No. 1 in the world in a third tier town | Entering the Ningde era

stay Ningde By the Chijian Lake in Jiaocheng District, nearly 100 meters high buildings in the shape of electric cores stand here, and modern factories are lined up here Lithium battery The headquarters of leading enterprise Ningde Times.

On the other side is a commercial house and business district under construction, of which 6 are the talent welfare houses of Ningde Times. On the road, signs of lithium town and lithium supermarket can be seen everywhere. Farther away, there are production bases of Ningde Times and factories of many suppliers of Ningde Times.

In 2007, Zeng Yuqun, who was still at ATL (Ningde New Energy, mainly engaged in consumer batteries), was invited by Ningde Municipal Government to return to his hometown to build a factory gross domestic product Less than 50 billion yuan, the headquarters of Ningde Times is still a beach. After more than ten years of development, the GDP of Ningde City has soared to 355.5 billion yuan in 2022, ranking first in Fujian Province for four consecutive years.

With the help of new energy vehicles, Ningde Times has grown from a beach to the first in the global power battery industry, with the largest installed capacity in the world for six consecutive years. Every three electric vehicles sold in the world, one is equipped with Ningde Times batteries.

However, the market share of Ningde era is being challenged. In 2022, the domestic market share of Ningde Times will be 48%, down 4% compared with 2021, and further down to 43.40% in the first half of 2023.

Why can Ningde Times be the world's first? How will it hold the throne in the future? With these questions in mind, NetEase Finance's leader visited the headquarters and production base of Ningde Times, talked with the chief scientist and front-line workers, and took apart the secret of success of this lithium battery leader.

Do research for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow

The headquarters exhibition hall of Ningde Times introduced the company's four major innovation systems in detail. 1. Materials and material system innovation, which is the key to improving battery performance, such as sodium ion battery, condensed battery, etc; 2. System structure innovation, including Kirin battery; 3. Extreme manufacturing innovation, reducing the defect rate of cell products to 1/1 billion; 4. Business model innovation, including power replacement, battery recycling, etc.

Why has the Ningde era always been at the forefront of innovation? Wu Kai, the chief scientist, said that we are not only doing today's product design, but also doing material research and development for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. What if the future technology route is not lithium batteries?

However, in Wu Kai's opinion, lithium batteries are not easy to be replaced in the short term. The demand for batteries is small in size and light in weight. In the periodic table of chemical elements, the element with the smallest atomic weight is the most valuable. Hydrogen, helium and lithium rank in the top three. Hydrogen is worth developing. However, technology is difficult to mature in the short term and cannot replace lithium. At the same time, lithium still has room for development, In the next step, if lithium metal is used to replace traditional graphite or silicon as negative electrode, the energy density of the battery will be increased by 40%.

Wu Kai said that other technical routes are still valuable, such as sodium ion, which is more valuable than Lithium ion Low energy density, with the advantage of rich resources, has a stabilizing effect on lithium price. In July 2021, Ningde Times released its first generation of sodium ion battery, and the energy density of single battery cell reached 160Wh/kg; Charge for 15 minutes at room temperature, and the power can reach more than 80%; In November 2022, Ningde Times publicly said that in terms of passenger vehicle applications, the endurance of sodium ion batteries can reach 400km; In April 2023, Ningde Times announced that the sodium ion battery will be the first Chery model.

Ningde Times also continued to launch new products, and the Kirin battery with a range of 1000 kilometers achieved mass production this year. Turning to the technological breakthrough of Kirin battery, Wu Kai said that the structure of lithium battery is cell module battery pack, in which the core of the real energy supply is the cell, and other parts mainly play the role of fixing and cooling. Through the highly integrated structural design, Kirin battery integrates the originally independently designed transverse and longitudinal beams, water-cooled plates and thermal insulation pads into a multi-functional elastic sandwich, The volume utilization rate is increased to 72%, and the energy density is significantly improved. At the same time, the safety performance and fast charging performance are also greatly improved. It can achieve safe and non thermal diffusion in the case of 4C fast charging (it only takes 10 minutes to charge from 10% to 80% SOC).

During this year's Shanghai Auto Show, Ningde Times released the condensed battery, which has brought an unimaginable energy density of traditional power batteries - 500 Wh/kg. It has both high specific energy and high safety, and can be applied to manned aircraft. Wu Kai said that the condensed battery will cooperate with a customer of manned aircraft with less than 19 seats. Since the energy density of the battery still has a large gap compared with petroleum, It cannot be applied to large civil aviation aircraft in the short term.

How to "make limits" in extreme manufacturing

Whenever there is a spontaneous combustion event of electric vehicles, vehicle enterprises and battery manufacturers will be pushed to the forefront of the wind, and the public's discussion on the safety of electric vehicles has never stopped. In Wu Kai's view, the multi caliber data shows that the auto ignition rate of electric vehicles is lower than that of fuel vehicles, but because electric vehicles are new things, they are more likely to attract attention. He said that from the perspective of battery manufacturing, improving the safety of electric vehicles requires reducing the defect rate of batteries to low enough.

