Original debut |Golden Horn Finance.
Author |Zelda.
On January 28, CATL and Didi jointly announced that the two parties signed a contract to establish a battery swap joint venture, planning to provide battery swap services for new energy vehicles from the online car-hailing scenario.
The partnership comes at a time when CATL is being pressed by competitors. In recent years, although CATL's market share has remained in the leading position, its market share has declined year by year, from 52 in 20211% fell to 43 in 20231%。Especially in terms of lithium iron phosphate batteries, CATL has been counterattacked by BYD.
The reason why BYD can bring so much pressure to CATL is mainly because of its dazzling new energy vehicle sales data, cars and batteries have formed a virtuous circle. However, CATL does not have a vehicle business of its own and cannot fully replicate BYD's model. As a result, CATL must continue to find ways to bind partners at the downstream end.
Stepping into 2024, CATL's counterattack action with binding downstream as the anchor has increased significantly.
On January 3, 2024, CATL signed a three-year strategic cooperation agreement with Mengshi Technology, a subsidiary of Dongfeng Group, and the 917 electric off-road model to be launched by Mengshi Technology will be printed with the CATL logo on the body. On January 17, 2024, CATL and Nezha Automobile jointly announced that the new model of Nezha Automobile will be equipped with CATL's long-life version of the Shenxing battery.
The recently announced strong alliance between CATL and Didi has pushed Ningwang's entire offensive of counterattacking by binding downstream to a milestone moment.
In the battery swap mode, the battery quality and life can directly affect the operating income of the battery swap station, and the better quality CATL batteries are expected to open up new sales channels, enabling the latter to regain an advantage in an increasingly competitive industry environment.
King Ning urgently needed to fight back
Under pressure from rivals, CATL's dominance is declining.
According to the data released by the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, CATL's domestic power battery loading volume in 2023 will be 1671gwh。Although it still ranks first, its market share has increased from 48 in 20212%** to 431%。
Followed by BYD, China Innovation Airlines, and EVE Lithium Energy, their market share increased by more than 2 percentage points year-on-year last year, and the industry competition pattern is quite a group of heroes to carve up the lost market share of Ningwang.
Among them, BYD has caused the greatest pressure on Ningwang, especially in lithium iron phosphate batteries, and BYD has even completed a counterattack.
In 2023, the installed capacity of BYD's lithium iron phosphate battery will be 1054GWh, with a market share of 404%；CATL's lithium iron phosphate battery loading capacity is 888GWh with a market share of 34%. In 2022, the market share of CATL and BYD's lithium iron phosphate batteries will be 436% and 371%。
In just one year, the two positions have been reversed, and the gap is growing.
BYD's battery loading volume has risen sharply, mainly driven by its own new energy vehicle business. In 2023, BYD will sell a total of 3.02 million new energy vehicles, and through vertical integration, its cars and batteries have formed a virtuous circle.
Relatively speaking, CATL does not have a vehicle business of its own, so it cannot fully replicate this model. As the pressure brought by BYD increases, CATL can only bind downstream in various ways to fight back.
On January 3, 2024, CATL signed a three-year strategic cooperation agreement with Mengshi Technology, a subsidiary of Dongfeng Group. One of the high-profile cooperation contents is that the 917 electric off-road model launched by Mengshi Technology will be printed with the "Catl Inside" logo on the body (CATL is the English abbreviation of CATL).
Some industry insiders said that compared with competitors, CATL products have better quality and longer life, but these characteristics are not easy to be perceived by consumers, but are more powerful. Behind the logo on the car, CATL intends to occupy the minds of consumers through various ways, hoping that they will "buy electric vehicles and recognize CATL batteries", so as to reverse influence the procurement decisions of car companies, so as to have a more competitive advantage in the fierce competitive environment.
Subsequently, on January 17, 2024, CATL and Nezha Automobile jointly announced that the new model of Nezha Automobile will be equipped with CATL's long-life version of the Shenxing battery. Shenxing battery is a new type of lithium iron phosphate battery released by CATL in August 2023, which has the characteristics of high energy density and fast charging speed compared with ordinary lithium iron phosphate batteries.
Previously, CATL said in response to questions on the investor interactive platform that Shenxing battery is expected to be installed in the first half of 2024, and CATL has reached cooperation with Guangzhou Automobile Group, Chery Automobile, Changan AVATAR, Beiqi Jihu and Dongfeng Lantu and other car companies.
It is worth noting that Nezha Automobile is a start-up car company, and CATL has participated in the financing of Nezha Automobile. On January 18, the technical person in charge of Nezha Automobile told ** that the long-life "Shenxing battery" can alleviate consumers' concerns about battery attenuation, and the lithium iron phosphate battery ** has more advantages.
Battery swapping and ride-hailing
After the official announcement and Didi's strong alliance in battery swapping, CATL's counterattack by binding downstream as an anchor also ushered in a milestone moment.
In the battery swap mode, the battery quality and life can directly affect the operating income of the battery swap station, and CATL is expected to open up new sales channels with better quality battery products. In addition, the battery asset company holds a large number of batteries, and CATL can also complete the closed loop of raw materials through follow-up batteries**.
In fact, before the official announcement and Didi's alliance, CATL had already laid out the field of battery swapping.
