On January 6, just two months after the signing of the project investment, SVOLT held a groundbreaking ceremony for the power battery project in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province. The rapidly construction of the factory base fully demonstrating the speed of SVOLT. After the completion of the project, Yancheng power battery production base will become an important core industrial base for PHEV and short blade batteries in northern Jiangsu Province.
SVOLT is a power battery company, formerly known as the power battery division of Great Wall Motor (601633.SH). 2018, SVOLT is independent, and the majority shareholder is Wei Jianjun, the actual controller of Great Wall Motor.
Yancheng’s battery base includes a total investment of 10 billion yuan ($ 1.568 billion) and covers an area of 873 mu (582,000 square meters). It has a design capacity of 22.3GWh. Construction of the base is expected to be completed in the first half of 2023.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Yang Hongxin, Chairman and CEO of SVOLT, said, “The Yancheng base will help SVOLT achieve its 600GWh global production capacity ambition set in 2025. The goal is part of the SVOLT “600” strategy that the company announced on its second Battery Day for its development plans by 2025. And it will launch a series of new short-blade battery products to promote the short-blade of the whole electric area in the future. SVOLT aims to build a global brand by promoting factory construction, capacity expansion, industrial expansion and technological iteration at a faster pace.”
SVOLT had completed a B+ round of financing in December last year
SVOLT had completed a B+ round of financing worth 6 billion yuan ($942 million) on December 11, with investors including Sichuan Energy Investment, Hans Laser (002008.SZ) and Xingyu Lighting (601799.SH) , CDH Investments, Industrial Bank and others.
“The 6 billion yuan raised by this round of financing will be mainly used for R&D and to build a Changzhou Phase IV production base, Changzhou R&D center and Changzhou headquarter management center,”
Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of SVOLT
Global EV battery market share in 2021
On Dec. 29, South Korean market research firm SNE Research released data showing that CATL maintained its dominant position in the EV battery market from January to November this year, holding the No. 1 position with a 31.8% market share, 11.3% higher than second-place LG Energy Solutions.
SNE Research noted that from January to November this year, Chinese companies led the growth of the EV battery market (including pure electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and hybrid vehicles). Compared to the same period last year, CATL and BYD grew by 180% and 192%, respectively.
This time last year, LG New Energy was entangled with CATL, when the two had 22.9% and 24.1% market share, and the gap was not big. But at present, CATL has completely left LG New Energy behind.
In terms of overall orders, CATL has locked several big orders, including taking a 4-year order from Tesla, signing a 10-year long-term strategic cooperation agreement with Great Wall Motor, receiving a 7-year order from Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicles, and supplying Volkswagen, Hyundai, Rolls-Royce, etc.
LG New Energy is still in second place, but it’s ambitions are still very big: LG Energy previously revealed that the company aims to achieve $270 billion in sales by 2024 and become the number one company in the electric vehicle battery sector.
BYD ranked fourth with a market share of 9.0%. Last year, Panasonic was more ahead of BYD. Panasonic had a market share of 19.4%, while BYD had only 6.5%.
But now, the distance between the two became 12.5% and 9.0%. With the acceleration of BYD’s power battery external supply, it only takes time for BYD to go further and surpass Panasonic.
