7 new factories added! Stellantis and CATL have new plans for power batteries

Since the beginning of 2024, the domestic and foreign new energy vehicle markets have continued to develop, and the upstream and downstream industrial chains have been actively deployed, mainly focusing on the construction of new production capacity in the field of power batteries :

Everview Lithium Energy: signed a cooperation agreement with Aksa, a Turkish company, and plans to establish a new joint venture in Turkey to engage in the production and sales of battery modules and other products; CATL: plans to start construction of the CATL Beijing factory in Beijing to supply brands such as Lideal and Xiaomi; Stellantis: Investing in Tiamat, a sodium battery start-up, to support its establishment of a sodium battery factory, with eventual production capacity reaching 5G

Wh; Panasonic: Plans to expand 2170 battery capacity . The new batteries will be produced at the joint factory between Panasonic and Tesla this year or next year , and four new factories will be built before fiscal year 2030.

Yiwei Lithium Energy: Set up a joint venture battery factory in Türkiye

On January 15, EVE Lithium Energy announced that its subsidiary EVE Power and Aksa (Aksa Jeneratör Sanayi A.Ş) signed a memorandum of understanding on January 12.

The announcement shows that the two parties plan to jointly form a joint venture in Turkey. The joint venture will be mainly engaged in the production, marketing and sales of battery modules, outdoor cabinets, and containers, as well as the implementation of energy storage system projects as the general contractor in Turkey (local). In recent years, EVE Lithium Energy has accelerated its overseas deployment. Up to now, EVE Lithium Energy has planned the construction of power battery and energy storage battery factories in Hungary, Malaysia, Thailand, the United States and other regions:

On November 28, 2023, Liu Jincheng, chairman of Yiwei Lithium Energy, revealed that its Hungarian factory with an investment of 1 billion euros (approximately 7.823 billion yuan) has begun construction and is expected to be completed and put into production in 2026. The large cylindrical batteries produced will be supplied to Cars for BMW; On August 7, 2023, the Malaysian factory of Yiwei Lithium Energy, which plans to invest US$420 million (approximately 3.023 billion yuan), broke ground. After completion, it will mainly produce cylindrical batteries; on July 31, 2023, Yiwei Lithium Energy with Thai energy company Energy Absolute Publ ic

Co., Ltd. signed a memorandum of understanding, and the two parties plan to jointly form a joint venture in Thailand to build a battery production base of at least 6G Wh; in September 2023, Yiwei Lithium Energy announced that it planned to jointly invest with Electrified Power, Daimler Truck and PACCAR. A joint venture is established in the United States to build battery production capacity, with the upper limit of each shareholder's investment being US$2.64 billion (approximately 19 billion yuan).

This time Yiwei Lithium Energy settled in Turkey mainly because of its excellent geographical location, subsidy policy and market prospects. Before this, many domestic companies had already deployed here:

In April 2023, the battery R&D and production park built by SIRO, a joint venture between Funeng Technology and TOGG, officially laid the foundation stone. Currently, a 6GWh module and battery pack production line has been built; in the first half of 2023, Skyworth Automobile reached a cooperation with Turkey's Ulubaşlar Group, planning various Invested US$25 million (approximately 180 million yuan) to open a battery factory in Turkey.

CATL: Plans to build battery factory in Beijing

On January 11, the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission announced that it plans to start construction of the CATL Beijing factory project this year. In response to this news, CATL stated that it has no information to disclose yet.

According to statistics, there are currently 119 new energy vehicle brands selling in Beijing, including BAIC, Li Auto, Xiaomi Motors and other new energy vehicle brands, and many of them are customers of CATL. For example, Xiaomi's recently released first new car, SU7, is officially announced to be powered by CATL's Kirin batteries; the Lideal MEGA, which will be launched in March, will also be powered by CATL's Kirin batteries. It is reported that Ideal MEGA has officially started mass production at the Beijing factory, with an estimated annual output of 100,000 vehicles.

Relevant media speculated that CATL’s Beijing factory is more likely to be a battery module factory, similar to CATL’s Shanghai Lingang base, which does not directly produce battery cells . The factory has started construction in February 2022, with an investment of 2.8 billion. It mainly develops battery modules. Currently, CATL has built 13 battery production bases around the world, located in Ningde, Fujian, Xining, Qinghai, Liyang, Jiangsu, Yibin, Sichuan, Zhaoqing, Guangdong, Lingang, Shanghai, Xiamen, Fujian, Yichun, Jiangxi, Guiyang, Guizhou, Jining, Shandong, and Henan Luoyang, Thuringia, Germany, and Debrecen, Hungary.

Currently, Ningde Times’ battery bases in Guangdong, Shandong, and Guizhou are still experiencing continuous ramp-up in production capacity. Battery factories jointly owned by car companies, such as Times Changan, also just rolled off their products at the end of November last year. In 2023, CATL's power battery installed capacity will reach 167.10GWh, with a market share of 43.11%, ranking first in the country.

Stellantis: Increased sodium battery factory to start production next year

On January 12, Stellantis announced its investment in French sodium-ion battery start-up Tiamat, with participation from Arkema, MBDA, and French investment bank Bpifrance.

According to Tiamat, this is the startup’s third round of financing, and Tiamat plans to raise a total of 150 million euros (approximately 1.173 billion yuan) through grants, loans and other investor funds to build a building in northern France. Battery factory. It is reported that the first phase of the plant is planned to be put into operation at the end of 2025, with an annual production capacity of 0.7 GWh, and will reach a production capacity of 5 GWh by 2029. After the construction is put into operation, it will produce sodium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems, and will also produce a new generation of electric vehicle batteries in the future .

In recent years, due to the fluctuation of lithium prices, lower-cost sodium batteries have become an area that many companies are actively deploying. In Europe, apart from Tiamat, only Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt has announced its entry into the sodium-ion battery business. In the domestic market, sodium-ion batteries have made rapid progress, with important breakthroughs made in both production capacity and application. Several tens of billions of sodium battery projects have started, and the first mass-produced car equipped with sodium batteries in China has officially rolled off the production line recently. Click here.

Panasonic: Expand 2170 capacity and build 4 new factories

On January 15, Bloomberg reported that Panasonic plans to expand battery capacity and improve production efficiency. It is expected that the new batteries will be put into production this year or 2025 at a factory jointly operated by Panasonic and Tesla in Nevada.

According to Shoichiro Watanabe, chief technology officer of Panasonic Energy, Panasonic will reduce the total cost of electric vehicles by increasing the energy density of 2170 batteries. At the same time, Panasonic Energy also plans to build approximately four new factories before fiscal year 2030 to meet growing market demand. However, the 2170 battery with increased density will not rely too much on new factories or increased investment scale to achieve the plan of doubling production capacity.

In addition, Shoichiro Watanabe also emphasized that at this stage, in addition to Panasonic’s representative customer Tesla, Panasonic is also in discussions with Mazda. It is expected that by fiscal year 2030, Panasonic's automotive battery production capacity will double compared with 2022, reaching a peak of 200GWh.