Category: Deals

BYD to supply batteries to China’s largest diesel engine maker

BYD and Weichai Power will build a power battery development and manufacturing base in Shandong province, where the latter is headquartered.

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

BYD (OTCMKTS: BYDDY), one of the world's largest manufacturers of power batteries, is expanding its customer base.

BYD and Weichai Power, China's largest diesel engine maker, signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Shenzhen on May 12 to collaborate on the joint production of power batteries, according to a post by the latter on Weibo.

Tan Xuguang, chairman and CEO of Weichai, and Wang Chuanfu, chairman and president of BYD, attended the signing ceremony, according to the article.

(Image credit: Weicai Power)

The two sides will produce power batteries in a joint venture in Shandong to build a power battery R&D and manufacturing base to promote the development of new energy commercial vehicles in China, the article said, without providing further details.

Weichai, based in Weifang, Shandong province, posted revenue of RMB 53.4 billion ($7.67 billion) and net profit of RMB 1.86 billion in the first quarter, according to its financial report.

Weichai began its involvement in the new energy business in 2010, especially in the fuel cell sector.

The company has a new energy engine base in Weifang, and its chairman, Tan, is also chairman of Sinotruk, which has a new energy heavy truck manufacturing base in Jinan.

BYD is the world's largest maker of new energy vehicles (NEVs) and the world's second-largest maker of power batteries.

BYD installed 21.5 GWh of power batteries in the first quarter, ranking second globally with a 16.2 percent share, behind 's 35.0 percent, according to data released earlier this month by South Korean market research firm SNE Research.

In China, BYD installed 7.32 GWh of power batteries in April, ranking second with a 29.11 percent share, according to the China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance (CABIA). CATL ranked first in China with a 40.83 percent share in April.

In Shandong, where Weichai is headquartered, BYD has a car assembly plant, a power battery factory and a chip factory.

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China EV battery installations in Apr: BYD regains top spot over CATL in LFP market

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Gotion becomes VW’s designated battery supplier for markets outside of China

The purchase order involves LFP Unified Cell products with the same design style and specifications as those for the Chinese market for Volkswagen's full range of NEVs.

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

Gotion High-tech, a Chinese power battery manufacturer, has become a supplier to Volkswagen for the German automaker's overseas markets, furthering the partnership between the two.

Gotion's wholly-owned subsidiary Hefei Gotion High-tech Power Energy Co Ltd recently received a procurement letter from Volkswagen, making the company a designated supplier for the automaker's overseas markets, according to a stock exchange announcement on May 10.

This is the latest collaboration between Gotion and Volkswagen, which is its important backer, after becoming the designated production point for Volkswagen's NCM and LFP products in China in early 2022.

The purchase order relates to LFP Unified Cell products, which will be used in Volkswagen's models in markets outside of China.

These cells use the same design style and specifications as the Chinese market and are intended for use in Volkswagen's full range of NEVs, according to the announcement.

Volkswagen and Gotion have had a long-standing relationship, with a strategic cooperation framework agreement reached in July 2021 in which Gotion developed the first generation of Unified Cells for Volkswagen's regular production models in China.

In December 2021, Volkswagen China increased its stake in Gotion to 26.47 percent, making it the largest shareholder of the Chinese battery maker.

Unified Cells can significantly reduce costs by adopting a unified design standard and are expected to cover 80 percent of Volkswagen's models in the future, according to Gotion's press release.

In early 2022, Gotion was awarded the official production point for Volkswagen China's NCM and LFP Unified Cells. In February this year, the company won the Volkswagen Cell Test Lab qualification.

In addition, construction of a high-nickel NCM material project built by Volkswagen's private placement has begun in Lujiang, Hefei, and is expected to go into production this year, Gotion said in the press release.

The 20GWh Volkswagen Unified Cell project in Xinzhan, Hefei, has almost completed the main workshop and supporting buildings and is expected to start production in the second half of this year, Gotion said.

