Worldwide electric vehicle battery manufacturers elevated their aggregate production to 122.9 GWh from January to April, a growth of 83.4% on the year, information from South Korea’s SNE Research confirmed on June 2.
The world’s manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries were led by Chinese CATL (aka Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd), which more than doubled output to 41.5 GWh from 19.4 GWh the prior year. Year on year, CATL also rose its share of the total output to 33.7% from 28.9%.
BYD Co., which is also based in China, saw its sales more than triple to 14.9 GWh in the first four months compared with 4.6 GWh in the same period last year. BYD also almost doubled its share of total global output, to 12.1%, compared with 6.8%.
This brings the global manufacturers' production from January to April to 41.4% of the 296.8 GWh that were registered in 2021.
See our related blog: Is lithium iron phosphate still the cheap battery chemistry after lithium hits record price peak?
Now, the coronavirus pandemic has shown that the EV battery market has consistently grown for the past 22 months, SNE Research said.
CATL and South Korea’s LG Energy Solution saw their share of overall output drop to 29.6% and 12.8%, respectively, in April, from 30.1% and 25.1% in April 2021.
SNE Research said: "CATL and LG Energy Solutions saw declines in their growth rate in comparison with the previous month due to production disruptions at Tesla factories resulting from the China lockdown, but will soon return to the trajectory of going the best."
LGES formally named its joint venture with the automaker Stellantis NextStar Energy on June 2 and discussed plans to begin construction on the joint venture’s 45 GWh plant in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, in the back half of 2022.
The plant, which will cost Won 4.8 trillion ($3.86 billion), is expected to begin production in the first half of 2024, and the battery cells it will produce will go into Stellantis vehicle brands like Chrysler and Jeep.
LGES plans to have 520 GWh/year of production around the world by 2025, more than 2.6 times the current capacity, with 41% of production in North America.
Worldwide EV battery makers are forecast to ramp up their production capacity combined to 1,273 GWh in 2022, a 28.1% increase from 994 GWh a year earlier, SNE Research predicted in May.
