201. Chapter 200 The Dilemma of King Ning
Chapter 200 The Dilemma of King Ning
The limitation of raw materials is the first external worry of CATL.
The second external worry is that most car companies are now actively getting rid of Ning.
Although CATL has successfully controlled most new energy car companies with its super high product yield and large-scale production.
But after controlling them for a long time, everyone is inevitably resentful.
More than 40% of the cost of a car is batteries, and they are often out of stock, resulting in the car companies’ new car delivery volume not going up. Therefore, many new energy car companies are complaining that they are working for CATL and all the money is earned by CATL. Finally, they decided to build their own battery factories with a big hand.
For example, Xiaopeng hooked up with AVIC Lithium Battery, GAC invested in Zhongxinhang,
Great Wall Motors set up Honeycomb Energy and supplied Geely, Lantu and Ideal, not to mention BYD, which has always had its own battery supply chain.
So there was a 4,800GWh production capacity plan, which led to increasingly fierce competition.
In addition to external troubles, CATL itself also has great internal troubles.
First of all, the corporate culture cannot keep up with the development of the company, and the overtime culture is very serious.
The R&D department is better, but the production department is a beast, and the employee turnover rate is very high. There is basically no one who does not complain that they are sweatshops from the production department.
And the most important thing is that the development of batteries has too many technical routes and crossroads.
CATL previously bet on liquid ternary lithium batteries, and caught up with the development of new energy, so it has today’s glory.
But as the technology of liquid lithium batteries gradually reached a bottleneck, they came to a new crossroads.
But at this time, they were unable to turn around because of the large ship. Once they chose the wrong technical route, they would probably be slower than others in the future, or even fall from grace.
At this crossroads, they chose solid-state lithium batteries.
But solid-state lithium batteries have remained in the laboratory and have not been mass-produced, which put great pressure on Zeng Yuqing, the chairman of CATL.
However, on this day, he suddenly received a letter from Tesla, stating that the Teslas they manufactured in China would plan to use the new generation of lithium batteries manufactured by LG in the Jinling factory!
This news is simply worse for CATL now.
In addition to its own strong technical innovation and R&D capabilities, as well as catching up with national policy support and market opportunities, the rise of CATL at the beginning also had a big reason, which was that it just happened to hold Tesla’s thighs tightly.
Looking at the development history of CATL, we will find that it really took off in 2019 when the domestic Tesla Shanghai Super Factory began construction.
According to domestic requirements, its main components need to be purchased from companies in China, so CATL successfully entered Tesla’s supply chain list.
Through the deep binding with Tesla, CATL has finally entered the fast lane of development.
But in fact, this is still the dividend of the policy.
The cars produced by Tesla overseas still use Songxia and LG batteries from beginning to end.
It can be seen that purchasing batteries from CATL is actually just Tesla under the pressure of localization policy, rather than wanting to cooperate with CATL from the bottom of its heart.
This also leads to the fact that the cooperation between the two sides is somewhat fragile.
Especially LG and Panasonic, in order to cater to Tesla’s localization strategy, have also built new battery factories in China. After they have the qualifications and production capacity to supply Tesla, the two sides have been flirting for a long time.
I can only say that those who are not of my kind must have different hearts. Although these companies in the old M camp usually fight among themselves, once a Chinese company threatens them, they can usually quickly put aside their conflicts and unite against Chinese companies.
So it didn’t surprise Zeng Yuqing that CATL received this letter.
In addition, it’s not the first time that he has received a similar letter… Under the anxious eyes of his subordinates, Zeng Yuqing carefully read every word in the notice, and then exhaled:
”They just said ‘plan to use it again’, and didn’t say it firmly… I think their main purpose this time is to threaten us to lower the price.”
After listening to Zeng Yuqing’s analysis, everyone couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, but soon they frowned again and said: “But the offer we gave them is already higher than LG is much cheaper, this wave of price reduction request is totally unreasonable…”
Zeng Yuqing nodded, which was actually what puzzled him the most.
”Please buy me a ticket to Shanghai, and I will talk to Anil in person.” – At 3:30 pm that day, Zeng Yuqing met Anil, the head of Tesla in China, at Tesla Shanghai Super Factory.
After a simple greeting, Zeng Yuqing turned the topic to the letter received in the morning.
”May I ask what considerations led you to make this decision?”
Anil smiled gently and explained: “Mr. Zeng, in fact, we have always cherished the cooperation with CATL, and we also recognize your product technology and quality.”
”But you haven’t come up with more advanced products that cater to market demand for a long time, which seriously limits our brand development and product update speed…”
”More advanced, more in line with the market? Zeng Yuqing immediately grasped the key point in Anil’s words, “Mr. Anil, our products have always been in a leading position in the market, and the price is more affordable. I don’t know why you define us like this?”
”That was in the past.” Anil shook his head,
”The latest mass-produced lithium battery jointly developed by LG and Panasonic has successfully passed the automotive-grade performance and safety reliability tests at Shouer. This lithium battery with an energy density of up to 250Wh/kg will start mass production in the Jinling factory in three months.”
”We are ready to take this opportunity to increase the range of our entire product line to more than 1,000 kilometers!”
250Wh/kg!? Hearing this data, Zeng Yuqing couldn’t help but take a breath, and he quickly asked: “What about the price? The mass production cost of a new battery with this energy density should not be low, right? Aren’t you worried that consumers will not pay for it after the car price is greatly increased? “No, their price is still 780 yuan/Wh. Users only need to add about 40,000-50,000 yuan to buy a Tesla with a 50% increase in battery life. Even if we don’t increase the battery life, if the space saved by the battery pack is left for users to store things, I believe it will be welcomed by our users.”
Zeng Yuqing: “…”
Until now, Zeng Yuqing realized that Tesla’s move was actually serious. They were not trying to lower the price! An extra 40,000-50,000 yuan may not really be a big price increase for Tesla users.
Zeng Yuqing pondered for a moment and said, “If we also make the energy density of the battery pack 250Wh/kg and the price is still 700 yuan/Wh, then we are still your best choice, right?”
”Of course.” Anil immediately laughed, “As long as the products are of the same quality, a fool will choose the cheaper one, right? ”
Zeng Yuqing couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, but he was not sure of the authenticity of Anil’s news.
What if he deliberately played this drama with LG in order to squeeze his own toothpaste?
Therefore, Zeng Yuqing did not immediately promise anything, but just said jokingly: “Then our R&D team will probably have to work overtime all night.”
”Then wait for your good news.” Anil also said with a smile.
In fact, he knew very well that CATL had at least an 80% chance of having liquid lithium battery mass production technology with an energy density of 250Wh/kg, but it had been hidden until it encountered a real opponent and a major crisis.
But it didn’t matter,
Because LG was serious this time.
A more intense competition in the lithium battery industry is about to begin.
And what these new energy vehicle companies like to see most is probably the battery factory rolling up…
(End of this chapter)