In order to target China's new energy electric vehicles, the EU racked its brains and thought one idea a day.
The recent requirement that batteries be shipped back to the country of production after the end of the tram cycle may seem like a global parity, but in fact everyone knows that the EU is only doing this to target Asia, especially China.
Recently, the European Union released a draft of the secondary supporting bills, namely the authorization bill for the establishment of carbon footprint accounting and verification methods for electric vehicle batteries and the implementation bill for the establishment of battery carbon footprint declaration formats.
According to the information in the draft of the solicitation paper, the EU said that this is to guide relevant companies to carry out carbon footprint accounting and carbon footprint declaration of electric vehicle batteries.
The EU is also doing this to support the requirements of the EU Battery and Waste Battery Law for the carbon footprint declaration of electric vehicle batteries.
This bill is also known as the European "New Battery Law", and the purpose of issuing this bill is also very obvious, which is to protect the European market and promote the development of the European power battery industry.
But will Europe be able to do so this time?
The New Batteries Act sets out mandatory minimum recycling levels for new industrial batteries, SLI batteries and electric vehicle batteries, and repeales the current Batteries Directive 2006.
Eight years from the date of the Act's entry into force, all new batteries reproduced must contain a certain amount of recycled metal, with 16% cobalt, 85% lead, 6% lithium, and 6% nickel, and batteries must be labeled with recycled content.
In fact, most people are not optimistic about the bill, the EU seems to be under the banner of environmental protection this time, everything is famous, but in fact, everyone knows that this bill is obviously biased towards the European market, which is very unfavorable to the normal production and sales of enterprises in other regions.
Specifically, the proportion of material recycling requirements in the bill is not based on global standards, but is measured according to the European market, where electric vehicles and power batteries were used earlier.
For this standard, even many battery companies in Europe can't do it, and many world-class automobile companies in Europe feel that they don't know it after seeing the "New Battery Law".
It seems that the EU is really willing to lose 800 of itself in order to target China.
In order to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, fuel vehicles must withdraw from the historical stage, and new energy electric vehicles will become the mainstream.
In this context, the battery energy layout of electric vehicles is particularly important.
According to the data released by Industry and Information Technology on March 1, in 2023, the mainland's lithium-ion battery industry will continue to grow, with the total output of lithium batteries in the country exceeding 940GWh, a year-on-year increase of 25%, and the total output value of the industry exceeding 1.4 trillion yuan.
Today, the mainland has long become a veritable electric vehicle powerhouse, and the mainland's lithium-ion battery production and production capacity rank first in the world.
According to relevant statistics, in 2022, 70% of the world's lithium-ion batteries and 99% of lithium iron phosphate cathode materials were produced by Chinese companies.
At present, the pattern of global power batteries has changed from the original three-legged to the current one-super two-strong.
In September 2022, data from SNEResearch, a South Korean market research institution, showed that the global installed capacity of power batteries in September was 54.7GWh, and CATL ranked first in the world with 19.9GWh of installed capacity, followed by LG New Energy and BYD.
At the same time, in this data report, 6 of the top 10 global power battery installed capacity are Chinese companies, with a market share of 59.4%.
And this is only the data for 2022, and now the continent's share of the global battery market has further increased, exceeding that of all other countries combined.
This situation of the two superpowers is naturally China, the battery superpower, and Japan, South Korea, the two battery powers.
The development of the battery industry in Europe has always been very stretched.
Therefore, the formulation of new battery recycling standards in Europe seems to damage the interests of European battery companies, but in fact, it will not do much damage at all, after all, there are not many battery companies in Europe that can be named.
In such a situation, the EU is more concerned about how much it can hurt China.
It is a pity that the EU's wishful thinking is wrong, because for the battery traceability management, the mainland implemented it 7 years earlier than the EU.
There are a lot of official polite words about the EU's "New Battery Law", but in fact, the core is to establish a set of electronic management of the whole life cycle of batteries from production, use to scrap and recycling.