Gotion is one of the largest power battery makers, with 2.9 GWh installed in the first quarter, ranking 8th globally with a 2.2 percent share, according to data released earlier this month by South Korean market research firm SNE Research.

Global EV battery market share in Q1: CATL 35%, BYD 16.2%-CnEVPost

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Chinese auto giants Geely and Changan sign strategic cooperation deal

In the first quarter, Changan and Geely ranked third and fourth, respectively, in China in terms of retail vehicle sales.

Chinese auto giants Geely and Changan sign strategic cooperation deal-CnEVPost

(Image credit: Geely)

It's interesting to see tow of China's largest automakers announce a cooperation agreement, even though they are rivals.

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group and Chongqing Changan Automobile signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement on May 9, according to press releases issued today by the two companies.

The two sides will launch strategic cooperation in areas including new energy, intelligence, new energy power, overseas market expansion, and mobility to jointly promote the upward development of Chinese brands, according to their press releases.

This this will help create a better consumer and travel experience for users and help transform and upgrade the Chinese auto industry and develop with high quality, the two companies said.

Changan chairman Zhu Huarong, Geely chairman Eric Li, and Fu Bingfeng, executive vice-president of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) attended the signing ceremony.

Changan and Geely are excellent representatives of Chinese auto companies, and the open cooperation between the two is conducive to building the image of Chinese auto brands and spawning industry synergies, said Fu.

Intelligence and electrification are the focus of the strategic cooperation between Geely and Changan.

In the field of new energy, the two sides will cooperate on battery cells, charging technology, battery swap technology, new energy vehicle (NEV) product safety, and new energy industry layout.

In the field of intelligence, they will cooperate around chip, operating system, vehicle system interconnection, high-precision map and autonomous driving.

The two sides will also work together on power platform and power technology, explore cooperation in overseas development and mobility ecology, and cooperate in the fields of industrial internet, block chain and carbon trading.

The two companies will work together to enhance their core competitiveness and help Chinese vehicles enter the middle and high end of the global automotive value chain, said Geely's Li.

Neither Geely nor Changan -- which ranks in the top five in Chinese auto sales -- provided more details on their partnership in their press releases.

In the first quarter, Changan sold 302,898 vehicles at retail, making it the No. 3 brand in China for the period, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Geely ranked fourth with retail sales of 269,701 units in the first quarter. The top two were BYD and FAW-Volkswagen, with retail sales of 508,706 and 368,762, respectively.

Geely Galaxy brand officially launched, to roll out 7 models by 2025

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Tesla Model Y with BYD battery has started production in Germany, report says

Since this week, the Model Y with BYD battery has been produced at Tesla's Gigafactory in Grünheide, Germany, according to a German media report.  |  TSLA.US BYDDY.US | BYD HK

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

Starting this week, the Model Y with BYD battery has been produced at Tesla's Gigafactory in Grünheide, Germany, local media outlet Teslamag said in a report Thursday.

The model is a rear-wheel drive version and the batteries will not be produced by Tesla itself, but by BYD in China, according to the report.

This is Tesla's fourth battery supplier after Panasonic, LG Energy Solution and , the report noted.

Last August, Tesla applied for and received European type approval for the Model Y with BYD's lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery, which at the time had a 55-kWh capacity and a 440 km WLTP range, the report said.

Tesla currently specifies a WLTP range of 455 km for the Model Y with standard rims and 430 km with 20-inch wheels, the report noted.

In February 2022, rumors surfaced that Tesla had placed an order with BYD's battery manufacturing division, FinDreams Battery, for blade batteries for 204,000 vehicles per year.

On August 10, 2022, Chinese media outlet Sina Tech cited multiple sources as saying that BYD's blade battery supplies to Tesla had begun to be delivered to the latter's plant in Berlin, Germany, the first Tesla Gigafactory to apply BYD batteries.

