In the century-old automobile industry, all the car-building giants that can stand up to now have two brushes, such as self-made engines and gearboxes.

But in the era of new energy cars, the giants suddenly discovered that electric cars don't need engines and gearboxes at all, and what's more, they don't seem to have the new brushes, whether hardware or software.

It's easy to panic if you don't have two brushes in your hand. If you make a mistake in doing business, you will fail all over the market. Will it really become Nokia and be abandoned by the times?

Absolutely not. In fact, traditional car companies have launched a counterattack in the battery field.

1、Don't make batteries, okay?

Cars involve many disciplines, but there is only one main line, that is, dynamics. From the point of view of energy conversion, it is nothing more than the process of converting all kinds of energy into kinetic energy. The era of fuel vehicles is the conversion of fossil energy into kinetic energy, the era of electric vehicles is the conversion of electric energy into kinetic energy, and hydrogen energy may be converted into kinetic energy in the future.

The core component of the electric vehicle in full swing today is the battery, which is not only the ultimate source of automobile power, but also the ultimate source of intelligent system operation, accounting for 30-50% of the vehicle cost, even if the cost falls in the future. it is also expected to be fixed at about 25%, which is much higher than the cost of the engine (15%).

In a word, a battery is related to whether the car can run, whether it can run far, whether it can start intelligently or not. It is the core of the new energy vehicle, and it is even more important than the engine for the fuel car.

If the battery is in the hands of others, don't talk about the safety of the industrial chain, and the world's famous battery suppliers, there are only a few, where does the car factory have the bargaining power?

I remember that when new energy cars were hot, there was a long queue outside the Ningde era to pick up goods, but in the Ningde era, they could roar that they had to pay a deposit first and have to wait for a schedule, and the car factory put up with it. How can the big car factory, which has always been high above, be treated like this? if the battery factory drops a chain at a critical moment, it is not tantamount to being strangled.

In the past, the reason why fuel vehicles made great efforts to make engines, in addition to the safety of the industrial chain, retaining bargaining power, and cost control, there was another important reason, that is, the engine represents the core technical data of the car, and if these data are leaked, then the car factory will really be stripped off.

When it comes to electric cars, the battery becomes a component with the same core technical data as the engine. So, without holding the battery in their hands, the owners of the big car factory can't sleep at all.

2、If you want to do it, what do you do?

There are only two ways for an enterprise to get involved in a new field, either to do it yourself or to buy a ready-made one outside.

Half a month ago, Volkswagen announced on its Power Day that it would become a power battery manufacturer, with layout throughout the whole process of research and development and production of power batteries.

In battery research and development, Volkswagen has laid out lithium iron phosphate batteries, ternary lithium batteries and solid-state batteries; in assembly technology, Volkswagen has proposed CTC technology (the core is directly integrated into the chassis); at the back end, Volkswagen has established a power battery recycling system.

More importantly, Volkswagen will build six power battery plants in Europe with an annual capacity of 40GWh by 2030, which will reach 240GWh and be completely self-sufficient.

Compared with radical self-made, Volkswagen's extension investment is not careless at all. So far, Volkswagen has invested in power battery suppliers QuantumScape, QSV, Northvolt AB and Northvolt Zwei, as well as Guoxuan Tech, which ranks third in China.

It is worth mentioning that the market value of QuantumScape, a hot solid-state battery research and development company, has been rising since it went public through SPAC shell last November. in just one month, the stock has soared 13-fold to $47.7 billion, much more than Ford ($35 billion). Bill Gates also invested in this company.

Volkswagen is endogenesis and extension, doing everything it can, obviously proclaiming to the world that not only will it not be beholden to the so-called battery suppliers, but also completely hold the battery in its own hands, this is by far the most radical traditional giant in the battery field.

Volkswagen is radical, one is for itself, the other is for Germany, you know, Germany has not seen any decent power battery companies.

Toyota, another traditional giant, is located in Japan, the ancestor of lithium batteries, and there are top power battery companies such as Panasonic in China. The tone of the layout of the battery does not seem to be as high-profile as that of Volkswagen, but in fact Toyota is not at all low-key. As early as 2018, Toyota announced that it would invest $13 billion in the development and manufacture of power batteries.

In April 2020, Toyota and Panasonic established a joint venture battery company, Tai Xing Energy, which is 51% owned by Toyota and 49% by Panasonic. Panasonic transferred control of power battery plants in Hyogo Prefecture, Tokushima Prefecture and Dalian, China, except Tesla, Inc. Battery Factory in North America to the new company.That means Toyota controls a top power battery company with 5100 people and four factories.

Other car giants are also deploying their own battery factories. Mercedes-Benz has deployed nine power battery plants in seven bases on three continents, while BMW has deployed four production bases in three continents and four countries.

3、Did you have a good time?

Although the traditional giants show the momentum of All in batteries, do they have a good time?

As a capital-intensive, technology-intensive and production-intensive industry, to play with power batteries, you also need to make efforts in three areas.

FirstCapital is not a big deal for traditional giants, and the latest results show that Volkswagen and Toyota have about $40 billion in cash, four times that of Ningde and 20 times that of BYD.

