[China overpowered Japan to dominate lithium battery market, panasonic alone!]

In-car lithium-ion batteries are core components such as pure electric cars (evs), and Chinese manufacturers have led the way. Driven by huge domestic demand, Chinese companies have an overwhelming global market share of more than 60 percent. China's big companies are also preparing for big investments. Japanese companies once led the pack in lithium-ion batteries, but panasonic is now the only one left, and the rest are becoming less visible.
China grabs market share in lithium batteries

Ningde times new energy technology (CATL), a large Chinese vehicle lithium ion battery company, has shocked the world with its medium-term vision. It proposes to have 50GWh capacity by 2020, nearly double global demand. First, it will invest 10 billion yuan jointly with Shanghai automobile to build a factory with an annual output of 10GWh in changzhou, jiangsu province.

A survey by Japan's yano institute of economics showed that as of 2016, Chinese manufacturers had the largest share of the global market for on-board lithium ion batteries, with a market share of more than 60 percent. Japan, no. 2, has more than 20% of the market, while South Korea has less than 10%. "In terms of battery capacity shipped in 2016, Chinese manufacturers dominated the top five," said mitsuki fujita of Japanese Research firm Techno Systems Research.
China's national strategy to revitalize electric vehicles has underpinned the company's aggressive expansion policy. China has put forward a policy to popularize 5 million all-electric vehicles and other new-energy vehicles by 2020. Following Britain and France, there is talk of a future ban on petrol cars. China accounts for 51 per cent of global sales of electric passenger cars, according to Fuji economics. Most of these vehicles are thought to carry domestically produced batteries, which are supported by strong domestic demand.

Targeting Chinese demand, South Korea's LG chem and samsung SDI opened new factories in China in 2015. But Beijing excluded them from subsidies and orders for new factories did not rise.

The prototype lithium-ion battery was created by the Japanese, and SONY was the first in the world to make it practical in 1991. Japanese companies have a large number of patents on materials and manufacturing processes, and are better off with cutting-edge technology that improves both energy density and safety.

The Japanese, American and European markets are the main battleground in the competition for cutting-edge battery technology for passenger cars, and Japanese and Korean companies basically monopolize this market. Among Japanese companies, only panasonic has retained some strength. Panasonic has teamed up with tesla to build a massive $5 billion factory in the United States. Panasonic has invested heavily in battery equipment and will open a new plant in dalian in 2017.

Beijing is trying to break Japan's and South Korea's dominance

In an effort to improve the technology of its battery makers, China announced in March 2017 guidelines on subsidies for research and development of high-performance batteries. The hope is to cultivate domestic battery companies so that their products can be selected by Japanese, American and European car companies and overcome the disadvantage that Chinese battery companies have only domestic advantages. BMW's recent decision to use ningde-era batteries could be a breakthrough into the traditional turf of Japanese and Korean companies.

The era of battery competitiveness is coming, and the industry is growing. If they lag behind China in size and technology, Japanese companies will lose competitiveness. But widespread adoption of electric vehicles will require technological advances such as all-solid batteries, which are seen as key to the next generation. The race is not over yet.