New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China

Bigger problem right now is lithium prices. It has risen around 5 times from 100k yuan/tonne to 500k since August last year and stayed at that ridiculous price since the war in ukraine started.

It's killing all the middle class models. Cheapest sedan with half decent range (400+km) starts at around 140k nowadays, models like Geometry A Pro, old Aion S, Beijing EU5 Plus. For that price many would rather just buy a 80-100k ICE car like Roewe i5/MG 5/Fengshen Yixuan/Geely Emgrand and use the extra for fuel. Hell you can even get something really fun like a Uni V.

BYD Atto 3 EV Review in Australia​

[My Comments]
This is happening. A middle-class battery-powered SUV is exported from a design-in-China and made-in-China Chinese brand to an OECD country like Australia. I would definitely buy one if BYD exports to US with a correct-handed version. Along with Nio/Li/XPend exporting to Europe, this is a more significant revolution than Taiwan crisis or even Ukraine war. Along with the 28nm wafer-fab independence, China is definitely going to dominate the global EV market with the best price/performance metrics.

sndef888 said:

Bigger problem right now is lithium prices. It has risen around 5 times from 100k yuan/tonne to 500k since August last year and stayed at that ridiculous price since the war in ukraine started.

It's killing all the middle class models. Cheapest sedan with half decent range (400+km) starts at around 140k nowadays, models like Geometry A Pro, old Aion S, Beijing EU5 Plus. For that price many would rather just buy a 80-100k ICE car like Roewe i5/MG 5/Fengshen Yixuan/Geely Emgrand and use the extra for fuel. Hell you can even get something really fun like a Uni V.

Click to expand...

The lithium prices should be mangeable. A typical 60 KWh lithium battery only uses 6kg of lithium.
So the lithium increase should only account for an extra $342 (2400 RMB) for the battery.

But when you have a shortage of lithium for batteries, it just makes sense to increase prices or only sell expensive electric cars.

CATL sees big surge in H1 performance​

By CHENG YU | China Daily | Updated: 2022-08-25 09:03

Visitors check out CATL products during a high-tech expo in Yibin, Sichuan province, in July. ZENG LANG/FOR CHINA DAILY

Battery maker posts $1.2b in net profit despite rising costs, supply chain woes

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd, the world's largest battery maker for electric vehicles, more than doubled its profit in the second quarter, despite rising costs of raw materials and supply chains due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the first six months, the company gained a net profit of 8.17 billion yuan ($1.19 billion), which soared 82 percent year-on-year. Its revenue jumped to 112.97 billion yuan during the period, up 156.32 percent.

Though faced with challenges brought by COVID-19, CATL said it has established an information system to track the supply, demand and price changes of important raw materials, and has purchased some in advance.

Through signing long-term contracts with suppliers, recycling materials and negotiating a dynamic battery pricing scheme with automakers, the pressure of rising costs was relieved, it said.

"CATL's performance beat market expectations. With fewer COVID-19 disruptions expected in the second half and sales of new energy vehicles entering peak season, the company's sales are expected to maintain continuous growth," said an analyst team led by Yin Zhongshu from Everbright Securities.

The Ningde, Fujian province-based company said that demand in the Chinese market remained robust following the country's efforts in promoting EV sales, which has led to China's EV sales bucking an overall trend of weakening auto sales globally.

The latest data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed that sales of China's new energy vehicles soared 115 percent in the first six months to 2.6 million, which also drove a quick expansion of EV batteries.

Another highlight of the company's first-half performance is its rapid overseas expansion. In August, the battery maker invested 7.34 billion euros ($7.5 billion) to build a 100 gigawatt-hour battery plant in Debrecen, Hungary, which is also the second battery plant in Europe following its German factory.

CATL received approval to produce battery cells in its factory in the German federal state of Thuringia in April. The new plant, as its first factory outside of China, has a total investment of 1.8 billion euros.

In June, CATL also confirmed to China Daily that it has supplied EV batteries to South Korea's Kia Corp, which marked the first entry of a non-South Korean battery into the market.

Market consultancy SNE Research said CATL's market share in the global EV battery market reached 34.8 percent in the first half, extending its lead with a 6.2 percentage point increase from a year ago.

"With an anticipated boom in NEV sales globally in the coming years, mainstream battery manufacturers including CATL will no doubt rev up overseas expansion," said Wang Jing, a research supervisor for high-end manufacturing at Shanghai Chaos Investment Group Co Ltd.

sndef888 said:

Anyone have figures of how many EVs China would need to reach oil security?

Meaning domestic oil supply can supply 100% of oil usage

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In US vehicles account for 40-45 percent of oil use.
In the US there is some 289 million vehicles, some 0.85 per person.
While in China there is some 384 million, or some 0.27 per person.

Furthermore average mileage is some 20 k km per year per vehicle in us, compared to 11 k km in China.

Overall oil consumption in 2021 was 15.4 million barrels per day in China. In US it was 19.8 million barrels.

I've also found some mpg data, not sure how credible it is. Probably just for cars, not for trucks too. Alleging average mpg in US being 25 mpg, and 40 mpg in China. Including trucks, it's likely the difference is a little bit smaller, possibly 25%.

So, if all the data above is correct, then it'd seem US uses some 8.3 million barrels of oil for motor vehicles, per day.
With a higher number of vehicles, lower mileage but also higher fuel efficiency, China likely uses quite a bit less on its entire motor vehicle pool. Using the numbers above, I've worked out a number around 4.5 million barrels per day going to motor vehicles in China.