On March 13, South Korea's Korea Economic Daily reported that Tesla had decided not to use BYD's batteries due to quality problems caused by a series of fire incidents with the latter's LFP batteries.

A BYD spokesperson, responding to CnEVPost's request for comment at the time, said the information was untrue and not in line with the actual situation.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk later also tweeted that the media report was false and that Tesla's relationship with BYD was positive.

BYD is not only the largest new energy vehicle (NEV) in China, but also one of the largest battery manufacturers in the world.

BYD installed 21.5 GWh of power batteries in the first quarter, ranking second in the world with a 16.2 percent share, according to data released by South Korean market research firm SNE Research on May 3.

CATL continued to rank first in the world with a 35.0 percent share in the first quarter, and was the only one with a share of more than 30 percent.

BYD says report that Tesla won't extend battery supply partnership with it untrue

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Chinese Lithium giant Tianqi reportedly mulling stake in Mercedes-Geely JV Smart

Smart delivered 4,390 vehicles in China in April, down 25.73 percent from 5,911 units in March.

(A Smart #1 on display at the Shanghai auto show in April 2023. Image credit: CnEVPost)

Chinese lithium giant Tianqi Lithium is considering buying a minority stake in Smart Automobile, a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and Holding Group, as part of the latter's latest round of private funding, Bloomberg said today, citing people familiar with the matter.

Tianqi is in advanced talks to invest $100 million to $200 million in Smart in a deal that could value Smart at several billion dollars, people familiar with the matter said, adding that an agreement could be reached as soon as the next few weeks.

Shenzhen-listed Tianqi, one of China's largest lithium producers, raised about HK$13 billion in a Hong Kong IPO on July 13, 2022.

Mercedes first launched Smart in Germany in 1998 and brought the brand to the US a decade later, with the original two-seat model aimed at urban buyers with crowded parking spaces, the Bloomberg report noted.

Geely and Mercedes-Benz officially announced a 5.4 billion yuan ($783 million) Smart joint venture in Hangzhou Bay, Ningbo, in early 2020.

As part of the agreement, Mercedes-Benz designers will design the Smart cars and Geely will engineer them.

Smart has been considering raising capital as part of its effort to revive the compact car as an all-electric brand. The company was initially aiming to raise between $500 million and $1 billion in fresh funds, according to a Bloomberg report last year.

Smart delivered 4,390 vehicles in China in April, down 25.73 percent from 5,911 units in March, according to data monitored by CnEVPost.

The brand currently has only one model on sale in China, the Smart #1, which went on sale in China on April 25, 2022, with deliveries starting on September 24.

The model was designed by Mercedes-Benz, with the Smart R&D team leading the engineering development, and is based on Geely's SEA (Sustainable Experience Architecture) architecture.

On April 17, Smart unveiled its new Smart #3, its second product since its electrification transition, on the eve of the Shanghai auto show.

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Regulatory filing: Smart's second EV, Smart #3, coming soon

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NIO to adopt NXP’s 4D imaging radar that provides greater road safety

4D imaging radar enables cars to detect and classify objects such as other vehicles and vulnerable road users on highways and in complex urban scenarios and at distances of up to 300 meters.  |  NIO US | NIO HK | NIO SG

NIO to adopt NXP's 4D imaging radar that provides greater road safety-CnEVPost

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

Dutch-headquartered computer chip maker NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ: NXPI) today announced that Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker NIO (NYSE: NIO) will adopt its 4D imaging radar solution, which offers benefits far beyond those of traditional radar.

4D imaging radar will significantly improve the performance of front radar in today's vehicles, and NXP's imaging radar technology extends the functionality of radar from measuring range and speed to include direction, angle of arrival and elevation measurement, the chipmaker said.

These vehicles will be able to detect and classify objects such as other vehicles and vulnerable road users on highways and in complex urban scenarios and at distances of up to 300 meters, bringing greater road safety and driving comfort to end users, according to a press release.

