There are now quite several battery startups and battery departments within big corporations that seem to have promising products arriving on the market or soon to arrive on the market. There are also some that have been on the market for years but are now getting a lot more competitive. At least 46 company around the world have been expanding their lithium-ion production. LG Chem, BYD, Panasonic, AESC, CATL, Guoxuan High-Tech, Samsung, Lishen, CBAK, and CALB are the top ten company by installed capacity of battery. In 2017, LG chem installed 17GWh lithium-ion manufacturing. LG Chem hold a main influence of battery supplier, compared to BYD by 16GWh and Panasonic by 8.5GWh. When we look at the location of those companies, almost of their manufactories located in China. It is become trigger to user or reseller to build good networking with manufacturing company in China so then they can get lower prices and efficient business process.
A global battery manufacturer by country. Except China, several company install the manufacturing factory in US. Tesla, collaborated with Panasonic, grows battery manufacturing for EV and power wall as solar roof storage. We believe Panasonic is best-positioned in terms of technological capability and economies-of-scale. Panasonic’s Tesla Model 3 batteries are the most competitive, in our view, with cell price per kWh expected to be lowest at US$129, while having the highest energy density with 171Wh/kg. In addition, Panasonic has the highest order backlog among the battery makers. In 2017, Tesla capacity released in 7GWh stages. We believe the completion of Gigafactory ( 35GWh cell capacity) in the US will further enhance its EV battery growth story, while non-Tesla battery orders continue to support the overall profitability. LG Chem’s batteries are NMC pouch-type polymer batteries, with EV/ESS battery plants located in Korea (5GW), USA (2GW), and China (2GW). Poland’s 1GW battery plant construction will be used to supply European automakers with batteries in the near future. LG Chem plans to add battery lines based on demand visibility and new orders.
Global lithium-ion capacity in 2016 reach 27.9 GWh and will increase till 173.5 in 2020. It means that global lithium-ion battery production capacity will increase by 521% between 2016 and 2020. By 2020, mass production of lithium-ion batteries will still be centered in just four countries, those are USA, South Korea, China, and Poland.
Based on Benchmark Mineral Intelligent (BMI) and what we can see on the reality, China become the biggest charge for lithium-ion mega-factories. The cutting edge company, such as Panasonic, LG-Chem, and Boston Power, are building new mega-factory plants in China, while companies such as Samsung and BYD are expanding existing ones. Although Japan has ambitious targets to produce half of the world’s batteries by 2020, their mega-factory companies will be installed in China. All lithium-ion plants in China currently have a capacity of 16.4GWh.