If correct, that would suggest that China uses 29% of its oil consumption on motor vehicles. Meaning roughly 10.9 million barrels per day is left used by the other parts of the economy. China produced basically 4 million barrels per day, in 2021.

Therefore, even if all the motor vehicles used up zero oil, there'd still be a very large part of economy that'd have to use oil from imports.

And given that, even without motor vehicles, US uses some 4.5 times more oil per capita - it's likely China too will be moving in that direction, at its own pace. Meaning that even if motor vehicles use up zero oil, the rest of the economy might be using more and more oil. Perhaps even at a pace that will outstrip the increased production of oil.

If all the above is true, then it might be that China will, in fact, not be able to supply even close to 100% of its oil consumption domestically. That the supply levels might hover well under 50%. And that even when vehicles use zero oil, that the percentage might not reach 50%. In theory, the percentage might be even worse than today, as China's economy develops further. Until alternative energy sources take over in sufficient numbers. (Fusion and whatever).

BYD Q2 earnings

In the first half, BYD's share of China's NEV market stood at 24.7 percent, up 7.5 percentage points from 2021, BYD's earnings report said, citing data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

During the period, six of the top 10 new energy passenger vehicle sales in China were BYD models, the company said, adding that demand for its products exceeded supply and orders were at record highs.

Some raw material prices remained high in the first half of the year, putting pressure on the industry chain. BYD therefore adjusted the prices of some models in January and March to help ease cost pressures, it said.

In the second half of the year, improved supply and demand are expected to drive NEV sales to another record high as the supply chain regains stability, BYD said.

Click to expand...

Does anyone know what is the ownership structure of the new Avatr under Changan, Huawei and CATL?

4Runner said:

BYD Atto 3 EV Review in Australia​

[My Comments]
This is happening. A middle-class battery-powered SUV is exported from a design-in-China and made-in-China Chinese brand to an OECD country like Australia. I would definitely buy one if BYD exports to US with a correct-handed version. Along with Nio/Li/XPend exporting to Europe, this is a more significant revolution than Taiwan crisis or even Ukraine war. Along with the 28nm wafer-fab independence, China is definitely going to dominate the global EV market with the best price/performance metrics.

Click to expand...

Going by the recent hoopla over changes in the warranty issues for Aus, I have a feeling BYD have bigger plans for Europe, and probably not gonna care too much about the Aus market.

Totoro said:

In US vehicles account for 40-45 percent of oil use.
In the US there is some 289 million vehicles, some 0.85 per person.
While in China there is some 384 million, or some 0.27 per person.

Furthermore average mileage is some 20 k km per year per vehicle in us, compared to 11 k km in China.

Overall oil consumption in 2021 was 15.4 million barrels per day in China. In US it was 19.8 million barrels.

I've also found some mpg data, not sure how credible it is. Probably just for cars, not for trucks too. Alleging average mpg in US being 25 mpg, and 40 mpg in China. Including trucks, it's likely the difference is a little bit smaller, possibly 25%.

So, if all the data above is correct, then it'd seem US uses some 8.3 million barrels of oil for motor vehicles, per day.
With a higher number of vehicles, lower mileage but also higher fuel efficiency, China likely uses quite a bit less on its entire motor vehicle pool. Using the numbers above, I've worked out a number around 4.5 million barrels per day going to motor vehicles in China.

If correct, that would suggest that China uses 29% of its oil consumption on motor vehicles. Meaning roughly 10.9 million barrels per day is left used by the other parts of the economy. China produced basically 4 million barrels per day, in 2021.

Therefore, even if all the motor vehicles used up zero oil, there'd still be a very large part of economy that'd have to use oil from imports.

And given that, even without motor vehicles, US uses some 4.5 times more oil per capita - it's likely China too will be moving in that direction, at its own pace. Meaning that even if motor vehicles use up zero oil, the rest of the economy might be using more and more oil. Perhaps even at a pace that will outstrip the increased production of oil.

If all the above is true, then it might be that China will, in fact, not be able to supply even close to 100% of its oil consumption domestically. That the supply levels might hover well under 50%. And that even when vehicles use zero oil, that the percentage might not reach 50%. In theory, the percentage might be even worse than today, as China's economy develops further. Until alternative energy sources take over in sufficient numbers. (Fusion and whatever).

Click to expand...

Chinese oil consumption: 14.1 mb/d in 2019.

"Automobiles accounted for 42 percent of China’s total oil consumption and over 80 percent of its total refined oil consumption"

That would mean:
6 MBPD for automobiles
8 MBPD for everything else

Hence my previous comment that with domestic production [5 MBPD] + friendly imports [3 MBPD] would probably be enough if China's entire vehicle fleet was electric.

Source

Alright, BYD's Q2 earnings is out.
From Chinese social media, total revenue in H1 of 150.6 billion RMB, with auto sector being 109.2 billion. The profit from auto part is 17.8 billion for a margin of 16.3%. This is actually down 1.73% from same period last year.
Research is 6.47 billion RMB, up 46.63% compared to a year ago. Estimated to hit 15 billion for the whole year. A lot of hiring and R&D here.
Each car cost 169k RMB (including commercial vehicle). Each vehicle cost 141.5k RMB to make with profit of 27.6k.
42.8 billion RMB of investment (sounds like capex here) for new factories and riasing production. New construction projects increased 14 billion RMB.
Weak demand in consumer elecronics. All the profit coming from car and battery divisions.

Also, BYD's agreement to supply parts to BYD (apparently motor housing products for Seal). 1.5 billion RMB over 5 years

CATL power cars reaching 5 million unit

Robosense turns 8 today it is a Shenzehn based company that produces Lidars. I believe BYD cars will be buying lidars from Robosense.