Rebirth 99 to become a car giant

"523 ternary lithium battery?"

"Have you really developed it?"

Zhang Lin is not a person who doesn't understand anything.

He is very interested in Nanshan Battery's new technology solutions.

These are indeed hard-core technical upgrade solutions that can reduce the cost of power batteries.

Changan Automobile can definitely consider the technical solutions for power batteries in electric vehicles in the future.

"The research and development has been successful, and the next new car model in the future will be directly equipped with 523 ternary lithium batteries."

Hearing what Lin Cheng said, Zhang Lin naturally had no doubts.

As for the specific details, just leave it to the R\u0026D team to confirm.

At this point, the atmosphere of the entire negotiation has been greatly improved.

In the end, Nanshan Battery made some appropriate concessions, saying that this time it was only necessary to apply for market linkage of three materials: lithium carbonate, nickel and cobalt.

The increase in other electrolytes and other materials has been temporarily absorbed by Nanshan Battery itself.

Zhang Lin knew that continuing the discussion might not lead to better results, so he agreed in principle to this direction.

Next, the people below will implement this general direction.

Nanshan Battery has so many customers, this time it is definitely not just negotiating with Changan Automobile.

Soon, other companies such as Yangcheng Aian and Didu New Energy also launched various negotiations one after another.

This news slowly spread in the industry.

"Mr. Li, now various OEMs have slowly accepted the price adjustment of power battery raw materials. I think we should take advantage of this opportunity to communicate with each OEM as soon as possible."

"Otherwise, if we bring it up later, the materials will rise even higher and the cost of power batteries will rise significantly, it will not be easy to talk about."

Shi Junhui has always paid close attention to the news of Nanshan Battery.

Against the background that the prices of the main raw materials for power batteries have increased significantly, he is even more concerned about the news of Nanshan Batteries.

Not to mention that there are some news reports in the media about the rising prices of raw materials such as lithium carbonate and the voices that power battery manufacturers want to increase prices.

Just some of the customers he has direct contact with are customers of Nanshan Battery themselves.

Therefore, even if Shi Junhui cannot get particularly accurate information, he still knows the results of negotiations between various OEMs and Nanshan Battery on the increase in raw material prices.

Compared with Nanshan Battery's bargaining power in the industry, which can even be said to be pricing power, Guoxuan Hi-Tech is much more passive in this regard.

Basically, raw material manufacturers can only passively accept how much they want to increase prices.

The key is that these raw material manufacturers have no shareholding relationship with Guoxuan.

Unlike Nanshan batteries, sometimes it's just a matter of switching from left hand to right hand.

Don’t you know that Nanshan Battery controls the raw material industry chain?

Not to mention, most OEMs really don’t know much about it.

I only know that Nanshan Battery has some layout in this regard, but no one knows the specific layout.

Not only does Nanshan Battery quote prices to various OEMs, they are all at one price.

People will not tell you where each material is purchased from, let alone what the relationship between these material manufacturers and Nanshan Battery is.

"We really need to hurry up, but in addition to asking OEMs to increase prices, we also need to pay attention to the procurement of raw materials."

"Don't fail to buy materials at market prices by then. If you have to buy high-priced materials to ensure supply, it will be a big loss."

Li Zhen is naturally also paying close attention to the price fluctuations of power battery raw materials during this period.

For general battery companies, their bargaining power on bulk commodities is very low.

For example, when purchasing materials such as lithium carbonate, nickel, and cobalt, the most you can do is negotiate a few discounts with the raw material manufacturers.

It is impossible to get a larger discount.

Even for Nanshan Battery, if most of the materials are not purchased from affiliated companies, it will be very difficult to get a substantial price discount.

"This round of raw material price increases is likely to have entered a stage of rapid growth."

"Should we stock up on a batch of raw materials first, so that after we negotiate the price adjustment rules with the OEM, we might be able to earn some extra money."

Shi Junhui's proposal was obviously not unreasonable.

For example, if Guoxuan had stockpiled raw materials for this year in advance when the prices of raw materials such as lithium carbonate were not so high at the end of last year.

Then we formed a material adjustment plan with the OEM to adjust the material price of power batteries according to the latest market conditions, so that we can get additional dividends from the increase in materials.

Lithium carbonate is obviously sold for 30,000 yuan per ton, but it can be sold to OEMs for 50,000 yuan per ton.

