China’s BYD leads in race for biggest EV battery plant

Bloomberg

BYD Co. is building what would become the world’s largest vehicle-battery factory next year in an effort by the Chinese electric-car maker to increase capacity and help revive earnings growth.
The plant will have an annual capacity of 24 gigawatt-hours when it is fully in use in 2019, enough to equip 1.2 million BYD Tang electric cars, according to the manufacturer backed by Warren Buffett. BYD invested $1.5 billion in the factory, which will help meet the company’s plan to boost its battery-making capability almost fourfold by 2020.
“We have reason to believe there will be further explosive development in the new-energy vehicle industry,” BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said at the facility in the Chinese outpost of Qinghai.
“There is huge potential in the lithium industry.”
China’s biggest manufacturer of new-energy vehicles has differentiated itself from other carmakers with its self-sufficiency in battery supplies and strength in battery-production, starting with its roots as a maker of mobile-phone batteries. BYD is also expanding production to sell batteries to other automakers to broaden its income sources after posting profit declines in five of the past 10 years, and plans to spin off the business.
The new plant, which chairman Wang called the world’s largest power-battery factory, will cover 1 million square
metres. It will be a fully automated facility, with about 100 robots handling logistics and manufacturing.
BYD will face competition for the crown. Tesla Inc. is expanding its gigafactory in Nevada to reach output of 35 GWh, according to its website. The company headed by Elon Musk also plans to build a gigafactory in China.
Rising ownership of electric-powered vehicles in China, where the government has thrown its weight behind the industry’s growth, has spurred the expansion of battery makers such as BYD and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., whose rapid production ramp-up turned it into the nation’s biggest maker of battery cells for electric cars.
Like BYD, the company known as CATL is also building a 24-GWh factory. That’s scheduled for completion around 2020 and will help CATL expand its production capacity to 88 GWh by that time. BYD expects its total battery-making capacity to reach 28 GWh this year, and rise further to 48 GWh and 60 GWh in 2019 and 2020, said He Long, a VP who heads the battery business. Regulators are urging automakers to install batteries with higher energy density and longer range.