As many auto giants plan to phase out gasoline vehicles from their showrooms, demand for lithium-ion batteries has surged drastically.
By MUN KYU HYUN
Batteries, the single most expensive EV component, have been the chief focus so far. Among them, Lithium-ion batteries have been attracting numerous investors. As many auto giants plan to phase out gasoline vehicles from their showrooms, demand for lithium-ion batteries has surged drastically. As a result, EV makers are working on forming partnerships with battery manufacturers.
Here are the three major global battery manufacturers:
CATL
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited is a Chinese battery maker founded in 2011. CATL is undoubtedly the worldโs largest maker of EV batteries consuming 34% of the global EV battery market. Chinaโs battery champion manufactures LFP batteries made up of Lithium, Iron, and Phosphate. This cheap but weighty battery uses iron to substitute other costly metals, such as Nickel or Cobalt. The company is closely working with Tesla, Chinese NIO, and Mercedes-Benz. Recently, CATL announced that the company is working on manufacturing sodium-based batteries which could help car companies to bring down the cost of making electric vehicles.
LG Energy Solution
LG Energy Solution, an EV battery unit spun off from LG Chemical, is the global supplier of Lithium-ion batteries located in South Korea. This company produces batteries called NCM, composed of Lithium, Nickel, Cobalt, and Manganese. The battery is tiny and compact, making it very suitable for making EVs. Although it has been claimed that the NCM battery is a fire hazard, many car companies choose NCM due to its quality and high energy storage density. The company also started to supply NCMA batteries which raised the Nickel content to about 90% and reduced 5% of Cobalt to bring down the cost.
Panasonic Corporation
Panasonic Corporation, a Japanese multinational electronics company, drew numerous investorsโ attention when it announced a 1.6 Billion dollar bet on building a โGigafactoryโ with Tesla in Nevada. The deal, released in 2014, made Panasonic the first-runner among other battery manufacturers. However, as Tesla tries to diversify its supply