On Feb 24, SUNWODA, a Chinese lithium battery manufacturer, announced a capital increase of RMB 2.43 billion, which was subscribed by 19 companies with a total of 19.5495% equity. These include a number of well-known Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers, NIO, Xpeng, Li Auto, SAIC group, DongFeng and GAC group, invested in total for $1.2 Billion. Among them, Li Auto and Xpeng led the funding and invested RMB $400 million respectively and NIO invested RMB $250 million.
About Sunwoda
According to their website, Sunwoda Electronic Co., Ltd. was founded in 1997 Ltd. is a Shenzhen based high-tech enterprise with the R&D, design, production and sale of lithium-ion battery cells and modules as its main business.
It was listed on the Growth Enterprise Market of Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2011. After more than 20 years of development, it has become a world leader in the lithium-ion battery industry.
It has formed six major industrial clusters including 3C consumer battery, smart hardware, electric vehicle battery, energy service, smart manufacturing and Industrial Internet, and testing service. Also, Sunwoda is committed to providing environment-friendly, fast and efficient new energy integration solution services.
An alternative to CATL?
Three young Chinese EV manufacturers invested the most in this capital raising, which indicates that this company has a strategic position in the EV industry. CATL has been a leading battery manufacturer in China and even in the world, and is the battery supplier for most EV manufacturers.
The market estimated that this capital raising is to make the supply chain more stable to avoid over-reliance on CATL.
But Sunwoda is a second-tier battery manufacturer, and there are still questions about its ability to become an alternative to CATL, and, as in the case of the chip industry, the global over-reliance on TSML has led to a tight supply of chips worldwide. But at least the mainstream EV manufacturers are determined to avoid over-reliance on CATL.
See Also:
