The more cars are built, the better the Ningde era will be.

"Those who build cars are not as good as those who sell batteries." For new car-making forces, the CATL era will always be a hurdle that cannot be overcome.

Recently, the equity structure of AIWAYS has changed. Ningde Times has invested in AIWAYS through its wholly-owned subsidiary Ningbo Meishan Bonded Port Area Aspiration Investment Co., Ltd. , injected registered capital of 3.08155 million yuan, with a shareholding ratio of 0.35506%.

As the world’s largest power battery company, almost all electric vehicles cannot avoid CATL. In terms of data, CATL is the power battery manufacturer with the most supporting models in China, accounting for about 50% of the overall market. It accounts for half of the batteries supporting new energy vehicles in the country and ranks first in the global power battery market.

With such a "dominant" power battery manufacturer also wanting to build cars, should the so-called new car-making forces tremble?

Data shows that in 2020, AIWAYS sales in the domestic market were only 2,600 vehicles. Compared with new car-making forces such as Weilai and Xiaopeng, they are not at the same level. Even the second-tier Leap car sales exceeded the 10,000-unit mark. It is reported that after CATL’s investment is in place, AIWAYS is expected to land in the capital market, and the listing direction is likely to be US stocks.

The reason for choosing the US stock market is largely because the first batch of customized U5 models of AIWAYS have been mass-produced and delivered. In May 2020, it successfully entered the EU market, which is also Currently, it is the first and only domestic new car company to export large quantities to EU countries. According to official data, AIWAYS U5 has exported 1,056 units (customs clearance number) as of the end of the first quarter of 2021, exceeding the total export volume in 2020.

CATL is the battery supplier of AIWAYS. The U5 uses ternary lithium batteries from the CATL era. The battery was jointly developed by AIWAYS and CATL. The NEDC cruising range exceeds 650km and is planned to be launched on the market in the fourth quarter of this year. There is also news that AIWAYS's second model U6 will continue to use CATL's ternary lithium batteries and will apply CTP technology.

New car-making forces have always faced the problem of "stuck neck" batteries in the CATL era. The more companies that enter the car manufacturing industry and the hotter the market, the more popular the CATL battery manufacturing industry will become.

According to the 2020 financial report released by CATL, the company’s annual revenue was 50.319 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.9%. Among them, the sales of power battery systems were the main source of revenue. It was 39.426 billion yuan, accounting for 78.35% of the total revenue.

According to data from SNEResearch, a power battery research organization, CATL’s power battery installed capacity ranked first in the world for three consecutive years from 2017 to 2019. In 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced an effective catalog of new energy models, including more than 6,800 models, of which more than 3,400 models are equipped with power batteries from CATL, with a market share of nearly 50%.

Among the top 10 customers of CATL’s power battery installed capacity in 2020, new power companies have become CATL’s core customers, including NIO’s ES8, EC6 and ES6 All models are exclusively supplied by CATL.

In short, CATL has accounted for half of the country’s batteries for new energy vehicles, firmly ranking first in the global power battery market. For this reason, relevant analysts pointed out that for the high-profile announcements of Changan and AIWAYS to jointly build cars with CATL, if CATL only participates as a supplier, it is not ruled out that these car companies will choose multiple power battery suppliers in the future. business possibility.

However, if CATL joins car manufacturing as a partner, then with its strong negotiating power over downstream manufacturers, this "top player" in the automotive industry is likely to become the key to the survival of car companies.

For electric vehicles, the battery is the core vitality.

CATL, like BYD, started out as a storage battery, and then began to develop power batteries. The difference is that BYD entered automobile production, while CATL did not. Today, CATL has become the king of power batteries, and the ternary lithium battery technology it develops and produces leads the world.

However, as early as 2018, CATL began to look for suitable upper cursors for vertical extension. According to Huachuang Securities data, as of April 21, CATL has made investment arrangements in areas including upstream lithium mines, nickel mines, cobalt mines, lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, cathode materials and lithium battery equipment.

Previously, CATL had issued an announcement that "it will invest in high-quality listed companies in the upstream and downstream of the domestic and overseas industrial chain through securities investment. The total investment shall not exceed RMB 19.067 billion, of which the total overseas investment shall not exceed RMB 17.2 billion.” After the announcement, CATL continued to take action.

On September 14, 2020, lithium battery production equipment manufacturer Pioneer Intelligence announced that it plans to raise no more than 2.5 billion yuan through a private placement, and CATL plans to subscribe for all of the private placements. After the subscription, CATL will become the second largest shareholder of Leading Intelligence with a 7.29% share of the total share capital. On December 8, Yongfu Co., Ltd., an electric power survey and design company, disclosed changes in shareholders' equity. The company's controlling shareholder planned to transfer its 14.568 million shares of the listed company, accounting for 7.998% of the company's total share capital, to CATL for a total transaction price of approximately is 212 million yuan.