of batteries by working with other battery manufacturers, Panasonic is also poised to seek more partnerships with other car companies. It is no wonder that Panasonic has sold its entire stake in Tesla for $3.6 billion. Recently, Panasonic and Toyota have launched a joint venture company, Prime Planet Energy & Solutions, aiming to lower its production costs by 70% until 2025.
Editorโs opinion: Lithium and Cobalt prices have risen due to the surge in demand for electric vehicles. The race to secure those materials will be a key factor for all three battery manufactures.
(following Japanese translation)
ๆ่ฟใๅคใใฎ่ชๅ่ปใกใผใซใผใใฌใฝใชใณใใใฃใผใผใซ่ปใฎ็็ฃใ็ธฎๅฐใใ้ปๆฐ่ชๅ่ปใ็บๅฃฒใใใฆใใใ ใใซใ้ปๆฐ่ชๅ่ป็จใใใใชใผใฎ้่ฆใใพใใพใๅขใใฆใใใใใฎใใใ้ปๆฐ่ชๅ่ปใฎไพกๆ ผใๆฑบใใใจใใใฆใใ้ปๆฐ่ชๅ่ป็จใใใใชใผใฏใๅคใใฎใฐใญใผใใซๆ่ณๅฎถใฎ้ขๅฟไบใซใชใฃใฆใใใ ใใใ ใใงใชใใไธ็ๅๅฝใฎ่ชๅ่ปใกใผใซใผใฏใๆๆฐใฎใใใใชใผไผๆฅญใจๅๅใใใใใซๅชๅใใฆใใ็ถๆณใ ใ
ไธใฏใๅๅฝใฎๅช็งใชใใใใชใผไผๆฅญ3็คพใฎ็ดนไปใงใใใ
CATL
2011ๅนดใซไธญๅฝใง่จญ็ซใใใCATLใฏใ็พๅจๅ จไธ็ใฎใใใใชใผๅบ่ท้ใฎ34%ใๅ ใใใปใฉๅคใใฎ้ปๆฐ่ชๅ่ปใกใผใซใผใCATLใใใใชใผใไฝฟ็จใใฆใใใ CATLใฏใชใใฆใ ใใชใณ้ ธใ้ใงใงใใLFPใใใใชใผใ็็ฃใใฆใใใ ใใฎLFPใใใใชใผใฏใใใใฑใซใใณใใซใใฎใใใช้ซไพกใช้ๅฑใไฝฟ็จใใไปฃใใใซ้๏ผIron๏ผใไฝฟ็จใใใ ใใซใไพกๆ ผ็ใช้ขใง้ๅธธใซๆๅฉใ ใ ใใฎไผ็คพใฏ็พๅจใใในใฉใใฏใใใจใใไธญๅฝใฎๆฐ็้ปๆฐ่ชๅ่ปใกใผใซใผใงใใNIOใใใใฆใใคใใฎใกใซใปใในใใณใใจๅๅใใฆใใใ ๆ่ฟใฏใใใใชใฆใ ใใใใชใผใ็บๅฃฒใใๅพๆฅใฎLFPใใใใใซๅฎใใใใใชใผใ็บๅฃฒใใใ ๅฎไพกใช้ปๆฐ่ปใ็บๅฃฒใใใใจ่บ่ตทใซใชใฃใฆใใ่ชๅ่ปไผ็คพใซใจใฃใฆใฏๅฅฝๆๆใ ใใใจๆใใใใ
LG Energy Solution
LGใจใใซใฎใผใฝใชใฅใผใทใงใณใฏLGๅๅญฆใใ็ฉ็ๅๅฒใใใ้ๅฝไผๆฅญใงใใใ LGใจใใซใฎใผใฝใชใฅใผใทใงใณใฏNCMใใใใชใผใ็็ฃใใใจ็ฅใใใฆใใใ NCMใใใใชใผใฏใใใใฑใซยทใณใใซใยทใใณใฌใณใงไฝใใใใ ใใฎใใใใชใผใฏใใตใคใบใๅฐใใ่ปฝใใใ็ซ็ฝใฎๅฑ้บๆงใใใใจใใใฎใใใกใชใใใ ใ ใใใใๅ จไธ็ใฎ้ปๆฐ่ชๅ่ปใจใใคใใชใใ่ปใซNCMใใใใชใผใไธปใซใชใฃใฆใใ็ถๆณใ ใ LGใจใใซใฎใผใฝใชใฅใผใทใงใณใฏ2020ๅนดใใ็ ็ฉถใใฆใใNCMAใใใใชใผใ2021ๅนดใฎไธๅๆใใไพ็ตฆใใใจ็บ่กจใใใใใฎใใใใชใผใฏ้ซไพกใชใณใใซใใ5%ๆธใใใใใใฑใซใฎๅซ้ใ90%ใซใพใงๅผใไธใใใใใใชใผใงใใใ
Panasonic Corporation
