Technological power starts with upgrading lenses

The limitation of raw materials is the first external worry of the Ningde era.

The second external worry is that most car companies are now actively trying to get rid of their problems.

Although CATL had successfully dominated most new energy vehicle companies with its ultra-high product yield rate and large-scale production.

But after holding on to it for a long time, everyone will inevitably feel resentful.

More than 40% of the cost of a car is batteries, and they are often unavailable, causing car companies to fail to deliver new cars. Therefore, many new energy car companies are complaining, saying that they are working for CATL. All the money was taken away by CATL, and with a final wave of hands, it decided to build its own battery factory.

For example, Xiaopeng hooked up with AVIC Lithium Battery, and GAC invested in AVIC Xingxin Airlines.

Great Wall has built a hive energy and supplies it to Geely, Lantu and Ideal.

Not to mention BYD, it has always had its own battery supply chain.

As a result, a production capacity plan of 4800GWh was launched, causing competition to become increasingly fierce.

In addition to external troubles, the Ningde era itself also had 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\u0026D department is a little better, but the production department is just a beast. The employee flight rate is very high. There are almost no employees who come out of the production department who don’t complain that they are sweatshops.

The most critical thing is that battery development has too many technical routes and forks in the road.

The Ningde era made the right bet on liquid ternary lithium batteries and caught up with the development of new energy, which led to today's glory.

But as the technology of liquid lithium batteries gradually reaches its bottleneck, they have reached a new crossroads.

But at this time, they turned around because of the shipwreck. Once they chose the wrong technical route, they were likely to be slower than others in the future, or even fall from the altar.

At this crossroads, what they chose was solid-state lithium batteries.

However, solid-state lithium batteries have been stuck in the laboratory and have been delayed in mass production. This puts great pressure on Zeng Yuqing, chairman of CATL.

However, on this day, he suddenly received a letter from Tesla stating that the Teslas they manufacture in China plan to reuse the new generation lithium batteries manufactured by LG in Jinling factory!

This news is simply adding insult to injury for the current Ningde era.

The rise of CATL was not only due to its excellent technological innovation and R\u0026D capabilities, but also to catching up with national policy support and market opportunities. Another big reason was that it just happened to hold on to Tesla's thighs.

Looking at the development history of the Ningde era, you will find that the time when it really took off was actually in 2019, when the construction of the domestic Tesla Magic City Super Factory began.

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 integration with Tesla, CATL has finally entered the fast lane of development.

But in fact, this still eats the dividends of the policy.

Tesla's cars produced overseas still use batteries from Songxia and LG from beginning to end.

It can be seen that Tesla's purchase of batteries from CATL is actually due to pressure from the localization policy, rather than a genuine desire to cooperate with CATL.

This also leads to the cooperation between the two parties being somewhat fragile.

Especially LG and Panasonic, in order to cater to Tesla's localization strategy, have also built new battery factories in China. After having the qualifications and production capacity to supply Tesla, the two parties have been flirting with each other for a long time.

It can only be said that those who are not from my race must have different intentions. Although these companies in the old M camp usually fight fiercely among themselves, once a Chinese company threatens them, they can usually quickly put aside their conflicts and unite against China. national enterprise.

Therefore, Zeng Yuqing was not too surprised that CATL received this letter.

In addition, this is not the first time I have received a similar letter...

Under the anxious eyes of his subordinates, Zeng Yuqing carefully read every word in the notification letter, then exhaled and said:

"They just said 'plan to use it again,' but didn't say it to death... I think their main purpose this time is to blackmail us into lowering prices."

After listening to Zeng Yuqing's analysis, everyone could not help but heave a sigh of relief, but soon they frowned again: "But the price we gave them is already much cheaper than LG. This wave of price reduction requests is completely unreasonable..."

Zeng Yuqing nodded. This was actually what he was most confused about.

"Buy me a ticket to the Magic City, and I'll talk to Anil in person."

——

At 3:30 that afternoon, Zeng Yuqing met Anil, Tesla’s head of China, at the Tesla Magic City Gigafactory.

After a brief exchange of greetings, Zeng Yuqing shifted the topic to the letter he received in the morning.

"May I ask what considerations led you to make this decision?"

Anil smiled softly and explained: "Mr. Zeng, in fact, we have always cherished our cooperation with CATL and highly recognized your product technology and quality."

"But you haven't come up with more advanced products that better meet market demand for a long time. This has severely limited our brand development and product update speed..."

"More advanced and more in line with the market?" Zeng Yuqing immediately grasped the key to Anil's words, "Mr. Anil, our products have always been in a leading position in the market, and the prices are even more affordable. I don't know what you mean? What are the considerations that define us in this way?”

"That's in the past." Anil shook his head.

“The latest mass-produced lithium battery jointly developed by LG and Panasonic has successfully passed the vehicle-level performance and safety reliability test at Shoure. This lithium battery with an energy density of up to 250Wh/kg will be available in three months. Mass production started at Jinling factory."

"We are ready to take this opportunity to increase the cruising range of our entire line of products 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 if the car price is significantly increased? ?”

"No, their price is still 780 yuan/Wh. With an additional price of about 40,000 to 50,000 yuan, users can buy a Tesla with a 50% increase in battery life. Even if we don't improve the battery life, the battery pack will be saved. If the space is left for users to store things, I believe that all our users would like to see it.”

Zeng Yuqing: "..."

Only now did Zeng Yuqing realize that Tesla’s wave was actually serious.

They are not trying to lower the price!

The extra 40,000 to 50,000 yuan may not be a big price increase for Tesla users.

Zeng Yuqing pondered for a moment and then said: "If we also increase the energy density of the battery pack to 250Wh/kg, and the price is still 700 yuan/Wh, then we are still your best choice, right?"

"Of course." Anil immediately smiled, "As long as the product is of the same quality, a fool will choose the cheaper one, right?"

Zeng Yuqing couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief, but he was not sure about the authenticity of Anil's news.

What if he deliberately staged this drama with LG just to squeeze out his own toothpaste?

Therefore, Zeng Yuqing did not promise anything immediately. He just said jokingly: "Then our R\u0026D team will probably have to work overtime all night."

"Then we'll have to wait for the good news from you guys." Anil also said with a smile.

In fact, he knows very well that CATL has at least an 80% chance of mass-producing liquid lithium batteries with an energy density of 250Wh/kg.

It's just that I kept hiding it until I encountered a real opponent or a major crisis.

But that doesn't matter anymore,

Because LG is serious this time.

A more intense competition in the lithium battery industry is about to begin.

As for new energy car companies, what they like to see most is probably the battery factory being rolled up...