As a result, the profitability of power battery packs immediately changed significantly.

"It has risen a lot now, right? Will it continue to rise?"

Li Zhen has been working on power batteries for more than a day or two, and he is relatively clear about the prices of the main raw materials in the past few years.

In his opinion, the current price is already a historical high and should not continue to rise that much.

After all, raw materials are just the same material as they change.

The mine is there, and the changes in processing costs are very limited, but the price of the final extracted raw materials has skyrocketed.

This is obviously an unreasonable phenomenon.

"It's hard to say. I think it's more likely that it will continue to rise."

"At best, the increase will not be that big, but it will be difficult to go back down."

Shi Junhui thought for a moment and gave his reply.

This kind of question is actually not that easy to answer.

Because it involves predicting future material trends, it's very difficult.

If the prediction is really accurate, then everyone will speculate in futures.

"In that case, let's order more materials first."

"Originally, we ordered raw materials one quarter in advance. From now on, we will order all the raw materials half a year in advance."

Although I thought about doing some risk-avoiding actions, if the extent is too large, it is also a very risky thing in itself.

Just imagine, if they make a mistake and the price of materials drops significantly, but they hoard a large amount of high-priced raw materials, it will definitely be miserable.

One mistake might cause the company to consider shutting down.

…

After a round of communication with various OEMs, Nanshan Battery immediately held an online new technology conference.

At this press conference, they officially announced a new generation of lithium iron phosphate battery and ternary lithium battery technology.

Among them, lithium iron phosphate batteries have officially launched "blade batteries" this year. In terms of energy density, they can catch up with the ternary lithium batteries of many other battery manufacturers in the industry.

Compared with Nanshan Battery's own ternary lithium power battery, the gap has also been greatly narrowed.

This can be regarded as greatly changing the application prospects of lithium iron phosphate batteries in passenger cars.

In terms of ternary lithium batteries, the new generation 523 ternary lithium battery is also named "Kirin Battery".

Obviously, Nanshan Battery is preparing to adopt a brand strategy this time.

Otherwise, everyone is using lithium iron phosphate batteries or ternary lithium batteries, and there is no way to show your superiority.

But with a catchy name, things are different.

"Blade Battery" and "Kirin Battery" are undoubtedly easy-to-remember names.

In the future, when customers promote the battery used in their electric vehicles, they can say that I use Nanshan Battery's "Blade Battery" or "Kirin Battery", which should also be a plus.

Of course, for the companies under Nanshan Automobile Group, they will definitely not promote these two technical solutions at this time.

For them, I use the power battery provided by Nanshan Battery, which is enough.

It would not be a good thing if everyone thinks that all cars use the same "blade battery" or "Kirin battery".

As the world's largest power battery manufacturer, Nanshan Battery has made such a big noise, which will naturally cause huge shocks in the industry.

"Mr. Wang, I have carefully studied the 'blade battery' of Nanshan Battery. In addition to the technological progress in the battery itself, the main contribution to the increase in energy density is actually the change in structure."

"Through the special structure of the blade shape, the energy density can be greatly improved. I think this idea is the easiest to learn."

As the person in charge of BYD batteries, Lu Faxiang is also very familiar with various battery situations.

As for Wang Fu, it goes without saying that he studied this professional thing.

Back then, BYD also relied on batteries to start its business.

"Although Nanshan Battery is a bit tricky this time, I have to say that this step is really wonderful."

"The price of raw materials for power batteries has increased significantly now, and will continue to rise in the future."

"Then the cost of ternary lithium batteries will be so high that it is difficult to accept it."

"This is the best time to promote lithium iron phosphate batteries."

Wang Fu is naturally very familiar with the situation in the battery industry.

BYD has been researching lithium iron phosphate batteries for a long time, and even some of BYD's electric vehicles have used lithium iron phosphate battery technology.

However, in the past few years, the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries has been relatively low, and it has been difficult for everyone to like it.

Now Nanshan Battery is taking a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, it improves the energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries in terms of formula and technology, and on the other hand, it greatly improves the energy density in terms of structure, ultimately making lithium iron phosphate batteries a product that can be used on a large scale in passenger cars. existence of use.

This is of great significance to the development of new energy vehicles in China as a whole.

After all, reducing the cost of batteries is more conducive to the development of the entire industry.