In August 2021, CATL established a wholly-owned subsidiary, Times Electronics Service Technology***, which released the "chocolate" battery swap scheme in January 2022. CATL has developed a standard battery "chocolate battery swap block" for the purpose of shared battery swapping, which can provide a range of about 200 kilometers for a single battery. This standard battery can be freely combined to meet the range needs of consumers.
In June 2023, CATL released the heavy-duty truck chassis battery swap solution "Qiji Battery Swap", which also uses standard battery swap blocks, each with a power of 171kWh, and users can choose 1 to 3 batteries according to different needs, and the battery swap process only takes a few minutes.
However, it is difficult to promote the battery swap mode in the field of private cars. Individual consumers are more concerned about battery ownership; At the same time, battery-swapped vehicles may also face restrictions when it comes to second-hand car transactions, and sellers often have to look for consumers who also accept the battery-swapping mode to take over.
Relatively speaking, online car-hailing is a completely different application scenario. On the one hand, online ride-hailing vehicle owners hope to shorten the energy replenishment time, extend the operation time and increase income. On the other hand, the public travel market has the characteristics of large user base, high frequency of energy replenishment, and strong timeliness requirements, and is one of the most valuable application scenarios for battery swap services. At present, the cooperative enterprises and models of Times Electric Service are mainly for online car-hailing.
This prompted CATL and Didi to cooperate.
In the field of online ride-hailing, Didi is the absolute leader in the Chinese market. In recent years, the trend of electrification of ride-hailing has also been very obvious. According to public information, as of November 2023, more than 3 million new energy vehicles have been registered on the Didi platform, and the total mileage of new energy vehicles accounts for more than 58%.
In addition, Didi's Xiaoju Energy's business has covered multiple sectors such as Internet refueling, smart charging, virtual power plants, power trading, power auxiliary services, and enterprise services.
As of the end of December 2023, Xiaoju Energy's charging services have covered more than 190 cities, with a total of more than 6800 million times. According to the data of the China Charging Infrastructure Alliance, Xiaoju Charging has a layout of 15760,000 public charging piles, ranking 5th.
Regarding the cooperation between the two parties, CATL said that the public travel market such as online car-hailing has a large user base, high frequency of energy replenishment, and strong timeliness requirements, which is one of the most valuable application scenarios for battery swap services. CATL will work closely with Didi to quickly lay battery swap stations on a large scale and promote battery swap models.
In addition to the establishment of a battery swap joint venture, CATL has also formed a strategic cooperation intention with Didi's Xiaoju Energy to promote cooperation in a wider range of fields such as storage and charging.
The battle for the right to speak
As an important branch of the energy supplement system, battery swapping has always played an important role in the development of electric vehicles in China. A few minutes of waiting can bring the range of a pure electric car back to hundreds of kilometers, and the experience is comparable to refueling.
At the same time, the battery swap business can also help the industry achieve many indirect benefits, including BaaS (Battery as a Service), battery rental on demand, power battery**, etc. For battery safety, battery swapping can also improve safety. The battery swap station centrally monitors, maintains and manages the battery, which can effectively extend the service life of the battery.
In addition, the battery swap business also has strong externalities, such as reducing the pressure on the power grid. The excessive pressure on the power grid during the peak charging period is one of the factors restricting the large-scale expansion of overcharging stations, and the battery swap mode can adjust the time of centralized slow charging of the battery according to the demand, which is more popular with the regional power grid and can effectively reduce the pressure on the power grid.
However, there are still many problems to be solved in the promotion of the current battery swap mode.
First of all, the cost is high, the construction of the battery swap station investment is large, different from the smaller charging pile, to build a battery swap station needs to have a site of 120 to 150 square meters, in addition to the construction land also needs to meet a number of standards including urban construction, fire protection, and the battery holding cost is also high.
More importantly, it is difficult to unify standards among car companies. For example, NIO, SAIC and CATL use different battery pack standards, and the three solutions are incompatible. Some industry insiders said that due to the different battery specifications of various car companies, the battery swap platform that now provides cross-car companies and model services needs to reserve different types of batteries, which significantly increases operating costs and leads to low efficiency.
This issue has also attracted the attention of the state. According to relevant reports, the national competent authorities are formulating relevant standards for battery swapping. Normally, the formulation of industry standards tends to favor the large-scale giants. The recent alliance between CATL and Didi also reflects the desire of several major market players to expand their scale and gain a greater say on the eve of the release of industry standards.
At present, it is NIO that is leading the way in battery swapping. According to the China Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, by the end of 2023, the total number of battery swap stations in China will be 3,567. Among them, NIO has the largest number of battery swap stations, reaching 2,333.
NIO has adopted the battery swap model since its establishment, with the largest number of battery swap stations, and has recently reached battery swap business cooperation with Changan Automobile, Geely Holding Group, JAC Automobile, and Chery Automobile. On January 11, 2024, NIO and a number of Anhui provincial enterprises jointly funded the establishment of Zhongan Energy (Anhui)**, which plans to invest in the construction of 1,000 battery swap stations integrating storage, charging and swapping.
With the alliance between CATL and Didi, the battle for the right to change the language has also entered a white-hot stage. The future of China's new energy industry may also be rewritten.
Reference: Caixin, "CATL Lays Out Online Ride-hailing to Supplement Energy and Establishes a Battery Swap Joint Venture with Didi".
21st Century Business Herald "CATL and Didi Announce Cooperation".