In 2020, Ningde Times put forward the concept of "extreme manufacturing", requiring the defect rate to be raised from ppm (one millionth of a million) to ppb (one billionth of a billion). Wu Kai said that the defect rate of a single cell must be less than one billionth of a billion, that is, a problem occurs in millions to tens of millions of vehicles to ensure that the safety of the industry is accepted by users.

In the production of electric cores, coating and winding are the core processes. Taking coating as an example, the difficulty lies in improving the service life and reducing the defect rate, "When 100 electric cores are strung together, one of them has a poor life, and the overall life is poor, which is the short board effect. Therefore, extremely high consistency control is very important, which requires the experienced teachers in the factory to carefully study the subtle mechanism." Wu Kai said.

NetEase Finance met Fu Yu Zhifu, the teacher of Wu Kai, in the cell production workshop of Base Z near the headquarters of Ningde Times.

From ATL (Ningde New Energy) to CATL (Ningde Times), Yu Zhifu, 30, has worked in the coating position for 12 years, witnessing the rise of this lithium battery giant. He was also one of the first batch of coating masters on the Langya List of Ningde Times, and he obtained the equity incentive granted by Ningde Times by virtue of his status as a coating master.

Nowadays, there is no traditional screw tightening work in the factory, and only one or two workers are operating and supervising before each process. According to Yu Zhifu, in recent years, the factory has realized intelligent upgrading and transformation. "In 12 years, the production speed of the coating machine was 8 meters per minute, and now the coating function is 80 meters per minute. The workshop is very intelligent, and the logistics lines are automatically transported through AGV."

Layout the whole industrial chain of power battery Energy storage Become the second growth point

The powerful technological innovation and extreme manufacturing capacity have enabled Ningde Times to occupy the top position in the power battery market for six consecutive years. In 2022, the revenue of Ningde Times will reach 328.59 billion yuan, equivalent to an average daily revenue of 900 million yuan.

There are hidden worries under the halo, and the market share of Ningde era is being challenged. In 2022, the domestic market share of Ningde Times will be 48%, down 4% compared with 2021, and further down to 43.40% in the first half of 2023. In the subdivided lithium iron phosphate market, BYD's market share in the first half of 2023 will exceed that of the Ningde era and become the first. Second tier and third tier battery manufacturers are also catching up fiercely, and the market competition is becoming increasingly fierce. In the past three years, due to the rising cost of raw materials, the shortage of power batteries, and the decline of downstream voice, many automobile enterprises have sought to take the initiative in the form of secondary or self supply batteries.

On June 7, Morgan Stanley (hereinafter referred to as "Morgan Stanley") released its research paper to bear the Ningde era. Damo said that at present, the profit margin of battery material companies has declined, and most of them have been reflected by the stock price, while Ningde Times may face more and more risks in terms of market share and profit margin.

However, many domestic securities companies and institutions do not recognize the "empty" logic of the Mall. Soochow Securities said that the current market share of Ningde Times in the United States is about 10%, and it is expected to increase to more than 20% in the future, adding 30% - 40% in Europe, 40% - 45% in China, and the company's global share can still maintain more than 35%.

In order to defend the power battery battlefield, Ningde Era has accelerated its development of upstream and downstream territory. At the upstream mineral end, Ningde Era has opened the road of global layout in 2018.

According to the estimation of Changjiang Securities, the distribution of Ningde Times in the resource side can increase the company's profitability. Under the optimistic resource price, the middle of Ningde Times is expected to achieve a resource profit of 13.5-14 billion yuan, including 9 to 10 billion yuan of lithium resources, 2 to 25 billion yuan of nickel resources, and about 2 billion yuan of copper and cobalt resources; Under the conservative resource price, it is expected to make a profit contribution of more than 7 billion yuan.

In the downstream, Ningde Times actively arranges power replacement and power battery recycling. In January 2022, Ningde Times announced the launch of EVOGO, a power change service brand, and in June 2023, Ningde Times released the heavy truck power change brand "QIJI Qiji Power Change".

In terms of power battery recycling, the Bangpu Cycle, a subsidiary of Ningde Times Yituo, promotes the formation of an ecological closed-loop of "battery production use cascade utilization recycling and resource regeneration".

According to Wu Kai, at present, the recovery rate of cobalt has reached 99%, and the recovery rate of lithium has reached more than 90%. There is still room for growth in the future. Ningde Times is actively laying out the whole industrial chain from mining to battery recovery. The industrial chain cycle is conducive to driving down the cost of power batteries.

At the same time, the Ningde Era is also expanding new development space. In 2022, the Ningde Era Energy storage Battery system revenue was 44.98 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 230.2%, higher than that of power battery system. Energy storage business was regarded as the second growth curve of Ningde era.

About the Navigator

The leader is the observation and documentary column of NetEase Finance's leading enterprises in China, which explores the core competitiveness of leading enterprises in various industries, the upgrading of industrial clusters and the positive impact on local cities in the tide of China's economic development by means of dialogue with company executives, visiting the production line, and experiencing popular products, Deeply tap the social value and era value of enterprises.