ๆฅๆฌใฎใใใฝใใใฏใฏ้ปๆฐ่ชๅ่ปใใใใชใผใฎๆๅใฎใฉใณใใผใ ใฃใใ ใใใฃใฆใใในใฉใจใ็ธใๆทฑใใ ใชใใจ2014ๅนดๅบฆใซใในใฉใจใฎๅๅผใงใใฎใฌใใกใฏใใชใผใใใขใกใชใซใฎใใใๅทใซๅปบ่จญใใใใจใๆฑบๅฎใไธ้ใฎๆณจ็ฎใ้ใใใใใซใชใฃใใ ใใใใๆ่ฟใฎๆตใใฏๅฐใ้ใใใใซ่ฆใใใ ็พๅจๅคใใฎใใใใชใผใกใผใซใผใๅธๅ ดใซ็ปๅ ดใใฆใใใ ใใซใใในใฉใใใฏใใใใฝใใใฏใฎ่ฃฝๅใ ใใซใใ ใใฃใฆใชใใ ใใใฝใใใฏใๅๆงใซใใพใใพใช้ปๆฐ่ชๅ่ปใกใผใซใผใจไบคๆตใใใใจใๆฑบๅฎใใใในใฉใซใใฃใๆ ชๅผใใในใฆๅฃฒๅดใใฆใใพใใใจใซใชใฃใใ ็พๅจใใใฝใใใฏใฏใใจใฟใจใใฉใคใ ใใฉใใใใจใใซใฎใผใใใณใฝใชใฅใผใทใงใณใPPESใใ่จญ็ซใใ2025ๅนดใพใงใซใใใใชใผ็็ฃใณในใใ70%ใพใงๆธใใใใจใ็ดๆใใใ
็ทจ้่ ใฎๆ่ฆ:้ปๆฐ่ชๅ่ปใซๅฏพใใ้่ฆใฎใใใใใใใชใผใซไฝฟ็จใใใใชใใฆใ ใจใณใใซใๅ ็ด ใฎไพกๆ ผใๆด้จฐใใฆใใพใใ ใใฎไธใคใฎไผๆฅญใฏใใใใชใผใซไฝฟใใใๅ ็ด ใ็ขบไฟใใใใใซๆฑบ้ใ็นฐใๅบใใชใใใฐใชใใพใใใ
(following Korean translation)
์ต๊ทผ ์๋ง์ ์๋์ฐจ ํ์ฌ๋ค์ด ๊ฐ์๋ฆฐ, ๋์ ค ์ฐจ๋ ์์ฐ์ ์ถ์ํ๊ณ , ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ๋ฅผ ์ถ์์ํค๊ณ ์๋ ๋งํผ, ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ์ฉ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ์ ์์๊ฐ ์ ์ ๋์ด๋๊ณ ์์ต๋๋ค. ์ด๋ก ์ธํด ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ์ ๊ฐ๊ฒฉ์ ๊ฒฐ์ ์ง๋๋ค๊ณ ์๋ ค์ง ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ์ฉ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ ๋ง์ ๊ธ๋ก๋ฒ ํฌ์์๋ค์ ๊ด์ฌ ๋์์ ์์ต๋๋ค. ๊ทธ๋ฟ๋ง ์๋๋ผ ์ธ๊ณ ๊ฐ๊ตญ์ ์๋์ฐจ ์ ์กฐ์ฌ๋ค์ ์ ์์ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ ๊ธฐ์ ๋ค๊ณผ ํ๋ ฅํ๊ธฐ ์ํด ๋ ธ๋ ฅํ๊ณ ์์ต๋๋ค.
์ค๋์ ๊ฐ๊ตญ์ ์ฐ์ํ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ ๊ธฐ์ 3๊ณณ์ ์๊ฐํด ๋ณด๋๋ก ํ๊ฒ ์ต๋๋ค.
CATL
2011๋ ์ค๊ตญ์์ ์ค๋ฆฝ๋ CATL์ ํ์ฌ ์ ์ธ๊ณ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ ์ถํ๋์์ 34%๋ฅผ ์ฐจ์งํ ๋งํผ ๋ง์ ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ ํ์ฌ๋ค์ด CATL ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ์ฌ์ฉํ๊ณ ์์ต๋๋ค. CATL์ ๋ฆฌํฌ, ์ธ์ฐ, ์ฒ ๋ก ๋ง๋ค์ด์ง LFP ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ์์ฐํ๊ณ ์์ต๋๋ค. ์ด LFP ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ ๋์ผ์ด๋ ์ฝ๋ฐํธ์ ๊ฐ์ด ๋น์ผ ๊ธ์์ ์ฌ์ฉํ๋ ๋์ ์ฒ (Iron)์ ์ฌ์ฉํ๋ ๋งํผ, ๊ฐ๊ฒฉ ์ธก๋ฉด์์ ๋งค์ฐ ์ ๋ฆฌํฉ๋๋ค. ์ด ํ์ฌ๋ ํ์ฌ ํ ์ฌ๋ผ๋ฅผ ๋น๋กฏํด ์ค๊ตญ์ ์ ์ ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ ํ์ฌ์ธ NIO, ๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ๋ ์ผ์ ๋ฉ๋ฅด์ธ๋ฐ์ค ๋ฒค์ธ ์ ํ๋ ฅํ๊ณ ์์ต๋๋ค. ์ต๊ทผ์๋ ๋ํธ๋ฅจ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ์ถ์ํ๋ฉด์ ๊ธฐ์กด LFP๋ณด๋ค ๋ ์ผ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ๋ด๋์์ต๋๋ค. ๊ฐ์ผ ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ๋ฅผ ์ถ์ํ๋ ค๊ณ ๋์ ๋ถ์ ์ผ ์๋์ฐจ ํ์ฌ๋ค์๋ ํธ์ฌ์ผ ๊ฒ์ผ๋ก ๋ณด์ ๋๋ค.
