The United States is the second largest auto market in the world. At a time when the global auto industry is fully electrified, traditional automakers such as General Motors and Ford Motor have accelerated their transition to electrification, and new brands such as Tesla have also developed rapidly. Previously, the government had announced plans to achieve a goal of half of all new car sales in the U.S. being pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids by 2030. Take the American automaker Ford as an example. It plans to invest 50 billion US dollars (about 334.86 billion yuan) in electrification transformation and launch electric models such as the F-150 Lightning pure electric pickup truck. By 2026, its electric vehicle production capacity will be increased. to 2 million vehicles.
However, as the "lifeblood" of electric vehicles, the core component of power battery is facing the problem of "stuck neck" due to the frequent increase in the price of raw materials and insufficient supply of components in recent years. Therefore, in order to grasp the right to speak on the battery side and ensure the production capacity and supply of batteries, countries have begun to invest in the power battery industry.
This electrification transition will face many challenges.
The first is the question of supply. According to forecasts, the supply of metals used in electric vehicles, such as copper and nickel, will continue to be tight, so some power battery materials will face a shortage of supply. The price of the power battery pack will also rise from $129 (about RMB 863)/kWh in 2021 to $136 (about RMB 910)/kWh in 2022. Keogh estimates that the current annual output of power battery packs in the United States is 150,000 to 200,000, and in seven years, it will need to produce 8.5 million per year. With such large volumes, the cost of battery supply will also skyrocket.
The second is the problem of the industrial chain. At present, the United States has not yet formed a large-scale power battery industry, and the battery main material industry is still in its infancy. According to the data of the American Advanced Battery Alliance, the global lithium battery production capacity in 2020 is about 747 GWh, and the Chinese market accounts for as high as 76%, while the US market is only 59 GWh, accounting for only 8%.
The most important thing is the question of social structure. U.S. manufacturing jobs have fallen from 17 million in 2000 to 12.8 million in 2022. Keogh said the U.S. needs to do more to boost manufacturing capacity, and by 2030, the U.S. battery industry could only have hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The UK is also facing the same problem. After the United Kingdom "Brexit", the import cost of power batteries has risen sharply. If more battery factories are not built quickly, Britain could fall behind in the race to the electric car industry, government officials said. Industry insiders predict that the country needs to build 4-6 battery super factories in order to maintain the battery supply demand of the automotive industry.
However, battery factories require large areas of land, large amounts of renewable energy and water resources, and have long construction periods, and very few sites meet these criteria. However, automakers may not be able to "wait". If there is no power battery factory in the UK, then carmakers "will move to the location of the battery factory".
In addition, recently, the EU is considering to list "lithium", an important raw material for power batteries, as a hazardous substance. It is understood that the European Chemicals Agency proposed to include lithium carbonate, lithium chloride and lithium hydroxide in the list of substances harmful to human health. This means that once the proposal is passed, the control of lithium batteries will become more stringent in the future, and the production costs of European battery suppliers will increase significantly.
American lithium giant Albemarle said: "In the future, Albemarle will not be able to import the main raw material lithium chloride, and the company's factory in Langelsheim, Germany will face the risk of closure."
In recent years, Europe has been vigorously promoting the process of "carbon neutrality" and promoting the popularity of electric vehicles. According to the EU plan, EU countries will officially ban the sale of fuel vehicles, including hybrid models, in 2035. It is estimated that the number of electric vehicles in the EU will reach 30 million by 2030. At this time, if the EU lists lithium as a hazardous substance, it may hinder the localization of electric vehicles to a certain extent.
