A Rise of Challengers
After a round of sharp decline, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL), the leader of the global power battery industry, was once referred to as “QueDe” instead of “NingWang” by investors.
As the first supplier of joint-venture enterprises in China for power battery production, the rise of CATL to a large extent benefits from its precise grasp of the window period for each policy dividend.
In March 2015, the relevant department released the “white list,” which caused the foreign players in the domestic market to either sell or shut down factories. Domestic battery companies, however, seized the opportunity of new energy via the “white list” and took back the market share from the foreign players.
However, CATL was not the only enterprise that benefited from the “white list”, other companies such as BYD and Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited also enjoyed the dividend. During this period, the energy density of batteries was included in the subsidy assessment standard, and CATL thus ushered in the next window period.
With the help of ternary lithium power battery, CATL won a large number of orders and surpassed Panasonic to become the leader in the industry. CATL gradually took over the power battery industrial chain, building dual advantages in capacity and price. Players like Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, which were concentrated on building iron-phosphate power battery, encountered a series of problems such as losses, restructuring, and technological route adjustments due to the relatively low energy density of the batteries.
Following the trends and eating the dividend, CATL eventually sat on the throne of the industry leader. However, lithium batteries are always a rich mine, and various factors indicate that such a monopoly is not desirable. As the “dark war” of the power battery industry begins, CATL’s leadership seems to be shaking.
Players coveting CATL’s position include both old rivals and new forces.
Domestically, after suffering from the subsidy policy, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited did not give up. Instead, the company actively adjusted its production line and expanded its production capacity since the restructuring in the second half of 2018. At the same time, Great Wall Motors established a power battery company called “Fengchao Energy” and took orders for the whole market.
Old players like EVE Energy and XWDE also eagerly rushed into the power battery race, relying on technological accumulation and manufacturing experience to enter the industry and increase the installed capacity.
In addition, foreign capital also vigorously invests in China to try to grab the divided cake. According to insiders, foreign investment returned to China in 2019, and now the production capacity has gradually been released.
All these enterprises aim to differentiate CATL’s power battery industry.
Data shows that in 2021, the market share of Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited increased to 5.8%, becoming third among the domestic power battery companies. Fengchao Energy has also squeezed into the top ten of the domestic power battery installed capacity. LG Chemical’s market share even surpassed CATL at one point.Obviously, gamers who have tasted the sweetness are accelerating their pace of advancing.
An industry insider told Photon Planet: “Currently, many manufacturers are expanding production. Even if the production capacity under construction far exceeds the installed capacity, they still need to expand. The production capacity advantage of CATL may be gradually filled by increasing production capacity.”
Taking Zhongchuang Xinhang as an example, its battery production capacity plan by 2025 will exceed 500GWh. Also in 2025, SVOLT aims for a production capacity of 600GWh. On the production side, battery manufacturers seem to be rolling up.
However, even if various players have stood firm, it is still unrealistic to defeat CATL in a short period of time due to the scale and customer channels. As the internal competition intensifies, the players caught in the desperate situation are unanimously playing the “listing card”.
In November 2021, Liu Jingyu, Chairman of Zhongchuang Xinhang, stated that the company had completed the shareholding reform and planned to enter the capital market. Prior to this, it was reported that SVOLT, which had been crazily financing and aggressively expanding production in recent years, was also actively seeking listing.
If the listing of secondary battery companies is not enough to cause a stir, heavyweight players entering the capital market is enough to stir up the mud.
In December 2020, LG Chem also split off LG Energy Solution, which will launch the largest IPO in Korean history and plans to officially list on the Korea Stock Exchange on January 27.
Regarding the future, Kwon Young-soo, CEO of LG Energy Solution, is confident and stated that their orders are more numerous, customer groups are more diverse, and market share will exceed CATL.
Kwon Young-soo’s words are not unfounded. From the perspective of factory distribution, LG has layouts in China, Europe, and the United States, while CATL focuses on the domestic market. According to publicly available information, there is no significant difference in production capacity between the two.
Facing the coveting of the strong, CATL naturally has defenses. According to an internal employee, CATL is currently vigorously pushing for production, and overtime in the production line has become a normal practice, and employees from other departments have also been transferred to the production line, with huge work pressure.
Even so, CATL still finds it difficult to prevent the current situation of sharing the cake. One performance is that the gross profit margin of CATL’s power battery system products slipped from 32.67% in the first half of 2018 to 23.00% in the first half of 2021. It is worth noting that this time point was on the eve of the “listing boom” of related companies.
Car Companies Change Suppliers
Under the pattern of the rising clan, CATL’s past partners seem to be fleeing.
It is rumored that Zeng Yuqun, Chairman of CATL, once had a big quarrel with He XPeng over the introduction of Zhongchuang Xinhang. Zhongchuang Xinhang, in addition to winning XPeng Motors, also replaced CATL as Guangqi New Energy’s first supplier.
However, it is not only Zhong Chuang Xin Hang that has leveraged the empire. BMW has signed a contract with EVE Energy, and NIO has formed a partnership with Guoxuan High-Tech. Established automakers such as Mercedes-Benz and Geely have also built their own power battery factories. It is rumored that Tesla, NIO, and Volkswagen have also joined BYD.
The logic behind this is easy to understand from the perspective of automakers. If there is an opportunity to support a second supplier, they will take it, as the power battery is the heart of an electric vehicle and no one wants to be tied to a single supplier. Conversely, from the perspective of CATL, it only wants to be the only supplier to automakers.
According to media reports, in addition to paying for the battery itself, automakers who obtain batteries from CATL need to pay a deposit equivalent to their expected battery demand for the next 5-10 years in order to get the battery. To recover the deposit, automakers have to meet the annual purchase quota based on their expected demand.