SecondlyTechnology, because companies such as Panasonic, LG Chemistry, Ningde era and BYD have been working in the field of power batteries for a long time and have obtained a lot of related technology patents. If newcomers want to catch up, technology patents are a barrier, but if you take a closer look at the R & D layout of the giants, you will find that although lithium iron phosphate and ternary batteries are involved, their focus is obviously on the next generation of battery technology. Volkswagen and Toyota, for example, place great emphasis on solid-state batteries, and Toyota is even making great efforts to develop hydrogen fuel cells further afield.

For example, Volkswagen focused on QuantumScape, which announced the test results of its solid-state battery at the end of last year. It can charge 80% in 15 minutes, faster than traditional batteries or other solid-state battery routes, and can run at minus 30 degrees Celsius. The technical difficulties of solid-state battery, including charging time, cycle life, safety and operating temperature, have been well solved in the test results of QuantumScape.

The achievement was recognized by Stan Whittingham, the 2019 Nobel laureate in chemistry, and pointed out that if QuantumScape succeeds in mass production, it has the potential to subvert existing power batteries.

In the same period, Toyota showed that its solid-state battery technology can be charged from zero to full in just 15 minutes, with a range of 500km. Toyota has a patent reserve of more than 1000 solid-state batteries, ranking first among car companies. and plans to achieve mass production by 2025.

By contrast, there have been few breakthroughs in its solid-state batteries, whether in Ningde era, BYD or LG Chemistry. It is clear that instead of obsessing too much with existing power batteries, Volkswagen Toyota has already set its sights on the future, investing heavily in next-generation battery technology to achieve corner overtaking, and more importantly, this layout is paying off.

Last,It is production, as mentioned earlier, Toyota already has its own factory through a joint venture with Panasonic, and its production capacity is among the best in the world. Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW build their own factories, and their total production capacity may not be able to keep up with the head suppliers. However, there is no problem with realizing the safety and self-sufficiency of the industrial chain. As for the scale effect and whether the cost can be lower than the supplier, it is not the primary consideration.This layout is more strategic, at least to ensure that there is food in hand, do not panic, but also retain the right to turn the table when negotiating with suppliers.

4、What will the future look like?

Judging from the timeline of the battery layout of the traditional car giantTo achieve mass production, especially solid-state batteries, will basically be after 2025.While the high growth in sales of new energy vehicles has just begun and will continue.

According to the Development Plan of New Energy vehicle Industry (2021-2035) issued by the State Council last year, the sales of new energy vehicles in China will reach about 20% of the total sales of new cars by 2025. On this basis, it is predicted that the sales of new energy vehicles in China will be about 50-6 million in 2025, 2.5-3 times that of today, CAGR20%-25%.

In other words, head companies like the Ningde era will still enjoy the release of track dividends in the next 3-5 years, the certainty of growth is still great, and they don't have to worry too much about the impact of traditional car giants.

However, after 2025, the competition pattern may have a big change, even if the overall market of new energy vehicles is still growing, but more people share the cake, it is bound to dilute the participants, and then affect the manufacturers' market share, ranking, business growth, customer structure, gross profit margin, net profit and so on.

This kind of influence is projected to the capital market, that is, the valuation is going to the next level, or correction.

In the past two years, the storm of new energy vehicles set off by Tesla, Inc. has swept the global capital market. Almost all securities firms and institutions are extremely optimistic about new energy vehicles and the industrial chain, and the valuation is also extremely optimistic. In their eyes, traditional car-building is often compared to a replica of "Nokia", not to mention investors, fools look at the valuation, directly full of warehouse dry.

However, the traditional giants are all century-old stores, and they are more like a gray rhino. If they don't come, they may fall in love again and again.

At present, the PE of Ningde era is still more than 170, with a market capitalization of 774.3 billion, more than the vast majority of traditional car companies.You know, the battery is always the manufacturing industry, no matter how good the story is, it will eventually need the mean to return to the original appearance of the manufacturing industry, and this return will be realized by two forces, one is the growth and realization of performance, the other is the corrective force of the market itself.

What will the battery industry look like in the future?

To put it simply,Traditional giants account for one day, and so will professional suppliers.Because both sides have advantages and needs, in fact, the traditional giants themselves are also customers of professional suppliers, and there are also a lot of strategic cooperation and joint R & D projects, but the current pattern is not stable, and everyone cooperates openly. Secretly, they are also making their own efforts, and finally they will stabilize the pattern at some point in the future.

5、Conclusion

The development of an industry will follow the process of gestation, growth, outbreak, saturation and recession, and the capital market will interpret this process more magically, especially in the explosive period, when the capital is crazy enough to overdraft the future.

However, the feast always comes to an end, and it is only a matter of "being cool in the present" to overdraw the future early.

Will there be capital to pursue batteries in the future?

The answer is yes.

But at the same time, last year's sharp rise will be difficult to happen again, unless there is another big release of water to hold forces from all sides to raise the valuation.When the tide fades, the rise of stocks depends more on the growth of the company itself and on the realization of performance, which will become the most important thing to focus on in the field of battery investment in the future, as well as the most fundamental and lasting driving force for stock prices to rise.