European power lithium battery company's mass production and delivery speed up

Local power lithium battery companies in Europe are rapidly emerging. Foreign media reported that InoBatAuto, a start-up battery company in Slovakia, announced that it has won the first battery order from a commercial vehicle customer and will provide solutions for the electrification of buses of the Czech bus manufacturer SOR. It is reported that the agreement reached between InoBat and SOR at the end of April covers the development, production and delivery of modules, battery packs and battery management systems based on NMC batteries. InoBatAuto's goal is to use artificial intelligence (AI) and high throughput (HTP) technology to provide customers with customized power lithium batteries. Marian, the founder and CEO of InoBat, called this cooperation 'an important milestone for InoBat in the European commercial vehicle power lithium battery market.' In 2019, the Slovak group InoBat announced a cooperation with the American energy technology company Wildcat Discovery Technologies. It plans to invest 100 million euros (768 million yuan) to establish a research and development center and a power lithium battery production line with an annual output of 100MWh in Slovakia. The construction is planned to start in 2020 and 2021. Production and sales will begin at the end of the year. InoBatAuto's goal is to build a 10GWh super battery factory that can produce power lithium batteries for 240,000 electric vehicles every year by 2024, with a total investment of 1 billion euros (approximately RMB 7.8 billion). With the support of IPM Group and Wildcat Discovery Technologies, InoBatAuto will manufacture the first batch of customized power lithium batteries in 2021. By using Wildcat's proprietary Ru0026D technology, InoBatAuto will be able to rapidly develop the next generation of customized power lithium batteries through artificial intelligence (AI) and high throughput (HTP) technologies. In order to accelerate the pace of mass production of its customized batteries, InoBatAuto has also reached a cooperation with ManzAG, a German lithium battery equipment company, and spent 20 million euros (approximately RMB 160 million) to purchase power lithium battery production line automation equipment from it. In terms of products, InoBatAuto’s primary goal is to make its battery specific energy reach 265Wh/kg in 2021 and increase to 298wh/kg in the middle of 2022. The next one is to produce 330-350Wh/kg and 1000Wh/L batteries by the end of 2023, and build the use of cobalt. The ultimate goal is to further increase the content of nickel and develop new negative electrode materials, so as to reach 500wg/kg. InoBatAuto hopes that its super factory can become an important force in enhancing the global competitiveness of the European power lithium battery market, thereby helping European OEMs to get rid of their dependence on Asian batteries. The acquisition of a battery order from Europe's first commercial vehicle OEM means that InoBatAuto's power lithium battery is about to enter the mass production and delivery stage, thus becoming a participant in the European power lithium battery market competition. It is worth noting that, in addition to InoBatAuto, as the 'top player' in European power lithium batteries, the Swedish battery company Northvolt has also made breakthroughs in its power lithium battery business. Recently, Northvolt announced that it has received a total of US$14 billion (approximately RMB 89.9 billion) for power lithium battery orders from the Volkswagen Group in the next 10 years. Northvolt will become one of the most important battery suppliers of the Volkswagen Group. In addition, Northvolt also won a 2 billion euros (approximately 15.9 billion yuan) battery supply contract from the BMW Group in July 2020. Northvolt claims that, including the above-mentioned orders, the company has obtained a battery supply contract worth US$27 billion (approximately RMB 1,735) from important customers. At present, the joint venture battery company between Volkswagen and Northvolt is speeding up construction. It is expected to start producing power lithium batteries in Salzgitter in early 2023/2024, with an initial annual output of 16GWh and later expansion to 40GWh. It is worth noting that in addition to the above two battery companies, other European battery companies including French battery company Verkor, British battery company Britishvolt, Norwegian battery company Freyr, Norwegian battery company Morrow, Italian power lithium battery company Italvolt and other European battery companies are also accelerating The pace of production construction is expected to be put into production one after another around 2025. In order to realize the localization of power lithium battery manufacturing and supply, the European Union is spending huge sums of money to support the European power lithium battery industry chain. Its goal is to establish 10-20 large power lithium battery factories in Europe and be able to produce enough batteries by 2025. The supply demand of the European automobile industry has even achieved export competition with China, Japan and South Korea battery companies. With the gradual improvement of the local industrial chain and the continuous rise of the European electric vehicle market, it is expected that more European start-up battery companies will enter the mass production and delivery stage in the later period, thus becoming a competitor in the global power lithium battery market, putting pressure on battery companies in China, Japan and South Korea. And challenges.