Fine-resolution point clouds enhance environmental mapping and scene understanding, enabling the detection and classification of objects beyond the range of human vision while measuring object speed in virtually all weather and light conditions, according to NXP.

The technology is a key step in improving road safety and saving lives by allowing a car to "see" a motorcycle traveling close to a large delivery truck or a child entering the road between parked cars.

NXP's imaging radar solutions are ideal for advanced, high-performance front radar applications, it said, adding that as part of NXP's full family of radar products, they offer seamless performance scalability and software and hardware design reuse across radar platforms.

The combined radar processor and transceiver chipsets provide efficient advanced radar processing and high-performance RF technology to support Level 2+ and higher-level autonomous driving services, NXP said.

"Together with NXP, we’ll be able to take the next step toward improving driver experiences," said Kevin Pan, assistant vice president of NIO supply chain development.

In China, EV makers rely on vision cameras as well as LiDARs for assisted driving sensors. The mainstream technology route is vision-based, with millimeter-wave radar and LiDARs providing assistance.

4D imaging radar, as an extension of millimeter wave technology, provides the ability to accurately measure height, which can effectively complement the advantages of vision sensors and improve the recognition of stationary and hidden targets in critical scenarios.

As for the cost, the mature automotive electronics industry chain and manufacturing process provide a broad room for improvement after 4D imaging radar is mass-produced on a large scale.

In addition to the partnership with NXP, NIO Capital, with William Li, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, as a managing partner, invested in SinPro, a local Chinese 4D imaging radar manufacturer, last month.

SinPro announced on April 12 that it had closed a series A funding round of several hundred million RMB, led by NIO Capital and an investment fund under Xiaomi.

The emergence of 4D imaging radar technology will drive smart cars in a safer and smarter direction, Ian Zhu, another managing partner at NIO Capital, said at the time.

NIO plans to launch EV priced below 30,000 euros in Europe, report says

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NIO signs partnership deal with state conglomerate China Resources

NIO has opened 46 NIO Houses and NIO Spaces in commercial real estate projects managed by China Resources.

NIO signs partnership deal with state conglomerate China Resources-CnEVPost

(Image credit: NIO)

NIO (NYSE: NIO) signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with China's state conglomerate China Resources to collaborate on a variety of fronts, the electric vehicle (EV) maker said yesterday.

The two signed the agreement on April 26 at an NIO House in Hefei, Anhui province, in the presence of William Li, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, and Wang Xiangming, chairman of China Resources, according to an article posted on the NIO App.

NIO and China Resources will cooperate in areas including commercial space leasing and construction, charging and battery swap infrastructure investment and construction, campus and community energy management, new material applications, and consumer services, according to the article.

China Resources is a large state-owned enterprise with major businesses in consumer, energy, urban construction and operations, health, industrial finance, technology and emerging industries.

By the end of 2022, China Resources had total assets of more than RMB 2.3 trillion and was ranked 70th on the Fortune 500 in 2022.

NIO signs partnership deal with state conglomerate China Resources-CnEVPost

NIO started working with China Resources in 2018, opening more showrooms in the latter's operated properties than any other partner.

By the end of March 2023, NIO had opened 46 NIO Houses and NIO Spaces in commercial real estate projects managed by China Resources, according to the article in the NIO App.

The article did not provide more details on the possible future collaboration between the two. For NIO, it will need the support of partners, especially property operators, in increasing the number of showrooms as well as charging and battery swap infrastructure.

NIO has an aggressive plan to add 1,000 battery swap stations and 10,000 charging piles this year to ensure it provides a continuous energy replenishment experience for owners.

"People always think of battery swap when they think of NIO, but we're actually doing a great job with charging facilities as well … we will be determined to build the infrastructure," Li said in a speech at a forum earlier this month.

China EV 100 Forum: NIO's William Li's full speech

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Zeekr, chipmaker Onsemi sign SiC power device supply deal

SiC power devices offer higher powertrain efficiency, enabling improved performance, faster charging and longer driving range.

