In the first half of the year, production and sales increased nearly 2 times year-on-year! China's hot sales of electric vehicles cause battery shortage, CEO goes to battle to grab production capacity
On July 8, the Passenger Association released the national passenger car production and sales data for June 2021. In June, the wholesale sales of new energy passenger vehicles reached 227,000, an increase of 14.7% month-on-month, and the retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles in June reached 223,000, an increase of 169.9% year-on-year. With retail sales exceeding 10,000 vehicles, BYD has 40,317 vehicles, SAIC-GM-Wuling has 31,285 vehicles, Tesla China has 28,138 vehicles, and GAC E'an has 10,403 vehicles. According to official data from BYD, its sales in June were 49,765 units, a year-on-year increase of 52.5%. Cumulative sales from January to June were 246,689 units, an increase of 55.51% year-on-year. The overall momentum is very strong.
With the support of the domestic new energy vehicle policy, the strong demand for electric vehicles has triggered a rush to purchase battery kits. The CEOs of the automakers have personally stepped into the battle to grab the goods. Xiaopeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng recently revealed that in order to get the battery smoothly, he spent a week in the Ningde era; Great Wall Motor signed a ten-year power battery cooperation agreement with the Ningde era in early June.
The price of batteries has also risen continuously. Ningde Times Chairman Zeng Yun said: “Customers have recently urged them to urge him to endure it! Ganfeng Lithium, which supplies Tesla Model 3 and BYD, also said that since the beginning of the year, there has been no Production has been discontinued, and it is basically fully loaded for 28 days a month.
This "battery shortage" came as a surprise to the market, because the growth rate of China's new energy vehicles was higher than expected, so that battery factories failed to keep up. Statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that the production and sales of new energy vehicles in the first half of this year have more than tripled annually. Among them, the sales of Xiaopeng Motors in June increased by 6 times annually, and the sales of ideal cars increased by more than 3 times annually, reflecting the enthusiasm of market demand.
SNE Research, a global emerging energy market research organization, predicts that by 2023, the global demand for power batteries for electric vehicles will reach 406 GWh (1 billion watt-hours), while the power battery supply is expected to be 335 GWh, a gap of about 18%. By 2025, this gap will widen to about 40%.
In order to alleviate the battery shortage, various battery factories in China are "running to expand production" and trying to extend upstream to reduce the impact of raw material price fluctuations. Data shows that in the first half of this year, many power battery companies in China announced the expansion and optimization of production capacity. There were 57 related investment projects with a total investment plan of over 350 billion yuan.