guoxuan Hi-Tech released a 210Wh/kg lithium iron phosphate battery, and its goal this year is 230Wh/kg.

The increase in energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries will lead to increased acceptance by car companies. In the second half of 2020, Tesla Model 3 has begun to be equipped with lithium iron phosphate batteries, which has produced obvious demonstrations. In the later period, car companies such as Volkswagen and Weilai are also likely to launch lithium iron phosphate models, and the market share is expected to further increase. From the perspective of installed capacity, the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate passenger vehicles in 2020 is 7.08GWh, and this figure is only 1.75GWh in 2019, an increase of more than two times. From the perspective of vehicle models, roughly 44 passenger cars will use lithium iron phosphate batteries in 2020, and this figure will only be 27 in 2019. However, lithium iron phosphate batteries have a serious problem of short-term battery life in winter, which may slow down the rapid growth of the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries to a certain extent, but the trend of increasing models should continue.

It is predicted that the second-head battery companies will continue to expand production, and the release of production capacity will accelerate

In the short term, since the new energy vehicle market recovered in the second half of last year, the overall industry trend has been obvious, and head battery companies are basically scheduled to produce full production. At present, all auto companies' new energy vehicles are accelerating in volume. In 2021, the production and sales of new energy vehicles will show steady and rapid growth. In the medium and long term, major global auto companies have made 5-10 years of planning for new energy vehicles, and demand for power batteries will face a blowout. Ningde Times, BYD, Guoxuan High-Tech, AVIC Lithium Battery, Funeng Technology, Honeycomb Energy and other companies are all expanding their production on a large scale to cope with demand pressure.

It is predicted that the three-doped silicon supplementary lithium and solid-state battery concept products will increase

At present, the silicon-based anode is mainly used for cylindrical digital, a small amount is used for soft-pack digital and cylindrical power batteries. For vehicles, the lithium battery supplied by Panasonic to Tesla uses a silicon-based negative electrode. As the energy density of lithium-ion batteries increases, the gram capacity of anode materials needs to increase accordingly. Guoxuan Hi-Tech 210Wh/kg lithium iron phosphate battery is a new type of lithium iron phosphate cathode material and silicon anode material, and it has been pre-lithiated. The nano silicon anode led by Tianmu was also reported by CCTV News, and the application of silicon anode materials is accelerating. On January 13, the Zhiji electric car also adopted the technology of doping silicon to supplement lithium, and the energy density of the monomer can reach 300wh/kg. In addition, there will be more and more plans to carry solid-state battery models. Nezha and Weilai have planned solid-state battery models. Although the current planned models are most likely to be semi-solid batteries, theoretically, the safety will be significantly improved.

predict the opportunities for fourth- and second-tier battery companies

Volkswagen cooperates with Guoxuan, Funeng cooperates with Daimler, Hive cooperates with PSA, Wanxiang 123 cooperates with Volkswagen, Yiwei Lithium is designated by BMW Brilliance, etc. The cooperation between domestic battery companies and international car companies has begun to enter Landing stage. According to the agreement, Funeng will start supplying Daimler in 2021, with a total supply scale of 140GWh in 7 years. In addition, domestic battery companies have also begun to expand to overseas markets. Many companies have built overseas production bases. However, due to the epidemic, overseas expansion may have slowed down.

Forecast five upstream material supply shortages highlight

Since January 2021, the price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate has continued to rise, and the current quotations are generally concentrated between 62,000 and 67,000 CNY/ton. According to the latest news from Italian news agency, a domestic trader quoted a high price of 80,000 CNY/ton for battery-grade lithium carbonate on January 19, which was a sharp increase of 17,000 CNY/ton from the price of 63,000 CNY/ton on January 14. The increase was as high as 21.2%, and the increase in January was over 40% year-on-year.

The 6um production capacity of leading copper foil companies is in short supply, and the price is expected to continue to remain high this year.

Predict the development of the six battery exchange system and promote the emergence of battery asset management companies.

In August last year, Weilai Automobile officially released the battery rental service BaaS (Battery as a Service), which can provide services such as separation of car and electricity, battery rental, rechargeable, exchangeable and upgradeable services. In addition, Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., Guotai Junan International Holdings Co., Ltd. and Hubei Science and Technology Investment Group Co., Ltd. jointly invested to establish Wuhan Weineng Battery Assets Co., Ltd. and was formally established. Nezha Automobile is planning to cooperate with several battery factories including Ningde Times and Huading Guolian to launch a separate model for vehicles and electricity. The project is tentatively scheduled as a "battery bank." In the separation mode of car and electricity, Nezha car owners do not need to buy batteries when buying electric cars, but only pay for bicycles that do not include batteries, and use the car by renting batteries from a "battery bank". The replacement operator Aodong New Energy is also exploring the BaaS (Battery as a Service) model and the application value of battery echelon utilization. With the growth of battery swapping models, battery banks will become a new outlet in the future.