Otherwise, the cost of electric cars is so high that even if everyone is willing to sell cars at a loss, they won’t lose much.

"Yes, I am going to arrange personnel to follow this idea and launch our new generation of lithium iron phosphate battery technology as soon as possible."

"At that time, you can also come up with a more interesting name so that everyone can remember it immediately."

Lu Faxiang's suggestion was obviously very pertinent, so Wang Fu agreed without any hesitation, and further stated, "We must continue to develop lithium iron phosphate batteries, but the technology of ternary lithium batteries cannot fall behind. ”

"On high-end models or models with long cruising range, ternary lithium batteries are still the only choice at present."

"We can't give up."

Lu Faxiang naturally understood Wang Fu's instructions.

"Like Nanshan Battery, we will also work hard on the use of cathode materials to see if we can produce the '523 ternary lithium battery' as soon as possible."

Following the rhythm of Nanshan Battery, Lu Faxiang is highly consistent with the attitude of many colleagues on this point.

If you innovate randomly on your own, sometimes it is easy to fall into a trap.

Lu Faxiang’s idea should represent the ideas of many Chinese operators.

This has also made real innovation more difficult in China. On the contrary, when a certain field develops well, there will be a swarm of people squeezing in, and everyone in this industry will be unable to make money.

It will still take some time to change this situation.

…

When various domestic car companies in China are abuzz with the "Blade Battery" and "Kirin Battery" released by Nanshan Battery, Tesla, as the largest electric car company in the United States, is naturally paying attention to this matter.

"Max, can the battery factory we cooperate with Panasonic make the energy density of the battery pack as high as that of Nanshan Battery's 'Kirin Battery'?"

In the United States, Tesla's personality is that of a high-end electric vehicle brand.

Judging from the situation in the past few years, their character design is relatively stable.

But Musko now feels a strong crisis.

Not to mention that Future Auto's success in the European market, especially in the Nordic market, has exceeded everyone's expectations.

Just for the electric vehicles produced by other Chinese companies, such as Changan Automobile, Yangcheng Aian, BYD and Didu New Energy, the combined annual sales volume has exceeded 1 million vehicles.

This is definitely a very remarkable achievement.

You know, Tesla is still working hard to achieve the goal of monthly sales exceeding 10,000.

Before the new model was launched, it was almost a dream to sell more than 10,000 cars a month relying solely on the support of the Model S.

The battery is a very critical component of electric vehicles. Now that there has been a new breakthrough in China, Musko is naturally a little anxious.

It stands to reason that Panasonic's lithium battery level is also very high.

Panasonic was once Tesla's strongest supporter.

The relationship between the two companies began in 2009. Panasonic, which had lost money on its plasma TVs, decided to bet on electric vehicles and started supplying 18650 batteries to Tesla through the acquisition of Sanyo Electric.

On the eve of Tesla’s listing in 2010, Panasonic brought capital into the group and generously invested US$30 million.

At that time, electric vehicles were not favored by the market. In order to ensure the production of Model S, Panasonic signed a supply agreement for 640 million 18650 battery cells. This was a fateful friendship.

Dongying’s lithium battery technology is actually at a very good level.

Before 2000, Japan's global share of lithium batteries was stable at more than 95%.

The 18650 lithium battery supplied by Panasonic to the Model S was actually originally used in laptop computers.

In the name 18650, 18 represents the length with a diameter of 18mm, and 0 represents the cylindrical shape, which is not much larger than AA battery.

The original battery pack of Model S contained more than 7,000 18650 batteries.

Due to its early downstream application, the 18650 battery technology is mature and the price is low, winning the favor of the haggling maniac Masco.

After the launch of Model S, in order to solve the production capacity problem, Tesla and Panasonic renewed their agreement in 2013 to expand the supply of battery cells to 1.8 billion.

However, there is obviously a gap between the performance of 18650 and Kirin batteries.

Musko has also realized this.

"I have also been communicating with Panasonic about this aspect during this time."

"In addition to the 18650 model, they actually already have the 21700 battery with higher energy density."

"The 21700 battery refers to a cylindrical battery with a diameter of 21mm and a height of 70mm. The energy density is more than 20% higher than that of the 18650. Moreover, due to the reduction of the number of cells in the battery pack, the production cost is further reduced, and the difficulty of power management is also reduced. ”

"I think we can bring Panasonic to invest in the Nevada factory. In addition to solving the problem of increasing battery energy density, it can also solve one of the production capacity problems that plagues us."