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

Zeekr, 's electric vehicle (EV) brand, announced today that it has signed a long-term supply agreement with US chipmaker Onsemi involving a partnership for silicon carbide (SiC) power devices.

Zeekr will use Onsemi's M3E 1200V EliteSiC MOSFET products to complement its expanding lineup of high-performance all-electric models, according to a press release.

SiC power devices offer higher powertrain efficiency, which enables improved performance, faster charging and longer driving range, according to Zeekr.

"With cutting-edge technologies such as advanced SiC, Zeekr will be able to offer electric vehicles with improved performance and even lower carbon emissions," said Andy An, CEO of the company.

Zeekr, which was officially launched as an independent company in March 2021, saw its 100,000th vehicle delivered yesterday, making it one of the fastest new car makers to reach the milestone in China.

Its first model, the Zeekr 001, was launched on April 15, 2021, and deliveries began in October 2021.

On November 1, 2022, Zeekr's second model, the Zeekr 009 MPV, was launched, and its deliveries began on January 15.

On April 12, Zeekr launched its third model, the Zeekr X, which it hopes will become the benchmark for luxury compact cars.

Zeekr delivered 71,941 vehicles in 2022 and aims to double deliveries to about 140,000 in 2023.

As EV makers build higher-performance models, higher voltage platforms require more advanced power devices.

SiC modules are an upgrade to IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor chip) modules, a third-generation power semiconductor with higher efficiency, higher temperature resistance and higher voltage characteristics.

The module will help upgrade the electrical architecture of EVs from 400V to 800V and enable vehicles to charge from 0 to 80 percent in 10 minutes.

EV makers including , BYD, NIO, and are already using SiC chips in their models.

Zeekr releases Europe strategy, 2 models to debut in Sweden and Netherlands in Q4

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CATL reaches deal to supply energy storage systems to US firm HGP

The 450-MWh battery storage project will be deployed in Texas and is expected to begin commercial operations in 2024.

(Image credit: )

CATL recently entered into a 450 MWh supply agreement with US battery storage project developer HGP, the battery giant's latest similar agreement with a US company.

The battery storage project will be deployed in Texas and is expected to begin commercial operations in 2024, a CATL press release said yesterday.

CATL will provide HGP with the EnerC, an outdoor premade pod system that offers high safety, long life, and high integration for a variety of weather extremes, according to the release.

The partnership leverages CATL's strengths in battery technology and HGP's strengths in energy infrastructure and storage resource development and will provide a more convenient solution for the market, the release said.

This helps meet the growing demand for clean energy in Texas and North America and highlights CATL's and HGP's commitment to achieving sustainable development, the Chinese battery giant said.

The two companies will also establish a long-term partnership to drive the implementation of utility-scale and distributed energy storage projects up to 5 GWh in size, according to the release.

HGP is based in Dallas, Texas, and has decades of market experience deploying grid investment-grade energy storage assets.

This is CATL's latest agreement with a US company for the supply of energy storage systems.

Last September, CATL announced that it had entered into a partnership agreement with FlexGen, a US provider of energy storage technology platforms and solutions, to supply the latter with 10 GWh of energy storage products over a three-year period.

CATL will supply FlexGen with EnerC, a containerized liquid-cooled energy storage product that can withstand a wide range of weather extremes and keep the system running safely and reliably for 20 years, the power battery giant previously said.

In October 2022, CATL entered into an agreement with Primergy Solar LLC, a US utility and distributed PV and energy storage operator, to exclusively supply batteries for the latter's Gemini PV and energy storage project.

Located near Las Vegas, Nevada, the project will have 690 MWac/966 MWdc solar panels and a 1.416 GWh energy storage system and will be one of the largest PV storage projects in the US when completed, CATL said at the time.

CATL has begun mass production of Qilin Battery, report says

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