CATL Tops February Installed Power Battery Capacity in China

In February, the installed capacity of power batteries for new energy vehicles totaled 18.4 GWh in China, up 66% year-on-year and 4.8 GWh higher than last month, according to a report released by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) and Kerui Consulting on March 20. The report also shows that Chinese battery giant CATL now occupies 49.1% of the market share, ranking first, with a total installed capacity of 8092MWh. FinDreams Battery, a battery arm owned by BYD, has an installed capacity of 5650MWh, ranking second with a share of 21.8%.

According to the report, the total installed capacity of Top10 motor enterprises exceeded 339,000 vehicles, whose overall market supporting capacity increased by 36.4% year-on-year. BYD’s market performance has driven the growth of FinDreams Battery, and Li Auto‘s L8 and L9 models have more than 90% of SVOLT’s share.

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In terms of battery cells, from January to February, square battery cells accounted for 92.2%, cylindrical battery cells accounted for 4.7%, soft pack battery cells accounted for 3.1%, and the installed capacity of passenger cars using ferrous lithium phosphate and battery cells increased to 65.2%.

Earlier, on March 8, CPCA released an analysis of the national passenger car market in February 2023. In last month, the wholesale sales of Chinese new energy passenger cars reached 496,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 56.1% and a quarter-on-quarter increase of 27.5%. In February, the domestic retail sales of new energy passenger cars reached 439,000 units, up 61.0% year-on-year and 32.8% quarter-on-quarter.

In February, the retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China was 31.6%, which was 10% higher than the penetration rate of 21.7% in February 2021. Among them, in February, the penetration rate among Chinese brands was 52.9%. The rate in luxury cars was 22.6%, while the rate in mainstream joint venture brands was only 4.2%.

In terms of exports, 79,000 new energy passenger cars were exported in February, of which pure electric cars accounted for 96%. With the resumption of work and production in China, new energy product manufacturers in China have now gone abroad, and their overseas recognition has been improved.

It is worth noting that CPCA analysed that cost is the key to electrification transformation. With the continuous breakthrough of battery energy storage technology, the future battery cost will decrease, the convenience of fast charging will continue to improve, and the pain point of users’ range worries will lessen. Especially with the recent drop of lithium carbonate prices, the battery cost is expected to drop sharply in the future, and the energy density will also increase greatly. Pure electric power is still the core trend of the future.