It has to be said that as the head of Tesla's R\u0026D, Max is very dedicated and has made all preparations very well.

Before Musko asked him, he had already understood in advance what the boss would be concerned about.

This is actually very important in the workplace.

In ancient times, a very important job for ministers in the court was to figure out what the emperor wanted.

Only by understanding the emperor's thoughts, speaking in a targeted manner, and proposing plans can one feel comfortable in the court.

In fact, it is similar in enterprises.

Only by grasping what the boss cares about and taking targeted actions in a timely manner can you have a greater chance of promotion and salary increase.

Obviously, Max did a very good job at this point.

After listening to what he said, Masco said without any hesitation: "I will fly to Japan right away and have a good talk with the person in charge of Panasonic."

"Japan used to be the leader in the global battery industry, but now it has been surpassed by China. They must be very unwilling to see such a situation."

"We are now facing pressure from Nanshan Batteries. Let's work together to build our new battery factory to upgrade technology and increase production capacity."

Musk is still very confident in Tesla's future.

The Model S is currently selling very well, and he is also very optimistic about several new models in the future. The sales volume will definitely be better than the current ones.

Then the supply of batteries needs to be considered in time.

In particular, there has been a tight battery supply situation in China, which has even led to a substantial increase in the prices of raw materials such as lithium carbonate and cobalt.

This has actually had an impact on Tesla's development.

That is to say, they are selling high-end models now, and they have a certain strength to withstand such an increase in material prices.

Even so, Musk is actually considering adjusting the sales price of the Model S to reflect the increase in material costs into the selling price.

This is relatively easy to do in the American market.

But in a huge market like China, it is a bit difficult to do it.

Whether it is Changan Automobile, Yangchang Aian, or BYD, they do not dare to raise sales prices easily.

Even though I can't bear the loss of electric vehicles, I am still holding on.

…

"Mr. Cao, with this wave of marketing, our industry-leading position of Nanshan Battery has been more completely confirmed."

"In the future, we will be ahead of our peers in terms of controlling raw material prices and leading technological advancement."

"Every customer has basically accepted our material price adjustment plan, and they are gradually promoting the implementation of price changes."

During this period of time, Lin Cheng was like a trapeze artist, running out to meet clients almost every day.

Although not every customer needs him as the general manager to negotiate the price in person, it is still necessary to take this opportunity to introduce blade batteries and Kirin batteries to each customer.

The meaning of the boss personally dispatching is different from that of the sales staff below.

"The changes in the power battery industry are very big."

"Although our current blade batteries and Kirin batteries are very good, in a few years we may be a little behind."

"It is necessary to continue to introduce lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries with higher energy density."

Cao Yang still has high expectations for Nanshan Battery.

In recent years, many companies in the group have wanted to go public, but Cao Yang has basically vetoed them.

If one or two companies must be chosen as demonstrations by then, Nanshan Battery will most likely be one of them.

To perform well in the stock market, it is obviously necessary to create a little bit of enthusiasm every now and then.

“We’ve been doing this work all the time.”

"Not only the current lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium, but also cheaper sodium-ion batteries, or solid-state batteries that represent the future development direction, we also have a dedicated team in research and development."

"In the next ten years, we will definitely be the most technologically advanced battery company in the country."

As a battery expert, Lin Cheng is now very motivated.

There is no shortage of people, no shortage of money, just focus on the project.

If there is no way to achieve results in this situation, it would be illogical.

With the size of Nanshan Battery, it is destined to be a presence that cannot be ignored in the Chinese economic circle in the future.

Not to mention the top 100 auto parts companies, even the global Fortune 500 companies are not a problem for it.

Even if it can be listed in the future, he thinks it is possible to increase the market value to 1 trillion.

Thinking of this, he wanted to work with all his strength.

"There have been quite a few newly established battery companies in the country in the past two years, and many companies are expected to come up with some special technical solutions."

"You also have to be careful not to capsize in the gutter."

Although domestic companies are generally poor at innovation, after all, the market is so big, there are still some eye-catching innovations.

Now that electric vehicles are developing so fast, it is not surprising that industry competitors such as CATL have come up with some new technical solutions.

Lin Cheng naturally attached great importance to this.