China charging ahead in global EV battery sector

Globalization still priority next year as home market becomes saturated amid challenges
China has helped power millions of electric vehicles around the world in 2023, responsible for over three-fifths of global installations of power batteries — the muscle at the heart of EVs.

South Korean market consultancy SNE Research said in a recent report that China continued to dominate the global power battery market in the first 10 months. Six of the world's top 10 battery makers are from China, with their market share taking up 63.3 percent of the total.

For these Chinese battery manufacturers, "globalization" has been the keyword this year after charging up the massive domestic market. Looking ahead into 2024, it will still be a priority for them to get an even bigger slice of the international market, but they face rising geopolitical challenges and uncertainties abroad, industry experts said.

Ouyang Minggao, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a Tsinghua University professor, said, "As competition among power battery makers continues to intensify in the domestic market, Chinese battery manufacturers will no doubt accelerate their steps to go global."

Ouyang predicts the market scale of power batteries and energy storage batteries is expected to exceed the original goal of 7 billion kilowatt-hours — which is already high — this year and grow seven to 10-fold over the next seven years.

"Huge opportunities await for these battery makers as the global battery market still has huge development potential in the coming years," he added.

Currently in China, in addition to well-known battery giants like Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd and BYD, peers such as CALB, Gotion High-tech Co, Sunwoda and Eve Energy are also among the world's top 10 EV battery makers. All of these battery giants have announced plans to expand foreign business.

"Globalization is an irresistible trend," said Li Zhen, founder and chairman of Gotion High-Tech Co, at a Bloomberg forum in Singapore in November. "You have to share the technology and products with other countries. That is the fundamental economic side of it."

The company, backed by leading Germany-based automaker Volkswagen, invested recently in battery manufacturing plants in two US states, Illinois and Michigan, which marked a milestone among Chinese battery makers in globalization due to the significant role the US market plays in EV and renewable energy technologies.

The planned $2 billion lithium battery plant in Illinois is expected to produce 10 gigawatt-hours of lithium battery packs and 40 GWh of lithium-ion battery cells annually, while the Michigan plant will take an investment of $2.36 billion to produce anode and cathode materials for batteries.

"The United States is a market that we must enter," Zeng Yuqun, founder and CEO of CATL, the world's largest EV battery maker, said in an internal meeting involving over 50 renowned investors — including Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia Capital, Tencent Holdings and Temasek Holdings — late last year.

In February, US automaker Ford Motor said it will collaborate with CATL on a new $3.5 billion battery plant for electric vehicles in Michigan.

If it goes smoothly and opens in 2026, the facility is expected to produce batteries to power a total of 400,000 EVs a year in the US.

"Besides the US market, Chinese power battery companies must pay attention to Europe — with the region being a traditional vehicle powerhouse — and Southeast Asia as an emerging market. At the same time, some are expected to explore the Middle East market," said Wang Zhikun, executive vice-president of Svolt, a power battery maker.

Sunwoda, another major power battery maker, announced in August it would open a new EV battery factory in Hungary with a total investment of 1.9 billion yuan ($266 million). Eve Energy, on the other hand, said in October that it would build its first European factory in Debrecen, Hungary, to supply BMW with power batteries for its new electric cars.

Deng Yongkang, an analyst from Minsheng Securities, said in a note, "Building factories overseas not only helps these battery makers digest existing saturated production capacity, but also offers stable overseas orders with higher profitability, which is expected to be a boost to companies' business performance."

In addition, the country has now formed the world's largest battery manufacturing value chain, extending from material research and development, battery production and recycling to equipment support, making such companies a natural fit in overseas markets, Deng said.

Moody's analysts also said that China's competitive advantage in lithium-ion battery cell production gives its carmakers an edge in terms of EV production costs. "China is expected to account for more than half of the global supply of lithium, with that advantage (in addition to) lower labor costs," they said.

Qi Lu, director of the new energy materials and technology laboratory at Peking University, said that Chinese battery makers are expected to have a greater presence in overseas markets backed by competitive technological innovations.

"China has a certain technological advantage, as can be seen from the improvement of lithium battery R&D and lithium iron phosphate battery application technology, and then to the advent of new categories of batteries such as sodium batteries, high-nickel batteries and semisolid batteries," Song said. "With these advantages, they are expected to grab a bigger slice of the pie in the coming years."

Looking ahead to 2024, however, many experts worry about rising geopolitical uncertainties abroad while Chinese battery manufacturers go global. CATL's factories in the US and Hungary, for instance, were reported to have been halted under investigation by local authorities. However, CATL denied it later and said they are proceeding ahead as planned.

Wu Dan, a researcher at the Institute of International Affairs of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), said that some Western countries are enacting new trade and investment rules based on environmental, social and governance standards and tightening reviews over foreign investments, aiming for long-arm jurisdiction over Chinese counterparts.

"The main aim is to limit and weaken China's dominant position in batteries and reduce their dependence on China in the new energy automobile industry and related supply chains," Wu said.

The US passed the Inflation Reduction Act last year. Under the act, to be eligible for half the amount of the government subsidies per car, that is $3,750, at least 50 percent of the value of components of the EV batteries must be manufactured or assembled in the US. In addition, EVs with battery components or materials sourced from "foreign entities of concern" are excluded.

The EU, on the other hand, passed a strict new battery regulation requiring EV batteries entering the market to have a "passport" that will display the products' information, including carbon footprints and recycled content.

Zhang Xiang, an auto sector researcher at the North China University of Technology, said: "Such regulations will undoubtedly increase the costs and prolong the R&D process to meet the requirements for Chinese battery manufacturers over the short term."

Lyu Xiang, a US studies expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that Chinese battery makers are also finding ways out, as can be seen in the Ford-CATL cooperation, where CATL will license its technology to Ford instead of directly producing batteries.

"This cooperation model kills two birds with one stone. It not only enables Ford to obtain various subsidies promised in the act, but also helps CATL to avoid foreign investment security reviews to reduce some risks," Lyu said.