I can't think that China's battery industry is focused on development, and I certainly didn't think of follow-up work such as recycling.
But in fact, the mainland has long had a set of traceability management platform for the recycling of power batteries for new energy vehicles, and in the China Automotive Industry Big Data Laboratory, you can see the dynamic management information of the whole life cycle of each battery through this platform.
Since 2018, every time a battery is produced in our country, all its traceability information will be uploaded to this platform to facilitate follow-up management and query.
At present, the platform has recorded more than 14 million new energy vehicles, more than 20 million sets of battery packs, more than 1,000 upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain have registered accounts on the platform and uploaded information, including more than 100 traceability information such as power battery production, sales, use, scrapping, retirement, recycling, etc., so that domestic power batteries can be "traced from sources, traceable to destinations, controllable nodes, and accountable".
The battery electronic passport mentioned by the EU is actually the mainland's information traceability, and this trick really does not affect the mainland, after all, we are the first country to propose and implement it.
The second point of the "New Battery Law" in a vain attempt to sanction China is to work recycling and catch China off guard.
But in fact, not only the battery industry insiders, many domestic experts also said that although the new European battery law is a new challenge, in fact, if the mainland can actively respond, from a long-term perspective, it will bring new opportunities for transformation and quality improvement to the mainland battery industry, so as to achieve the further expansion of China's international battery market.
According to relevant statistics, the total number of retired power batteries in the mainland will exceed 580,000 tons in 2023, and it is estimated that by 2030, the recycling volume of power batteries in the mainland will reach 6.028 million tons, and its market size will exceed 140 billion yuan.
The heavy metals contained in these retired batteries, such as cobalt, nickel, copper and flammable organic solvents, are very polluting to the environment, and if they are not treated in a timely and improper manner, it is easy to bring a series of potential safety hazards.
But at the same time, the heavy metals contained in these retired batteries are also materials that are in short supply in the mainland.
At present, more than ninety percent of the mainland's nickel, cobalt and other battery raw materials need to be imported, and the price of these raw materials has risen in recent years.
According to the provisions of the new EU battery law, the batteries exported from the mainland will eventually be recycled by the mainland. This is not a hot potato, but a treasure with endless potential.
The power battery is mainly composed of four parts: cathode material, anode material, electrolyte and separator, of which most of the precious metal elements are concentrated in the cathode, so the cathode material accounts for 30%~40% of the cost of lithium battery materials.
Through efficient recycling, it can not only make up for the shortage of front-end resources, but also greatly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the smelting of raw materials, which is a means to kill two birds with one stone.
If all battery companies in the mainland can recycle and reuse the retired batteries and improve the recycling efficiency of the retired batteries, the batteries in the mainland will realize a new way to transform into low-cost, high-performance and high-safety next-generation power battery cathode materials, especially the cost of cathode materials will also be reduced by 73.6%.
In this way, the cost of new energy vehicles in the mainland can be further controlled, and the market price of the whole vehicle will also be reduced.
Relying on technological innovation and the current ultra-high cost performance, the mainland has made many Europeans excited, if the price and cost of new energy vehicles in the mainland can be reduced again, it means that China's new energy vehicles can have more opportunities to accept challenges.
Resources:
[1] CCTV "New Energy Vehicle Power Batteries Will Meet the Retirement Tide, How to Solve the Recycling Problem?" 》2024-06-14
[2] Guangming.com, "Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: The total output of lithium batteries in mainland China will exceed 940GWh in 2023, and the total output value of the industry will exceed 1.4 trillion yuan", 2024-03-02
[3] Beiqing.com, "The New Pattern of Global Power Batteries: From Three-legged Tripod to One Super and Two Strong", 2022-11-24
[4] China Youth Network, "Is the EU's New Battery Act an Opportunity or a Challenge for China's New Energy?" 》2024-04-09