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In 2025, Honeycomb Energy Technology to reach 120GWh power battery capacity, Will the Honeycomb Energy surpass Ningde era(CATL) ?
Manufacturing Bureau3 hours ago

Building a global production network across the three continents of China, the United States and Europe is the most radical vision of the power battery industry, and it may also be the eye-catching "Great Leap Forward".

Image source: Visual China

Reporter | Qian Boyan from Germany

Ningde era (CATL, 300750.SZ ), the world's number one power battery manufacturer, ushered in a challenger.

On July 9, 2019, Honeycomb Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Honeycomb Energy) held a product and strategy conference in Baoding, Hebei. The predecessor of Honeycomb Energy is the Power Battery Division of Great Wall Motor (601633.SH).

According to a number of domestic media reports such as the Pacific Auto Network, at the press conference, General Manager Yang Hongxin has thrown an ambitious goal in addition to high-speed laminated battery, cobalt-free battery and quaternary BATTERY: 120 GWh of global battery capacity in 2025.

According to the plan, Honeycomb Energy will build a new power plant with a planned total capacity of 76GWh in China. Among them, the factory in Changzhou, where the Honeycomb Energy Company is registered, has been opened. After the completion of the 10 billion yuan factory covering 800 acres, it will reach a capacity of 20GWh.

Like the Ningde era, which used the overseas market to achieve cornering overtaking, Honeycomb Energy has also set its sights on a broader global market. Its first stop on the country is the home of the car - Europe.


According to Yang Hongxin's plan, Honeycomb Energy will invest 2 billion euros (equivalent to 16 billion yuan) in the next five years, and build a new production base in Europe including a planned battery plant with a capacity of 24 GWh, a supporting cathode material plant and a battery technology center. The base is expected to cover an area of 400 mu, of which the first phase of the project will start in 2020 and will be put into operation before the end of 2022. The second phase will be put into operation before the end of 2025.

As for whether the new factory will follow the Ningde era, it will not be known whether it will be located in Germany, a big automobile production country, or in Japan, South Korea, such as Samsung SDI, Panasonic, LG Chem, etc., in Poland, Hungary and other Eastern European countries.

In addition to Europe, Honeycomb Energy plans to build a new plant with a planned capacity of 20 GWh in North America. However, no specific plans were disclosed.


The five factories in the Honeycomb Energy Plan will be world class. Source: Bloomberg
A global production network with a total planned production capacity of 120GWh across three continents of China, the United States and Europe may be the most radical vision of the power battery industry, or it may only be the eye-catching “Great Leap Forward”.

After all, as the leading battery company in Ningde, the total installed capacity of batteries in 2018 was only 23.4GWh. According to data from the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, the total installed capacity in the country in 2018 is 56.9GWh. Ningde Times plans to have a power battery capacity of 50GWh by 2020.

“To be honest, even in the entire automotive industry, companies like ours that grow fast are hard to come by.” On the afternoon of May 11th, Munich, Germany, at the interface, a journalist attended a technical seminar held in the local area. Frank Zhao, head of research and development at Ningde Times, is proud to introduce this power battery star company.

The Ningde era does have a proud capital. In the past five years, its operating income has skyrocketed from 870 million yuan in 2014 to 29.61 billion yuan in 2018. While the revenue has turned over 30 times, he also successfully left the big brother BYD (002594.SZ) behind him and won the world's number one throne. At the end of June, it also announced an additional investment of 1.8 billion euros (about 14 billion yuan) to the Turingen plant in Germany.

Even if we do not consider the overcapacity that has already appeared in the domestic power battery industry and the ever-decreasing profit margin in the industry, it is not easy for the honeycomb energy to replicate the rapid rise of the overseas market in the Ningde era.

The Ningde era was established less than a decade after the end of 2011, but its predecessor, the New Energy Technology Corporation (ATL), dates back to 1999. In 2005, after ATL was acquired by Japan's TDK Group, it not only received technical support from the group, but also seized the wave of smartphones and became a supplier to Apple. The industry's well-known and relatively rich technology accumulation laid the foundation for the independence of the Ningde era.

Honeycomb Energy was established in a short period of time and originated from the Great Wall Motor Power Battery Project Group established in 2012. In 2016, the project team was upgraded to the Power Division and in February 2018 it was independent from Great Wall Motors in the name of Honeycomb Energy.

In October 2018, Great Wall Motor announced that it had sold more than 100 patents to Honeycomb Energy, but its technical recognition on the international stage was lacking.

Another challenge for the global expansion of Honeycomb Energy is how to gain recognition from international OEMs.

Before the Ningde era went abroad, it had a supply agreement with BMW Brilliance. After going out to sea, the first customer who is willing to purchase the German factory products in Ningde era is still the German BMW Group (hereinafter referred to as BMW). The "Bole" of Honeycomb Energy has not yet appeared.

According to Reuters, Honeycomb Energy is currently negotiating with German and French OEMs. Prior to this, the largest customer of the Honeycomb Energy Europe plant is still expected to be Great Wall Motor.

Honeycomb Energy did not disclose the names of European OEMs, but the market generally believes that the two potential automakers are BMW and the PSA Peugeot Citroen Group (PSA).

In July last year, BMW announced a joint venture with Great Wall Motor and produced an electric version of the Mini sedan at the Jiangsu plant, the third Mini production base after the UK and Dutch plants. The plant is located just a few kilometers away from the registered address of Honeycomb Energy. What is even more intriguing is that the official establishment date of Honeycomb Energy was the week before Great Wall Motor and BMW announced the signing of the letter of intent for cooperation.

However, even if BMW becomes a customer of Honeycomb Energy, there is no guarantee that it will be smooth. On the one hand, the Ningde era, which has a good relationship with BMW, has planned to increase the production capacity of the German factory to 60 GWh by 2026. On the other hand, the sales of the BMW i-series electric cars have always been unsatisfactory.

In the eyes of the French PSA Group, honeycomb energy is largely a spare tire project.

On April 29th, the German and French economic ministers jointly announced that they will invest 6 billion euros to establish the European Battery Alliance as a positive response to the expansion of Asian power battery manufacturers in Europe.

According to the plan, the two countries will build a battery factory of more than 1,500 people in France and Germany after 2020. The PSA Group is the first customer of a new battery manufacturer.

(Interview news senior reporter Zhou Zhou also contributed to this article)