Europe abandons the commanding heights of new-energy vehicles

The global automotive landscape is being reshaped, starting with batteries. The Ningde Times (CATL) has released another blockbuster piece of news after winning the top spot in global power battery sales in 2018. "CATL hopes to increase its annual capacity well beyond its original target of 14 GWh by 2022, and now estimates that we could reach 100 GWh by 2026," Matthias Zentgraf, head of Ningde Times Europe, told an automotive conference in Bochum. Since signing its first € 4 billion order with BMW last year, Ningde Times has seen new customers, including Daimler, PSA, Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover. Matthias Zentgraf said the number of pre-orders at the Ningde Times German plant is still increasing. As early as July 2018, Ningde Times signed an investment agreement with the state government of Thuringia, Germany. According to the agreement, Ningde Times will set up a 240 million euros (about 1.87 billion yuan) battery production base and intelligent manufacturing technology research and development center in Elford, Thuringia, Federal Republic of Germany. Ningde Times Thuringia Battery Production Base will be constructed in two phases, mainly engaged in research and development and production of lithium-ion batteries. It is planned to be put into production in 2021, and when it reaches production capacity in 2022, it will form a production capacity of 14 Gwh. However, as Europe's new energy market grew by leaps and bounds and the Ningde era made further breakthroughs in its European operations, the company adjusted its plans and increased its capacity To seven times the original. Ninety-three containers will be shipped out every day when the Ningde Times European plant reaches 100Gwh capacity, and the new plant will be connected to Germany's local rail network. If the 100Gwh power battery plant in Ningde Times Europe is completed on schedule, it is now expected to become the world's largest power battery plant. For the Ningde era, the greater significance is not only to become the "core" of BMW new energy vehicles, but also the "core" of European major automobile factories new energy vehicles, after all, 100 Gwh batteries are not a small number. Europe is notoriously without a "decent" power battery company, although German and French leaders are worried and have launched a power battery alliance to counter China, Japan and South Korea's power battery companies. They did not want to be the birthplace of automobiles, leading the way in traditional internal combustion engines for a century, but were constrained by these Asian younger generations in the heart of new energy. But I have to apologize to them. Power batteries are essentially different from traditional automotive parts, involving the discipline of bias electrochemistry, it is difficult to make substantive breakthroughs without long-term accumulation. Europe has been 20 years behind since Sony invented lithium batteries in the 1990s in terms of research and market expansion of lithium batteries. Even the United States is abandoning lithium batteries and throwing them into the arms of China, Japan and South Korea. To them, this is cruel, but it is true. Daimler, another German luxury-car magnate, has also moved to another Chinese power-battery factory following BMW's deep binding to the Ningde era Shangfu can send olive branches. On 5 December 2018, the leading domestic power battery company Fooneng Technology held a strategic release conference, announcing that the Company had signed a supply agreement with Daimler from 2021 to 2027, with a total supply scale of 140GWh for 7 years. With 140 gigawatts of pure electric vehicles available at 50 kwh, Daimler has undoubtedly entrusted the future of its new-energy vehicles to Fooneng. If it is not enough to say that the automobile factories have bound Chinese battery companies to the normal market shape at the end of the industrial chain, which means that Europe has abandoned power lithium batteries, then Bosch, the component giant of the European automobile industry, has formally established abandonment of power batteries, which can certainly explain some problems. Bosch, the world's No. 1 components giant, has considered making its own batteries to compete with Asian rivals. In December 2017, Bosch said it was considering investing Euro20 billion (approximately RMB152.5 billion) to achieve battery capacity of 200GWh by 2030. But at the end of March 2018, Bosch publicly announced that it had decided not to produce its own batteries, citing too high an investment risk. On 13 February 2019, Guoxuan High-tech, a leading domestic power battery company, announced that Hefei Guoxuan, a wholly-owned subsidiary, had entered into a procurement framework agreement with Bosch. In the future, Hefei Guoxuan, as a qualified supplier of Bosch, will provide lithium-ion batteries, modules and battery packs (parts, products) for it. Affected by this news, Guoxuan high-tech shares rose the same day. Bosch purchases Guoxuan Hi-Tech batteries, which not only means Guoxuan Hi-Tech formally entered the battery supplier system of the world's largest component giant, the greater significance is between self-developed batteries and outsourcing, Bosch decided to choose the latter. As the European auto industry's "underpants", Bosch resisted pressure from the German government and chose to compromise with the market. So far, it can almost be announced that Europe has given up the chance to occupy the commanding heights of new energy vehicles, Chinese companies have come!