It is clear that in the unbalanced power battery supply and demand sector, CATL has absolute bargaining power. Automakers are forced to let CATL bind their demand and share the risk in order to ensure supply.
An anonymous person who once worked in BYD’s transmission department said, “A single supplier is neither safe nor in the interest of automakers, and CATL’s continuous expansion of the industrial chain also makes downstream companies uneasy.”
On the other hand, automakers have begun to leave CATL, perhaps due to conflicts over their respective demands.
Currently, the new energy race is becoming increasingly crowded. Automakers often need to establish differentiated advantages through innovation. However, according to 36Kr, CATL’s willingness to cooperate seems not very positive when facing different demands from automakers.
For example, NIO had once wanted to cooperate with CATL to develop a 150 kWh semi-solid battery pack solution, but CATL was not willing to mobilize engineering resources for this.
Being under constraints and having difficulty in finding differentiation, automakers leaving the “CATL hegemony” is only natural. From January to November 2021, the installed capacity of second-tier battery companies on the market grew by about 69% year-on-year, indicating that the market is undergoing a subtle change.
However, at this stage, most automakers’ so-called departure is for seeking a second way out, and few dare to directly sever ties with CATL. For example, XPeng Motors stated that the partnership with Zhong Chuang Xin Hang is to improve the supply chain of parts and ensure supply and production.
An industry insider said, “It is difficult for automakers to ensure stable battery supply without CATL, and even if they can, it is difficult to bypass patents.”
It can be seen that the strength of CATL is still there, and its production capacity advantages and technological barriers have shaped its moat. But is it solid or can it last?
Variability of Technological Path
Currently, with the support of CATL’s enormous production capacity, the so-called moat has yet to face a real test. After all, many automakers are still in the battery grab stage, and stable supply from CATL is crucial.
As mentioned earlier, all players on the racetrack are striving to expand production, and the so-called large-scale manufacturing capacity of CATL will inevitably be diluted.
Once the supply-demand relationship changes, whether the “CATL king” can retain its past influence can only be determined by technological barriers. If technological advantages wane, it will be difficult for CATL to prevent automotive companies from flocking to second-tier suppliers.
Therefore, for CATL, the depth of its technological barriers will determine whether it ultimately becomes BOE or TSMC.
As is well known, there has always been a dispute over the technical routes of lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium in the field of power batteries. The advantage of lithium iron phosphate is that it has high safety while the disadvantage is that its energy density is relatively low. The opposite is true for ternary lithium.
Although CATL has layout plans for both technical routes, the “CATL king” who has relied on ternary lithium to dominate the industry clearly has deeper accumulation of ternary lithium battery technology than lithium iron phosphate.
However, since BYD’s blade battery had emerged, the technological path seems to be turning towards lithium iron phosphate.
Data from the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance shows that in the first seven months of 2021, the year-on-year growth of lithium iron phosphate production has reached 310.6%, while that of ternary lithium battery production has only increased by 148.2%; In terms of installed capacity, the year-on-year increase of lithium iron phosphate has accumulated to 333.0%, while ternary lithium battery has only increased by 124.3%.
One industry insider believes that “with the rise in raw material prices and the retreat of subsidy policies, the cost-performance advantages of lithium iron phosphate batteries are gradually emerging and the performance of lithium iron phosphate batteries is also improving with the upgrade and iteration of technology.”
It can be seen that the pattern of power battery technology is not fixed, and the window of ternary lithium for CATL is fading away.
Qi Haisheng, the president of Beijing Teyesun New Energy, once told the media, “there are competition issues in battery products with different technical routes, and the comprehensive application of various new technologies, new processes, and new materials in interdisciplinary technology may bring unpredictable progress and changes to the industry.”
Therefore, in the power battery race track, no one knows where the technical route will ultimately lead. Even CATL itself has developed sodium-ion batteries and is laying out multiple possible futures.
On the other hand, so-called technological accumulation, if not protected by strict patents, is difficult to become a real moat.
In July 2021, CATL sued Zhongchuang Innovation Navigation for patent infringement. Zhongchuang Innovation Navigation responded by saying that “after a comprehensive risk investigation by a professional intellectual property rights team, we are confident that we have not infringed on the intellectual property rights of others.”
Zhongchuang Innovation Navigation’s confidence cast a shadow over whether CATL’s so-called patent barriers would hold up. Leaving aside the still unclear judgment results, the strong use of the “patent card” behavior itself more or less reflects CATL’s technological anxiety.
Perhaps CATL, as the industry leader, does not have overwhelming technological advantages. Even if it occupies half of the domestic market, CATL seems unable to become TSMC.
EndRumor has it that there are five characters on the office wall of CATL’s founder, Zeng Yuqun — “Stronger Gambling Instincts.” Based on the past, Zeng has indeed gambled out the invincible battery empire of CATL today. Facing internal and external difficulties, CATL still needs to bet on the next generation. However, whether it be laying out the energy storage track or carrying out battery recycling and swapping businesses, they cannot reproduce the blue ocean of the past. Taking swapping as an example, according to the Tianyancha database, there are already over 80,000 swapping-related companies nationwide, with players such as State Grid, China Energy, and Southern Power Grid also joining the game. Whether Zeng can dominate the market remains uncertain. As for car companies attempting to “untie the knot,” CATL’s swapping model is like an abyss. Once jumped into it, the firms may completely lose their dominance in power battery area. Perhaps, CATL will still find itself in an awkward situation with more rivals and fewer friends, as the swapping track is far from being a monopolized field. Car makers which have already decided to flee the power battery lock-up do not have reasons to jump into the trap. Therefore, the change in the landscape of the new energy track no longer allows CATL to continue to rely on old ways and rest on their laurels. Only by breaking away from the supply chain can CATL seize new growth opportunities.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.