SVOLT won BMW's 10 billion battery order

SVOLT will become the supplier of power batteries to the BMW Group.

On October 12, 36Kr reported that SVOLT has received nearly 90 GWh of battery orders from BMW Group in Europe. If estimated at a price of 0.6 yuan per watt-hour, the order value reaches 54 billion yuan.

In response to the above news, SVOLT responded to interface news, saying, "The company did receive a large order from an OEM in Europe, but due to the confidentiality agreement, it was unable to disclose and confirm the relevant information." The BMW Group has not responded to this news.

Jiemian News learned from people close to the source that SVOLT has indeed become a power battery supplier of BMW Group.

SVOLT was formerly known as the Power Battery Division established by Great Wall Motors in 2016, and was completely spun off from Great Wall Motors in 2018 and began to operate independently. Its main business is power batteries and energy storage batteries for new energy vehicles, and its customers include Great Wall Motor, Hezhong Automobile, Leapmotor and other car companies.

Last year, SVOLT reported a revenue of 9.97 billion yuan and a net loss of 2.25 billion yuan, and the company is now seeking to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's science and technology innovation board.

According to the latest data released by the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, in September this year, the installed capacity of SVOLT was 0.99 GWh, with a market share of 2.73%, ranking seventh in China. CATL ranked first with a market share of 39.41%.

SVOLT currently has two battery plants in Europe. In 2020, the company announced that it would build its first overseas plant in Saarland, Germany, to produce battery packs. In September 2022, the company announced the construction of a second overseas plant in Brandenburg, Germany, for the European market, mainly engaged in the production of battery cells.

36Kr said that the type of battery cell products supplied by SVOLT to BMW Group this time is short-knife battery cells, which will be used in the pure electric models of BMW Group's new-generation platform in the CTP mode.

Batteries usually adopt the assembly mode of cell-module-battery pack, and the battery cell is the smallest unit that makes up the battery pack. CTP refers to the technology of directly integrating battery cells into battery packs, which can improve battery range while reducing the weight and cost pressure of battery packs.

Short knife battery cell products are the main products of SVOLT Energy. In 2021, SVOLT announced at its second Battery Day that it would achieve short-knife products in the future, and in the same year, the company realized the mass production of the first-generation short-knife lithium iron phosphate battery L600.

Depending on the packaging method, batteries can be divided into various types, such as cylindrical, prismatic and pouch. The short knife battery is a long and thin square cell, using a lamination process, and the size covers 300mm-600mm.

Yang Hongxin, chairman and CEO of SVOLT, once summarized the advantages of short knife batteries into three points, first of all, the improvement of volume energy density, because of its higher group efficiency, secondly, short knife products will reduce the connection and structural parts, reducing the overall cost of the battery system, and at the same time, short knife can improve the safety of the battery, the thickness of the battery has a great impact on safety, the thinner the battery is safer.

The BMW Group's current EV battery suppliers also include CATL (300750.SZ), EVE (300014.SZ) and Envision Power.

In September 2022, the BMW Group officially announced that CATL and EVE have become cylindrical battery suppliers for the company's next-generation models, and have signed procurement contracts worth more than 10 billion euros. A month after this official announcement, the BMW Group once again announced that it had reached a strategic cooperation with Envision Power.

All three companies will supply large cylindrical battery products to the BMW Group. As a result, the BMW Group is the second automaker after Tesla to explicitly regard large cylindrical batteries as the main technological direction in the future.

The primary advantage of large cylindrical batteries lies in the high safety brought by the cylindrical battery form, which can ensure the overall safety and controllability of the power battery in any extreme situation. At the same time, large cylindrical batteries can be adapted to more radical battery chemistries, such as high-nickel ternary cathode materials above the 8 series, so as to obtain higher battery energy density and improve the endurance of new energy vehicles.

(Jiemian News reporter Zhou Shuqi also contributed to this article.) )