Market research institutes estimate that by 2025, global sales of new energy vehicles will reach 16.4 million units. At that time, the global demand for power lithium ion battery will reach 1160GWh(109Wh), formally entering the TWh(1012Wh) era. In 2021, China's power battery output totaled 219.7GWh, which means that the next few years will still be a period of rapid growth of power batteries.
How will the market structure change in the TWh era? What are the opportunities for industrial chain enterprises?
The market structure is becoming more stable
In recent years, new energy vehicles boom. In 2021, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in China reached 3.029 million units, up 143 percent year on year. Driven by the industrial chain heat, China's power battery enterprises are also developing rapidly to seize the booming new energy vehicle market. In recent years, the list of the top ten enterprises with installed capacity in China's new energy vehicle battery and its ranking have been changing, China's new energy vehicle battery enterprise pattern has not yet formed.
Xiao Taiming, deputy general manager of Yiqi Lihe, said that the reason why China's power battery market rankings continue to change, because the market is growing rapidly, the technology is also constantly innovating. In this process, who can grasp the market demand, who can obtain the trust of downstream manufacturers, can obtain a higher market share.
At present, there are still opportunities for power battery companies to achieve greater market share through technological innovation and cost reduction. When the new energy power battery enters the TWh era, the competition pattern of enterprises will become stable. In 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales increase by 143% year on year, when the new energy vehicle installation into the TWh era, the market growth will slow, at that time, the annual growth rate of new energy vehicles will remain at about 10%~20%, the new energy power battery market will also appear more fixed head enterprises.
At this stage, it is not clear who will become the leading company of TWh era. However, in the view of Xiao Too Ming, the battery manufacturers will have more opportunities to cooperate with the manufacturers, the layout of the motor circuit will also have a strong industry initiative.
Battery bulk
In the ERA of TWh, the consumption of power battery increases, the technical route is becoming fixed, and the materials in each link will be more standardized. The positive and negative anode materials and lithium salts of power battery machine will have more characteristics of bulk commodities -- homogenization, mass trading and wide use.
The bulk of the battery and its materials, for the head of the field enterprises, will be good news. In the case of commodity commoditization, corporate discourse power is closely related to its market share. The leading enterprises have the capacity to supply large volume products, and the large-scale development of batteries and materials will provide greater profit space for such enterprises.
Massification brings not only the standardization of products, but also the refinement of the division of supply. Each supplier will supply more segmented products. Therefore, Xiao Taiming believes that for those suppliers with low market share, they need to look for differentiated competition strategy, look for more segmentation of the market, develop towards personalized and professional direction, and look for market opportunities in relatively marginal areas.
Cobalt less, cobalt free, new materials
Material determines battery performance. Power battery materials are bound to change, said Huang Xuejie, a researcher at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
As for possible technological changes in the power battery field, Huang proposed several directions. First, use less cobalt or even no cobalt. Second, use less lithium to deliver more power. Third, the search for lower energy consumption of anode materials. Fourth, all solid state.
Ternary Lithium Battery is the battery type with the largest energy density and the strongest endurance on the market at present, and cobalt is an important raw material of ternary lithium battery. In recent years, the cobalt content in ternary Lithium Batteries has gradually decreased. From NCM333(the ratio of nickel, cobalt and manganese is 3:3:3) to NCM523, NCM622 and then to NCM811, the cobalt content required in ternary lithium batteries gradually decreases. Cobalt is the most expensive metal among the cathode materials for ternary lithium batteries. Cobalt prices have risen from less than 500,000 yuan per ton to around 550,000 yuan per ton so far this year.
Huang said there are currently two routes for technological development: one is to reduce cobalt content from 10% to 5%, and possibly to 2% to 3% in the future; The other route is completely cobalt free.
As for the next generation of battery materials, Huang Xuejie said that many schools and research institutions are studying new material systems, including solid state batteries, new lithium salts, silicon carbon anode materials, etc. Such materials have many opportunities and are also the focus of the research institute.
Solid state battery is the development direction of power battery. At present, the industrialization of solid state battery has just begun. At present, the so-called "solid state battery" on the market can only be called "semi-solid state battery", but in the existing Lithium Ion Battery, more or less add part of solid electrolyte, and then improve the safety of the battery to a certain extent. Huang xuejie said that the so-called "solid-state battery" and "semi-solid-state battery" in the current market still use common power battery materials, and their essence has not changed.
After 2030, when TWh comes along, all-solid-state batteries could go mainstream. In the all-solid-state battery, lithium hexafluorophosphate, currently the main material of the battery electrolyte, will be replaced, and the membrane will take the form of a new solid electrolyte membrane. The cathode material will also be changed, but the cathode material will probably still be the oxide material commonly used in the market, Huang said.
However, it is unlikely that solid-state batteries will achieve a technological breakthrough or even be mass-produced in the next three years, huang said, adding that the changes that solid-state batteries might bring can be ignored for now.
Hydrogen instead of lithium?
The driving range and charging and discharging speed of electric vehicles are the most concerned indicators for consumers. And these two indexes are determined by the anode and cathode materials and electrolyte materials that constitute the cell.
Due to the high energy density of lithium-ion batteries with lithium cobalt acid and lithium iron phosphate as cathode materials, lithium-containing materials have become the most common choice of cathode materials for new energy vehicle power batteries. Byd's blade battery, for example, uses lithium iron phosphate as its cathode material, while Tesla's car battery uses ternary lithium.
According to estimates, each GWh lithium iron phosphate battery needs about 520 tons of lithium carbonate. The current mainstream ternary lithium battery NCM811 requires 620 tons of lithium carbonate, 750 tons of nickel and 100 tons of cobalt per GWh battery. The price rise of these three categories of metals will greatly bring about the fluctuation of power battery industry chain.
In this case, will hydrogen fuel cells, which require less metal, become an alternative to new energy batteries?
Unlike dry battery batteries, which store energy, hydrogen fuel cells are more like power generation devices that convert chemical energy directly into electricity. At present, the energy supply of urban ground transportation is mainly battery, while hydrogen fuel mainly solves the energy supply problem of long-distance transportation. Hydrogen fuel cells have been widely used in aircraft, ocean-going ships, long-distance trucks and other vehicles.
"The development of hydrogen fuel cells and the development of lithium are not substitutes, they are mutually reinforcing." "Hydrogen fuel cells are power generation devices, while lithium batteries are Energy Storage devices," said Mo Ke, chief analyst at Zhenli Research Institute. energy storage is also needed for many vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells."
Mr. Huang also believes that if demand for hydrogen fuel cells grows, the market for lithium batteries will expand, not replace them.
