Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1275
So far this year, one out of every four cars Chinese buy is powered by electricity. And an all-electric new energy vehicle often costs 40% of the battery.
There is a need for car companies to support the second supplier, but they rely too much on the current dominance of the Ningde era. This is an opportunity for second-tier battery manufacturers.
Among the challengers in the CATL era, Sunwanda is the one with the strongest growth momentum this year. “LatePost” learned that Sunwoda’s power battery business has completed a new round of financing, with a total financing of about 8 billion yuan and a post-investment valuation of about 30 billion yuan. The leading investors are Bohua Capital, Shenzhen Venture Capital, and Source Code Capital and National Green Fund.
All four leading investors have invested in the new energy vehicle industry chain. Bohua Capital has invested in Weilai Automobile and BYD Semiconductor; Shenzhen Venture Capital has invested in Nezha Automobile and Honeycomb Energy; Source Code Capital has invested in Ideal Automobile; the National Green Development Fund is jointly established by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and Shanghai The state-owned background fund has invested in Avita Technology and Zhiji Automobile.
According to “LatePost”, Sunwoda competed fiercely for the share of this round of financing, and the final financing amount was several times more than the original plan. In addition to the four leading investors, there are also many co-investors.
The valuation of 30 billion yuan is very cost-effective for investors.
Funeng Technology, which went public last year, has a market share of about 1.89% in the Chinese market from January to July this year, with a current market value of 38.6 billion yuan; Honeycomb Energy, another second-tier power battery company that has not yet been listed, has a market share of about 2.36% in the same period. , the last round was valued at 46 billion yuan.
Sunwoda’s market share is slightly higher than the two, currently at 2.42%, ranking fifth in China, but its valuation is much lower. Sunwoda is also the power battery manufacturer with the fastest growth in installed capacity in the Chinese market this year. Its installed capacity in the first seven months reached 3.24 GWh, a year-on-year increase of 523%.
With the successive listing of CATL, Funeng Technology, and China Innovation Aviation, this round of financing by Sunwoda has become a rare opportunity for investors to enter the power battery market at a lower price in the primary market.
After this round of financing, Sunwoda’s power battery business is one step closer to the spin-off and independent listing.
Sunwoda’s power battery business is currently a subsidiary of Sunwoda Electronics, an A-share GEM listed company. In February this year, 19 institutions including Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal related parties invested 2.43 billion yuan to subscribe for 19.55% of the subsidiary’s equity.
According to a previous report by 36 Krypton, Sunwoda has started the spin-off of its automotive power battery business at the end of 2021, and the spin-off power battery company will launch an IPO in 2023-2024. Sunwanda did not respond to this message at the time.
A-shares have clear restrictions on related parties of listed companies. Sunwoda is a listed company. According to the “Rules for the Spin-off of Listed Companies (Trial)”, if a listed company wants to spin off its sub-business and make it listed independently, the external investor must hold at least 60% of the shares in the business to be split. .
Before the latest round of financing, the listed entity of Sunwoda held 57.55% of the shares of Sunwoda Power Battery Company. After a new round of financing of about 8 billion yuan, the equity of the relevant entities of Sunwoda’s listed company may have been diluted to less than 40%.
Sunwangda was established in 2008 and listed on the Growth Enterprise Market in April 2011. It currently has five businesses including mobile phone digital batteries, notebook computer batteries, smart hardware, electric vehicle batteries and precision structural parts, with a total market value of about 53.6 billion yuan.
In 2008, Sunwoda began to get involved in the power battery packaging and battery management system (BMS) for automobiles, and in 2018, it began to mass-produce battery cells. It took three years for Sunwoda power battery business to achieve an annual revenue of about 2.933 billion yuan, accounting for 7.85% of Sunwoda’s total revenue. Car companies have reached cooperation.
Sunwoda’s competitiveness lies in its investment in fast charging technology. According to “LatePost”, Xiaopeng, Ideal and other companies have previously invested in Sunwoda’s power battery business, that is, they are optimistic about its upcoming fast-charging battery.
The battery life of electric vehicles has improved significantly in recent years, but even at so-called fast charging stations, it generally takes 30 minutes to an hour to fully charge.
One of the ways to reduce charging time is to develop fast-charging batteries. In the industry, nC is usually used to indicate the charging time, 1C means it takes one hour to fully charge, 2C shortens it to 1/2 hour, that is, 30 minutes, and so on.
In June of this year, Sunwoda executives had at the 15th High-tech Lithium Battery Industry Summit, Sunwoda will mass-produce 2C batteries in the third quarter of this year and 4C batteries in the first quarter of next year.
According to a previous report by LatePost, Xiaopeng Motors has confirmed that it will use Sunwoda’s 4C battery in a version of its large SUV G9.
Ideal Motors said yesterday at the second quarter 2022 financial report that its pure electric model test vehicle can currently charge for 10 minutes and last 400 kilometers. Ideal did not explicitly mention that they will use fast charging technology, but the disclosed indicators are in line with 4C batteries. feature.
In addition, Porsche claims that its pure electric sports car Taycan already supports 2.5C fast charging. Car companies such as Weilai and BYD are also preparing to launch fast-charging models.
While many car companies are following up, fast-charging batteries are also facing some doubts. Fast charging needs to increase the charging rate, but this will shorten the cycle life of the power battery, and the existing technology has not been able to solve this shortcoming. The 4C fast-charging battery has not been mass-produced yet, and its life performance has not been tested by the market. Another obstacle to the popularization of 4C batteries is that 4C fast charging needs to be equipped with high-current charging piles, which will occupy more urban power resources.
Power battery manufacturers that are betting on the fast charging route like Sunwoda are also Honeycomb Energy and LG New Energy, who choose to keep up with the needs of car companies. The power battery leader CATL has different ideas when developing new products. It hopes that car companies will accept their own standards.
The Kirin battery released by CATL in June this year is one of the standard moves.
Kirin battery can put different cells in standardized battery packs, and use one battery pack to meet more diverse needs; this can improve the standardization of battery packs, thereby expanding production scale, reducing costs, and strengthening itself. product definition rights.
At the same time, the Kirin battery can further improve the battery life. By improving the structure of the battery pack, compared with the previous generation of CATL, the Kirin battery can install 16% more batteries in the same volume, and the battery life can be increased to 1,000 kilometers.
The power battery industry believes that fast-charging batteries and long-lasting batteries will be two mainstream solutions that coexist for a long time. The former experience is more like refueling, with many times but a short time each time, while the latter has longer charging time but less charging times.
The Ningde era has not put down fast charging. At the World Power Battery Conference in July this year, Wu Kai, chief scientist of CATL, said that CATL will start mass production of 4C products in 2023.
In a short period of time, the technical advantages of CATL are more comprehensive and difficult to shake. It has invested in several major technical directions including structural improvement (Kirin battery), material improvement (M3P battery), and fast charging. However, weaker second-tier companies such as Xinwangda have more limited R&D resources and R&D capabilities. Identifying a need, concentrating on breaking it, and winning the corresponding customer is the most likely way to challenge.
Hailu Wang also contributed to this manuscript.
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