2. Six characteristics of power batteries in 2020

Features The market share of lithium iron phosphate batteries has increased rapidly since the first half of the year

In the first half of last year, the overall market share of lithium iron phosphate was lower than the same period last year, but from the second half of the year, the market share has increased significantly. In the early stage, most of the lithium iron phosphate battery market was mainly in the field of commercial vehicles. However, since September last year, the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate passenger vehicles has increased significantly, and Tesla's supporting lithium iron phosphate batteries from the Ningde era have led to a significant increase in the overall market share. From January to December 2020, the installed capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries was 22.39GWh, a cumulative year-on-year increase of 12.7%. In addition, the market share of lithium iron phosphate batteries has also increased slightly throughout the year, from 32% in 2019 to 35%.

Characteristic The proportion of two cylindrical batteries has increased significantly

This is mainly due to the cylindrical battery of LG Chem used by Tesla. However, the market share of soft pack batteries is expected to increase in the future. Last year, Volkswagen invested 1.1 billion euros to acquire a 26.47% stake in Guoxuan Hi-Tech, becoming its largest shareholder; Daimler then subscribed 900 million yuan in strategic investment Funeng Technology to participate in its sci-tech innovation board IPO; Wanxiang One, Two and Three was also It is reported that it has received a 10 billion yuan order for power batteries from Volkswagen; Yiwei Lithium has also received a letter from BMW Brilliance's power battery supplier. These companies will most likely use soft pack batteries.

Characteristics, three new forces, battery companies emerging

In 2020, the market ranking of emerging battery companies represented by Ruipu and Honeycomb will rise rapidly. Especially in the second half of the year, Ruipu's installed capacity can often climb to about the top 5, and the total annual total ranks to eighth, which is directly related to its supporting best-selling model Baojun series. Hive relied on the Great Wall to enter the top 10 for a time.

New companies represented by Honeycomb have no capacity and ideological burdens, and the acceptance of new technologies and the rapid development of research and development speed promote the implementation of new technologies such as cobalt-free and quaternary batteries. For solid-state battery companies, such as Qingtao, Huineng, Weilan, etc., financing and cooperation are also progressing rapidly in 2020. Capital's emphasis on solid-state batteries has increased and investment has increased. For example, Tsingtao raised its E round of financing in 2020. Investors include SAIC, Guangzhou Automobile and other auto companies; Huineng also conducted a D round of financing, financing nearly 100 million U.S. dollars. The investors are FAW and Softbank.

Characteristic 4 The market share of LG Chem has increased significantly

In 2020, LG Chem’s installed capacity was 7.65GWh, compared to only 6.3MWh in the same period last year, an increase of 121347% year-on-year.

The installed capacity of foreign-funded battery companies in 2020 was 7.96 GWh. In 2019, this figure was 234.5 MWh, a year-on-year increase of 32 times. The increase in the market share of LG Chem mainly relies on supporting Tesla Model 3. Other foreign-funded enterprises, such as SKI, rely on the kits for Polar Fox αT; Panasonic mainly depends on the kits for Tesla and Japanese cars. In 2020, SKI will realize the matching, but Samsung has not realized the installation.

Features Five Ningde era foreign investment involves many fields

Rough statistics, there will be as many as 16 investment projects in the Ningde Times in 2020, including power batteries, intelligent manufacturing, autonomous driving, travel, semiconductors and many other fields. A typical example is the joint venture with Weilai to establish a battery asset company, integrated operation with Baicheng New Energy to invest in storage and charging, and Anmai Shengzhi to invest in the field of intelligent manufacturing equipment, and Henan Yuexin Intelligent to invest in unmanned mining cards and other fields.

In addition, at the end of last year, it was also reported that it co-invested with Alibaba in SAIC's Xiangdao Travel and set foot in the field of travel.

Features Sixth, the concentration of battery companies has further increased

In 2020, there will be 73 supporting battery cell manufacturers; in 2019, there will be 79, and this number will be 110 in 2018, and the number of supporting companies will be greatly reduced. At the same time, the concentration of installed capacity is also increasing, with TOP20 installed capacity accounting for 98.2% in 2020, and 96.2% in 2019.