LG Energy Solution
LG ์๋์ง ์๋ฃจ์ ์ LG ํํ์์ ๋ฌผ์ ๋ถํ ๋ ํ๊ตญ ๊ธฐ์ ์ ๋๋ค. LG ์๋์ง ์๋ฃจ์ ์ NCM ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ์์ฐํ๋ ๊ฒ์ผ๋ก ์๋ ค์ ธ ์์ต๋๋ค. NCM ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ ๋์ผ, ์ฝ๋ฐํธ, ๋ง๊ฐ์ผ๋ก ๋ง๋ค์ด์ง๋๋ค. ์ด ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ ํฌ๊ธฐ๋ ์๊ณ ๊ฐ๋ณ์ง๋ง, ํ์ฌ์ ์ํ์ฑ์ด ์๋ค๋ ๊ฒ์ด ๋จ์ ์ ๋๋ค. ํ์ง๋ง ์ ์ธ๊ณ ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ์ ํ์ด๋ธ๋ฆฌ๋ (HEV) ์ฐจ๋์ NCM ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๊ฐ ์ฃผ๋ฅผ ์ด๋ฃจ๊ณ ์์ต๋๋ค. LG ์๋์ง ์๋ฃจ์ ์ 2020๋ ๋ถํฐ ์ฐ๊ตฌํด์จ NCMA ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ 2021 ์ฌํด ํ๋ฐ๊ธฐ๋ถํฐ ๊ณต๊ธํ ๊ฒ์ด๋ผ๊ณ ๋ฐํํ์ต๋๋ค. ์ด ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ๋ ๊ฐ๋น์ผ ์ฝ๋ฐํธ๋ฅผ 5% ์ค์ด๊ณ ๋์ผ ํจ๋์ 90%๊น์ง ๋์ด์ฌ๋ฆฐ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ์ ๋๋ค.
Panasonic Corporation
์ผ๋ณธ์ ํ๋์๋์ ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ์ ์ฒซ ์ฃผ์์๋ ๋งํผ, ํ ์ฌ๋ผ์๋ ์ธ์ฐ์ด ๊น์ต๋๋ค. ๋ฌด๋ ค 2014๋ ๋์ ํ ์ฌ๋ผ์ ํฉ์์ผ๋ก โ๊ธฐ๊ฐํฉํ ๋ฆฌโ๋ฅผ ๋ฏธ๊ตญ ๋ค๋ฒ ๋ค์ฃผ์ ์ง๊ธฐ๋ก ๊ฒฐ์ ํ๋ฉด์ ์ธ๊ฐ์ ์ฃผ๋ชฉ์ ๋ฐ๊ฒ ๋์์ต๋๋ค. ํ์ง๋ง ์ต๊ทผ์ ํ๋ฆ์ ์กฐ๊ธ ๋ฌ๋ผ ๋ณด์ ๋๋ค. ํ์ฌ ๋ง์ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ ํ์ฌ๋ค์ด ์์ฅ์ ๋ฑ์ฅํ ๋งํผ, ํ ์ฌ๋ผ๋ ๋ ์ด์ ํ๋์๋์ ์ ํ๋ง์ ๊ณ ์งํ๊ณ ์์ง ์์ต๋๋ค. ํ๋์๋๋ ๋ง์ฐฌ๊ฐ์ง๋ก ๋ค์ํ ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ ํ์ฌ๋ค๊ณผ ๊ต๋ฅํ๊ธฐ๋ก ๊ฒฐ์ ํ๋ฉด์ ํ ์ฌ๋ผ์ ์๋ ์ฃผ์ ์ง๋ถ๋ ์ ๋ถ ํ์๋ฒ๋ ธ์ต๋๋ค. ํ์ฌ ํ๋์๋์ ํ ์ํ์ ํ๋ผ์ ํ๋๋ ์๋์ง ๋ฐ ์๋ฃจ์ (PPES)์ ์ค๋ฆฝํ๊ณ , 2025๋ ๊น์ง ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ ์์ฐ ๋น์ฉ์ 70%๊น์ง ์ค์ด๊ธฐ๋ก ์ฝ์ํ์ต๋๋ค.
ํธ์ง์์ ์๊ฒฌ: ์ ๊ธฐ์ฐจ์ ๋ํ ์์๋๋ฌธ์, ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ์ ์ฌ์ฉ๋๋ ๋ฆฌํฌ๊ณผ ์ฝ๋ฐํธ ์์์ ๊ฐ๊ฒฉ์ด ํญ๋ฑํ๊ณ ์์ต๋๋ค. ์ด ์ธ ๊ธฐ์ ๋ค์ ๋ฒ ํฐ๋ฆฌ์ ์ฌ์ฉ๋๋ ์์๋ค์ ํ๋ณดํ๊ธฐ ์ํด ๊ฒฐํฌ๋ฅผ ๋ฒ์ฌ์ผ ํ ๊ฒ์ ๋๋ค.