With our newThe rapid development of energy vehicles, power battery market demand has soared in the past two years, ushering in a "golden period". However, at the same time in the prosperity, but also exposed some new problems. How to promote the healthy development of lithium battery industry? A few days ago, Qinghai Province, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and China Electric Vehicle Association jointly organized the "lithium industry - the new ecology" International Summit Forum, the participating enterprises, experts on behalf of this in-depth discussion!The

Development enters a golden period
In 2015, China's new energy vehicle output reached 379,000 units, and the overall shipment of power batteries reached 15.7 billion watt-hours, more than three times the year-on-year growth. The explosive demand for power batteries has been extended to the positive electrode, negative electrode and diaphragm, electrolyte and other related material industries as well as the upstream lithium mining resources industry. The market supply and demand effect has also begun to appear, as an important raw material for lithium-ion batteries, the price of lithium carbonate has risen from 43,000 yuan per ton in 2015 to 160,000 yuan per ton in May this year.
Power battery explosive demand, market supply once "tight". Many domestic lithium battery manufacturers even appeared to let the new energy vehicle manufacturers queuing for goods. In the face of the hot market, some companies have also raised production capacity to meet market demand. Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. vice president of marketing Tan Libin told the "Economic Daily News" reporter, the enterprise this year's planned production capacity is twice as much as last year.
"The current investment in power batteries is still in an enhanced stage." Xiao Chengwei, a senior engineer at the 18th Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, said that in 2015, the number of supporting battery watt-hours was about 16 billion watt-hours, with an output value of more than 40 billion yuan, while the entire industry's capital investment has now exceeded 100 billion yuan.
According to the strategic goal of "Made in China 2025", by 2020, the annual sales volume of new energy vehicles in China will exceed 1 million units. By 2025, the annual sales volume of new energy vehicles synchronized with the international advanced level will reach 3 million. At the same time, by 2020, the power battery and other key systems to reach the international advanced level, in the domestic market share of 80%, to realize the batch export in 2025.
It is understood that the domestic lithium industry has been initially formed in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Central Plains four major industrial regions. And lithium reserves accounted for the national 80% Qinghai, is trying to build another lithium industry base with national influence, relying on the rich lithium resources, in the lithium market to get a piece of the pie.
Hao Peng, governor of Qinghai Province, said that at present, Qinghai has initially formed a lithium extraction from the salt lake, lithium carbonate, positive and negative materials lithium battery manufacturing and other upstream and downstream integration of the industrial chain, "and strive to 2020 to create a lithium industry base of 100 billion yuan of national influence in Qinghai, to achieve the lithium industry from the lithium resources from the big province of lithium industry in the province of the transformation".

In order to promote the development of lithium industry, Qinghai Province has also launched a series of industrial policies to attract lithium enterprises to settle in Qinghai. Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. and BYD Advanced Technology Industry Co., Ltd. and other well-known domestic manufacturers have set up factories and started construction in Qinghai. BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu also said that BYD will invest in Qinghai this year, a battery plant with a capacity of 10 billion watt-hours.

Shortcomings still need to be filled
Behind the rapid growth of the lithium industry, some problems have gradually emerged. In recent years, the government has introduced various forms of policies to promote the rapid start and development of electric vehicles and related industries, and achieved certain results. However, some experts said that the government subsidies in the case of electric vehicle market performance, does not reflect the real situation of the market, this strong stimulus is also likely to lead to blind investment, the enterprise product "by the quantity and light quality" and other phenomena.
Chen Qingtai, chairman of the China Electric Vehicle Association, said that in the favorable policy to promote, many automotive companies are busy on the production, competing to the battery companies to urge goods, in order to get the goods in time and even reduce the quality requirements. Battery parts and components enterprises are under enormous pressure to deliver, some in order to ensure supply, lower quality standards, relax the management, slowing down the pace of technological research and development. This phenomenon is very dangerous and worrying.
Thanks to the strong market demand, although China's lithium battery industry has been among the world's first camp, but it does not mean that there is no gap with South Korea and Japan's top companies, such as product consistency and other aspects of the gap still exists. A lithium enterprise responsible person told reporters, South Korea, Japan's giant product defective rate has been reduced to 3ppm level, that is, the production of one million cores, unqualified only 3; and Chinese companies have not been able to reach this level of core product qualification rate.
At the same time, the industry also exists "small and scattered" problem. Due to the rapid expansion of the market, the industry entry threshold is low, a large number of R & D technology level of small and medium-sized companies to enter the lithium industry, these companies have no advantage in technological innovation, profitability.
In addition, for the lithium industry, how to improve the battery recycling link, reduce environmental pollution, is also an important factor to ensure the sustainable development of the industry. Some experts predict that by 2020, the number of global waste lithium batteries is about 25 billion. If the recycling link is not perfect, it will cause huge pollution and waste of resources. However, the high cost of recycling waste power batteries and the low level of enterprise recycling are the pain points of the domestic lithium industry, and one of the main gaps with the lithium industry in developed countries.

A multi-pronged approach to closing the gap

Chen Qingtai said that to create an environmentally friendly, healthy, sustainable development of the lithium industry chain, the first should be moderately reduce the growth rate of lithium industry, increase investment in R & D, make great efforts to grasp the quality, and pragmatically solve the problems exposed, and build up a thick and thin, to meet the outbreak of the electric vehicle industry.
How to grasp the direction of technological research to shorten the gap with top foreign companies? AVIC Lithium (Luoyang) Co., Ltd. Technology Research Institute President Guo Shengchang believes that, in addition to manufacturing processes and other aspects of the domestic and international top technology, the greater gap lies in the basic industry, "such as the production of automated battery equipment, processing precision is still a gap between the top foreign technology and equipment. Therefore, the state and enterprises should pay more attention to the research of basic industry, fundamentally shorten the gap between us and the world's top technology."
At the same time, the government should also guide and promote the development of the industry change through industrial policy. Experts believe that although the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has released four batches of enterprises in line with the "Automotive Power Storage Battery Industry Specification Conditions" directory, there are still 57 battery companies into the directory. If the access standard can be raised again, it will help eliminate low-end production capacity, improve market concentration and optimize the industrial structure.

For the recycling of power batteries, Wan Gang, Minister of Science and Technology, has said that power batteries, especially lithium-ion power batteries, recycling is not necessarily immediately after the end-of-life treatment, can be gradient utilization. There are also many companies see the vast space of the secondary utilization market, and try to enter it. However, the lack of standards is a serious constraint on the enthusiasm of enterprises to enter. Hefei Guoxuan Hi-Tech Power Energy Co., Ltd. engineering research institute vice president Yang Xulai said, if you do not solve a series of standard problems such as battery use, step by step utilization can not be talked about. Therefore, to strengthen the quality of retired batteries, performance identification, grading and other testing and evaluation technology and standards research, and develop relevant standards, to promote the secondary utilization is critical.