Zeng Yuqun personally stood on the platform to respond to market questions, saying that the Ningde era must enter the US market

In response to market rumors, it was not enough for the Ningde era to choose to call the police, and chairman Zeng Yuqun also came to personally stand on the platform.

Recently, CATL released a detailed record of investor relations activities. The record sheet records the research activities of more than 50 institutions and investors, including Hillhouse Capital, Hongshang Capital, Tencent Investment, Temasek, etc., of which Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, also personally participated in the activity.

The above record sheet responds to 20 questions of focus for investors. The first financial reporter recently obtained a meeting minutes of the ningde era research activities on the same day, which recorded more content that the ningde era officials did not choose to disclose, including the origin of the market's hotly discussed news of the US sanctions, how to deal with the rise in raw material prices and other issues.

"The American market, the Ningde era must go in"

Years later, the news that CATL consulted about the possibility of sanctions by the United States did not go away. Previously, in response to this market rumor, ningde times also chose to call the police.

The research activities of institutions and investors in the Ningde era have also repeatedly mentioned the problems of the US market. The reporter learned that Zeng Yuqun answered the relevant topics of the Ningde era in the US market and mentioned the issue of building factories in the United States. "The American market, the Ningde era must go in." Zeng Yuqun said at the research activities.

"The company interacted with U.S. customers more, including both new forces and traditional car companies, and the two sides jointly explored various possible supply and cooperation options, as well as the possibility of localized production," CATL pointed out, but the specific situation needs to take into account the impact of factors such as worker training, efficiency, and labor unions on quality and cost.

In response to the changes in the ENERGY storage policy in the United States, CATL also said that customers hope that the company can do localized supply, but in the same way, CATL also needs to comprehensively consider factors such as power battery production capacity, customer demand, and production costs. For the U.S. energy storage market, CATL said that the United States does not currently have a customer needs enough to support its separate factory in the United States, CATL is currently considering the possibility of establishing a joint venture factory with OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) first, using joint venture factories to produce energy storage batteries.

According to statistics from South Korean market research institute SNE, CATL had a market share of 32.6% in the global power battery field last year, ranking first in the world for five consecutive years.

CATL said that as of the end of last year, it has accumulated 10 major production bases, and the company intends to strengthen the layout of overseas bases in the future, but this also faces more challenges, including the construction of overseas employee training and other systems.

Judging from the minutes of the meeting, CATL also mentioned the possibility of building factories in Canada and Mexico in the research activities.

As for the question of whether the "card neck" of the United States in technology and key materials, CATL revealed that at present, 100% of the company's battery production process uses domestic technology, but on the device, there are a small number of sensors and chips on the BMS (battery management system) originating from the United States, and the company is currently doing localization in this regard.

The price of raw materials has increased, and the price of batteries has also increased

Recently, the price of lithium carbonate, one of the raw materials for power batteries, rose by more than 400,000 yuan / ton, which caused concerns in the industry about the cost of the Ningde era.

Cataltime has responded to this by the first financial reporter that with the increase in the price of bulk commodities this year, the price of the company's main metal materials has risen, causing some pressure on the cost side, and it is also reducing production costs and raw material costs in a variety of ways.

In this research activity, CATL also pointed out that the short-term cost of raw materials such as lithium carbonate has a certain impact on the company after the rise, and it can be hedged in a variety of ways.

In terms of supply chain, CATL has been doing resource layout, including lithium, nickel, cobalt, etc., and since last year, it has invested more than 10 billion yuan around the world, including domestic investment.

In terms of power battery recycling, CATL said that its lithium recovery rate has exceeded 90%, and lithium recycling has now played a certain role in supply security. In addition, the reason why the recovery maturity of ternary lithium batteries is higher than that of lithium iron phosphate is that the price of nickel and cobalt metals is high, and the recent increase in the price of lithium iron phosphate has also increased significantly. At present, CATL has both ternary and iron-lithium waste battery annual recycling technology and production capacity, and the future production capacity will continue to expand. In addition to the cathode, the Ningde era also laid out graphite and electrolyte recovery.

Finally, for the cost transmission of lithium carbonate price increases, the meeting minutes revealed that in the short term, the battery in the Ningde era has also increased in price, and the cycle is about 1.5-2 years.

Power replacement is the final solution for models of 80,000-120,000 yuan

In mid-January this year, CATL launched its power exchange brand "Chocolate", officially entering the power exchange industry, but the industry has mixed praise.

In this research activity, CATL also revealed for the first time its original intention of changing electricity. In its view, it is more difficult to do electrification substitution is the 8-12 million price range models, with chocolate battery replacement products supporting the corresponding models, can make the new energy vehicle (excluding batteries) the first purchase cost is lower than the fuel vehicle, the power exchange speed is equal to the fuel vehicle refueling, to solve the problem of cost performance. CATL mentioned, "We believe that the ultimate solution for models in the range of 80,000-120,000 yuan is chocolate power exchange. ”

In addition, CATL also pointed out that as a power battery company, its walk from behind the scenes to the front of the stage is also from the beginning of the power exchange. "The company began to build its own brand from the power exchange, so that consumers can recognize the advantages of products equipped with the company's batteries."

According to reports, the chocolate battery exchange brand tries to establish a standardized product for the current power exchange market. The "chocolate power exchange block" can not only adapt to the models developed by the pure electric platform that 80% of the world has been listed and will be listed in the next three years, but also can be applied to electric vehicle models with different wheelbases from A00 class to B class and C class passenger cars and logistics vehicles, which has a certain degree of "universality".

However, at present, the high cost of substation construction is often criticized by the industry. BAIC BJEV once revealed to the media that the construction cost of a substation is nearly 10 million yuan, and to achieve scale and practicality, it is necessary to build a large number of substations nationwide, which requires huge financial support.