ASIACHEM believes that, batch consistency of LIB and LIB materials play important roles in manufacturing of power LIB cores and battery packs of high consistency, good stability and excellent performances. Large scaled power LIB enterprises capacity planning will also make large scale of LIB material production capacity, so that LIB manufacture can be matched better.
China NEV industry currently is fast developing. CAAM data shows that, in 2017, China NEV production and sales were 794k and 777k, respectively, YOY increase 53.8% and 53.3%, respectively; from Jan to Feb, 2018, China NEV production and sales were 82k and 75k, respectively, YOY increase 225.5% and 200%, respectively. ASIACHEM estimates that, China NEV total production and sales will reach 1M in 2018.
Before, Apr 2017, <Vehicle Industry Mid and Long Term Development Plan> joint released by MIIT, NDRC and MOST pointed out that, China NEV production and sales to reaching 2M to 2020, to 2025, NEV production and sales should reach 20% of vehicle, which is around 7M/a. ASIACHEM estimates that, if each China NEV average volume is 60kWh, then in 2020 and 2025, in China, only EV needs 120GWh and 420GWh LIB.
Base on this, many LIB enterprises one after another expand capacity to cope with future requirement. Meanwhile, it also makes LIB material enterprises distribute corresponding capacity. ASIACHEM <China LIB Annual Report 2018> data shows that, since 2016, China LIB material production size has obvious trend of large scale.
ASIACHEM <China LIB Annual Report 2018> believes that, reasons of trend of large scale of China LIB materials production size are mainly as below:
1. Reduce production cost
<Vehicle Industry Mid and Long Term Development Plan> points out, to 2020, China power battery cost should be reduced to below CNY 1/Wh.
ASIACHEM believes that, one of important methods to reduce cost is scaled production. This <Plan> makes most LIB material enterprises greatly expand capacity to relieve LIB material cost pressure brought by reduce of power battery cost through scaled production.
2. Matching large scaled LIB production better
Nov 2016, MIIT released <Vehicle Power Battery Industry Normality Condition> (exposure draft). This <Normality Condition> mentioned that, monomer power LIB enterprise annual capacity should no lower than 8GWh; system enterprise annual capacity should no lower than 80k sets or 4GWh. Base on this, power LIB tycoons large scaled expand capacities. ASIACHEM data shows that, China power LIB capacity is estimated to reach 377.1GWh/a in 2020. Besides, public information shows that, in 2020, only CATL, OptimumNano, BYD, Guoxuan High-tech and Tianjin Lishen etc. 5 power battery enterprises capacity planning has reached 180GWh/a.
ASIACHEM research indicates that, when NEV is in the process of use, it needs lots of power LIB cores series and parallel to ensure energy supply. Thus, unified of each power battery core standard and stability of performance play important roles in characteristics and quality of battery packs. ASIACHEM believes that, batch consistency of LIB and LIB materials play important roles in manufacturing of power LIB cores and battery packs of high consistency, good stability and excellent performances. Large scaled power LIB enterprises capacity planning will also make large scale of LIB material production capacity, so that LIB manufacture can be matched better.
