BYD Co (比亞迪) is building what would become the world’s largest vehicle-battery factory next year in an effort by the Chinese electric-car maker to increase capacity and help revive earnings growth.
The plant is to have an annual capacity of 24 gigawatt-hours (GWh) when it is fully in use next year, enough to equip 1.2 million BYD Tang electric cars, according to the manufacturer backed by Warren Buffett.
Covering 1 million square meters — equivalent to about 140 soccer fields — the factory unveiled yesterday would help meet BYD’s plan to boost its battery-making capability almost four-fold to 60GWh by 2020.
Photo: AP
“We have reason to believe there will be further explosive development in the new-energy vehicle industry,” BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu (王傳福) said at the facility in Qinghai. “There is huge potential in the lithium industry.”
China’s biggest manufacturer of new-energy vehicles has differentiated itself from other automakers with its self-sufficiency in battery supplies and strength in battery-production, starting with its roots as a maker of mobile-phone batteries.
BYD is also expanding production to sell batteries to other automakers to broaden its income sources after posting profit declines in five of the past 10 years, and plans to spin off the business.
The new factory, which Wang called the world’s largest power-battery factory, would be a fully automated facility, with about 100 robots handling logistics and manufacturing.
BYD is to face competition for the crown.
Tesla Motors Inc is expanding its gigafactory in Nevada to reach output of 35GWh, according to its Web site.
The company headed by Elon Musk also plans to build a gigafactory in China.
Rising ownership of electric-powered vehicles in China, where the government has thrown its weight behind the industry’s growth, has spurred the expansion of battery makers, such as BYD and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (CATL, 時代新能源), whose rapid production ramp-up turned it into the nation’s biggest maker of battery cells for electric cars.
Like BYD, CATL is also building a 24GWh factory.
That is scheduled for completion about 2020 and help CATL expand its production capacity to 88GWh by that time.
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