On January 8 this year, Nebula Co., Ltd., the leader in lithium battery testing, disclosed that CATL had subscribed for 3.096 million new shares of Nebula Co., Ltd. through the Fujian Mindong Times Rural Investment and Development Partnership,* **Total 99.9999 million yuan. On April 15, Tianhua Ultraclean, the leader in anti-static ultraclean technology, disclosed a report on the issuance of shares to specific targets. The number of targets for this issuance was finally determined to be 12, of which CATL received an allocation of 120 million yuan.

According to incomplete statistics from Qixinbao, from 1996 to the end of 2020, there were 163 CATL holding companies and 51 foreign investment companies, including There are 15 battery manufacturing companies established as joint ventures. Since 2017, CATL has added dozens of holding companies almost every year, covering battery and related business R&D and manufacturing, materials, energy storage, retail, technology promotion, basic software development, investment and other industries.

In 2020, CATL has deployed a number of investment companies, including battery asset investment, private equity investment, start-up companies, equity and securities investments, which may be related to CATL's expansion of production capacity . In addition, CATL controlled and invested in 23 service and sales companies in 2020. On the basis of expanding its sales territory, it sells products including charging piles, batteries, equipment, materials, energy storage systems and other products.

At present, CATL has successively invested in Leading Intelligence (300450), Yongfu Holdings (300712), and Canadian Lithium Mining Company; in the field of new energy vehicles, it has participated in Byton’s Series B financing. It cooperates with Huawei and Changan to build cars; in the field of autonomous driving, it invests in Inceptio Technology; in the field of chips, it jointly leads the Horizon C2 round of financing, etc. In addition, CATL has also announced a 20 billion fixed increase plan, introducing star institutions such as Hillhouse Capital and Honda, and the funds raised will be used to expand production capacity.

Entrepreneurship is a matter of life or death.

On May 4, real-time data from the Forbes Global Rich List showed that CATL Chairman Zeng Yuqun once surpassed Li Ka-shing and became the richest man in Hong Kong, China, with US$34.5 billion. In addition, thanks to the outstanding performance of CATL, there are 9 executives and investors from CATL on the Forbes Global Rich List, including co-vice chairman Huang Shilin and Li Ping. The number of people creating wealth exceeds that of Google and Facebook.

Meituan Wang Xing admires Zeng Yuqun very much and thinks he is a Ren Zhengfei-like figure. Wang Xing once posted on WeChat that Zeng Yuqun had a banner that read "Strong gambling spirit" hanging in his office. Zeng Yuqun said bluntly: "Fighting alone is not enough, it is physical work, gambling is mental work."

Zeng Yuqun was born in Ningde, Fujian in 1968 Lankou Village, a son of a farmer, is now a permanent resident of Hong Kong. At the age of 17, he was admitted to the Department of Marine Engineering of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. After graduation in 1989, he was assigned to a state-owned enterprise in Fujian. Three months later, he chose to leave his job and went south to Dongguan, where he joined Shinko Magneto Power Plant, a subsidiary of TDK, a famous Japanese electronics industry brand.

Zeng Yuqun worked for ten years at Xinke Magnetic Power Plant and became the youngest engineering director; at the same time, he was also appreciated by his immediate boss Liang Shaokang. In 1999, Liang Shaokang found Zeng Yuqun and another old boss Chen Tanghua, and the three of them jointly founded New Energy Technology (ATL). The Ningde era was born out of this.

ATL seems to be a Chinese company, but it is actually a Japanese-controlled company. As early as 2005, TDK fully acquired ATL's equity. TDK is a world-renowned Japanese electronic components company. It was founded in 1935 by a doctor from the Department of Chemistry of Tokyo Institute of Technology and has been engaged in the electronic components business since then. As of the 2020 financial report, revenue has reached US$12.6 billion, making it a giant in the electronic components industry.

During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the state encouraged demonstration cities to develop new energy public transportation and promoted new energy vehicles through policy support and financial subsidies; three years later, The "Catalogue for Guiding Industries for Foreign Investment" was released, and the policy further restricted the production of automotive power batteries by wholly foreign-owned enterprises.

Zeng Yuqun seized the opportunity to start a business for the second time, completely spinning off the automotive power part of ATL, and established Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. in his hometown of Ningde, Fujian, with the same name. Just add an extra C in front of ATL to become CATL.

Since then, CATL has risen rapidly as it steps into the spotlight of new energy vehicles. First, it quickly took off by relying on Geely's early orders to become a core supplier for BMW, Yutong Bus, etc.; by 2017, CATL, which was founded only 6 years ago, surpassed Panasonic in power battery sales, becoming the leader in the power battery industry for the first time and extending its leading position. It remains so to this day.

In 2021, CATL is facing a more complex situation, but Zeng Yuqun’s ambitions are also obvious. What Zeng Yuqun often says is: "If we are not number one in the world, we have no value in existence."

The trillion-dollar market value of CATL batteries belongs to Zeng Yuqun It took ten years. Will the car be used for another ten years after it is built?