China is at the global forefront of the electric vehicle (EV) and EV battery industries. Its firms produce nearly two-thirds of the world''s EVs and more than three-quarters of EV batteries. They also have produced notable innovations in EV products, processes, and customer experiences.
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The Seagull by Chinese carmaker BYD is one of the first mass-produced electric cars to use a sodium-ion battery (Image: Peerapon Boonyakiat / Alamy)
At the Beijing Auto Show in April, CATL, the world''s largest electric vehicle (EV) battery maker, stunned many with a new product.
The Shenxing Plus battery can power an EV for more than 1,000 kilometres on a single charge, according to CATL. That''s enough to get from Guangzhou to Wuhan, or London to Berlin.
"[The battery] can reach a range of 600 kilometres with a 10-minute charge, equalling one kilometre every second," Gao Huan, chief technology officer of CATL''s electric car business, proudly announced at the launch ceremony.
Chinese firms have been unveiling new lithium-ion cells with longer ranges, shorter charging times and more charging cycles in their lifespans, at a frequency unseen anywhere else in the world.
But with the global demand for EV batteries projected to jump up to tenfold by 2030, companies worldwide have been racing to develop next-generation technologies to seize future market shares.
The innovation rush is driven by various motivations, mainly to cut cost and avoid supply chain bottlenecks. But it could also benefit the environment and climate by reducing carbon emissions during the mining and production of certain minerals, according to a report by consulting firm McKinsey.
"Whoever wins the battery war will win it all," Chinese economist Ren Zeping said in 2022. Ren noted that the technologies and performance of batteries is the "core" of taking the EV sector forward.
Currently, commercial EVs use one of two main types of lithium battery –those that contain iron and phosphate, known as LFPs, and those that contain nickel, manganese and cobalt, known as NMCs.
The primary distinction between them is that NMCs usually have a greater energy density while LFPs are safer, Liu Chenguang, an assistant professor at Xi''an Jiaotong-Liverpool University specialising in battery materials, tells Dialogue Earth.
Energy density typically measures how much energy a battery contains in proportion to its weight, and is a key performance metric.
The two types have an equal footing in the EV market globally, but in China, LFPs have become far more popular over the past few years because they are safer, according to Mao Shiyue, a researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) think-tank. They are also cheaper than NMCs given the high cost of cobalt and nickel, Mao tells Dialogue Earth.
LFPs are also more environmentally friendly than NMCs because cobalt and nickel are heavy metals that can be harmful to humans and the environment, particularly the aquatic environment.
Mining operations can damage nature and local communities byeroding soil, disrupting habitats and diminishing biodiversity. EV and battery manufacturers have been put under increasing scrutiny due to such adverse impacts, particularly as countries like Indonesia – the world''s largest nickel producer – have lowered labour and environmental standards to boost their mining industry.
Ingredients for the batteries of EVs – as well as for their bodies – are among the minerals with "the strongest links to deforestation", according to a new report published by environmental NGOs Aidenvironment and Rainforest Foundation Norway. This makes the automotive industry the second most important driver of mining-related deforestation globally after construction, the report said.
Lithium technologies are expected to advance quickly over the next few years. However, companies in China and beyond are frantically pursuing alternative batteries not centred around lithium, in part because the minerals needed to make the current options come from just a few countries.
These elements are often described as "critical raw materials" or "transitional minerals", and they mostly include lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese and graphite. Their concentrated supply chains can lead to problems such as dramatic price swings.
Lithium: The largest lithium reserves found so far are in Latin America (mainly Chile, and some in Argentina) and Australia. But Australia dominated the production side, putting out 52% of the global supply in 2021, followed by Chile and China at 25% and 13%, respectively. In 2022, China held around three-quarters of the world''s lithium-refining capacity.
Cobalt: Around three-quarters of the world''s cobalt was produced by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2021, with Australia being a distant second with 3%. Cobalt''s reserves are relatively more spread out, with the DRC holding 48%, Australia owning 18% and Indonesia having 7%. China refined 67% of the world''s cobalt in 2020, followed by Finland and Japan, which accounted for 10% and 5%, respectively.
Nickel: Indonesia was the largest producer of nickel globally in 2023, with its reported share varying from 40.2% to 55% of the worldwide total. Australia ties with Indonesia as the most nickel-rich nations at 19.6% of the global reserves, followed by Brazil (14.9%) and Russia (7%). Around 70% of the world''s nickel is refined in China.
Manganese: South Africa tops the chart for manganese reserves, boasting 32.1% of the global total. Ukraine and Brazil both have 17.3%, ranking joint second, followed by Australia, with 12.4%. The production landscape is more diverse. The mineral, which is also used in making steel and aluminium, is mined in more than 30 countries, with South Africa, Australia and Brazil being among the major producers. China processes around 90% of the battery-grade manganese sulphate used in EV batteries.
Graphite: Turkey, Brazil and China have the largest natural graphite reserves, accounting for 27.3%, 22.4% and 15.8% of the global total respectively. China dominates global production of natural graphite at 65%, followed distantly by Madagascar, Mozambique and Brazil. China also makes up more than 75% of the global production of synthetic graphite and more than 90% of the battery-grade graphite used to make anodes.
Cost control sits high among Chinese firms'' reasons to seek alternatives. A battery typically carries 40% of the price tag of an EV, and the ability to minimise production cost is critical for firms to survive the nation''s brutal EV price wars.
Between June 2020 and November 2022, the prices for lithium carbonate, a key ingredient for lithium-ion batteries, soared nearly 14 fold, Phate Zhang, founder of Shanghai-based industry outlet CnEVPost, tells Dialogue Earth.
"That was when Chinese car and battery makers started to seriously look for alternative battery technologies that are not only cheap, but also suitable for mass production," he says. "Sodium-ion batteries are one of them."
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