On July 26, Volkswagen Group issued a statement announcing that it had reached a technical cooperation framework agreement with Xiaopeng Motors. As part of the long-term strategic cooperation, Volkswagen Group will increase the capital of Xiaopeng Motors by about 700 million US dollars (about 5 billion yuan), and acquire about 4.99 shares of Xiaopeng Motors at a price of 15 US dollars per ADS.

Volkswagen Group will become the third largest shareholder of Xiaopeng Motors, holding shares second only to He Xiaopeng (20.50%) and Alibaba Group (11.10%), and will obtain an observer seat on the board of Xiaopeng Motors.

In the initial stage of cooperation, the two parties plan to jointly develop two electric models of the Volkswagen brand for China's medium-sized car market. These two new cars exclusively for the Chinese market are planned to enter the market in 2026.

This incident caused a shock in the investment circle and the new energy vehicle circle. In the investment circle, Xiaopeng Motors' stock market in the US once soared 42.12%, hitting a new high in one year; the stock market in Hong Kong also rose sharply on July 28 and 29, with an increase of 43.30%. In the new energy vehicle circle, the confidence of the domestic new energy industry chain has been greatly improved, especially the core suppliers of Xiaopeng Automobile represented by CALB, which will have great growth opportunities.

CALB is the largest lithium battery supplier for Xpeng Motors

In 2021, CALB will become one of the first battery suppliers of Xiaopeng Motors.

On October 6, 2022, when CALB was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Xiaopeng Motors was one of the cornerstone investors of CALB.

In October of the same year, Xiaopeng Motors' world's first electric vertical flying car, Huitian Flying Car X3, made its first flight. The 9-series high-nickel/silicon system battery power battery used was developed and provided by CALB.

According to the recently released rankings of the installed volume of domestic power battery companies in June and the installed volume of domestic power battery companies from January to June, CATL, BYD, and CALB rank in the top three respectively.

Among them, CALB’s domestic power battery installations and matching volumes reached 29,000 GWh and 54,000 vehicles respectively in June. Both data set new records in the history of a single month, and the market share reached 8.82%, ahead of the fourth place EVE Lithium. Can 4.3 percentage points.

It is worth mentioning that the supporting volume of CALB in Xpeng Motors continues to rise. This year, it has achieved continuous growth for six months, and the monthly penetration rate in June is close to 70%. It is currently the largest supplier of Xpeng Motors. And realize the coverage of all models of Xiaopeng Motors. In the future, with the hot sales of Xpeng G6 exclusively supplied by CALB, the supply of power batteries by CALB to Xpeng Motors will increase.

In January 2023, in the first "Pengyi Cup" supply chain partner QC improvement activity of Xiaopeng Motors, CALB won the highest award of the activity - "Golden Wing Award" for its long-term excellent quality performance; in May On the 25th, the 2023 Xpeng Motors Global Partner Conference was held in Zhaoqing. CALB won the Xpeng Motors Excellent Supplier Award for its strong product innovation, high-quality and stable production capacity, and supply strength.

Potential Benefits of Big and Small Joining Hands with CALB

The cooperation between Volkswagen and Xpeng Motors is a milestone event for China's new car-making forces to win international recognition and attract international established car giants to take the initiative to join hands.

From the perspective of Volkswagen, in the Chinese market, Volkswagen's electric vehicle sales are not satisfactory. The cooperation between Volkswagen and Xpeng will effectively promote the transformation of Volkswagen's MEB platform and Volkswagen's electrification.

From the perspective of Xiaopeng Motors, the acquisition of Volkswagen’s capital increase and technical cooperation this time is enough to verify Xiaopeng Motors’ technical advantages in electric vehicle research and development. This has contributed a new typical case for Chinese car companies to achieve reverse technology export.

From the perspective of the supply chain, power batteries are the "heart" of new energy vehicles, and CALB, the largest battery supplier of Xiaopeng Motors, naturally becomes the biggest potential beneficiary.

Another classic case is the reverse export of GAC Aian pure electric platform technology to GAC Honda. Also as the main power battery supplier of GAC Aion, CALB passed the QAV2-5 and safety declaration audits of Honda's e:NP1 and e:NS1 model projects in February this year, and obtained the official supply qualification to Honda, becoming the official supplier of Honda. Goods suppliers.

CALB continues to promote international layout

In recent years, CALB has made continuous efforts in product and technology innovation, and successively launched the world's leading high-safety ternary lithium battery high-voltage technology and products, the world's first full tab lamination technology and products, and the world's first high-energy-density battery system Fire-free technology and products, the world's original OS battery technology and products, create value for users, and achieve product and technology leadership from differentiated leadership to comprehensive product and technology leadership.

Thanks to its strong product strength, CALB has achieved multiple growth for four consecutive years against the background of accelerated development of new energy vehicles around the world.

The internationalization of CALB is carried out at the same time as the power battery going overseas and the layout of overseas bases.

In terms of power batteries going overseas, the Smart Elf #1 and Smart Elf #3, which were the first to supply power batteries by CALB, have been selling well at home and abroad. Among them, Smart Elf #3 is equipped with CALB medium-nickel high-voltage ternary batteries, which has superior comprehensive performance, perfectly takes into account high specific energy and high safety, can realize full temperature range adaptation, supports high-voltage fast charging, 10%-80% SOC Charging time<30min.

In addition, GAC Aian, Xiaopeng, Leapang, Weilai and other car companies equipped with CALB are also accelerating their pace of going overseas and actively deploying overseas markets, which is expected to drive the overseas supporting of CALB.

In terms of overseas base layout, in December 2021, CALB signed the "CALB European Lithium Battery Factory Construction Project" agreement with Germany's Disso. The CALB European project plans to build a power battery production capacity of 20GWh+.

On November 2, 2022, CALB signed a contract with the Portuguese government to build a zero-carbon lithium battery production plant. It is understood that the project will set up a total of 5 factories, which will be used to produce electrode sheets, manufacture batteries, assemble, package and manufacture battery cases. , the project is expected to have an annual production capacity of 15GWh and will be put into operation by the end of 2025.

In terms of international customer expansion, CALB has successfully won orders from car companies in overseas regions such as Europe and the United States. In addition to reaching a strategic cooperation with the world-renowned German BMZ Group, it also reached a cooperation with the battery supply of the French Forsee Group, becoming Forsee Power's global power battery partner. In addition, as mentioned above, CALB has also obtained the official supply qualification of Honda Motor.

Summarize

On the new energy track, my country has achieved "curve overtaking" of overseas car companies by virtue of its first-mover advantages in new energy and intelligent networking.

Today, even German Volkswagen, which was born in the birthplace of Hyundai Motor, has to seek cooperation with Chinese car companies to stabilize its market in China, which shows that Chinese power is gaining momentum in the new energy track.

Chinese lithium battery companies represented by CALB are already a first-line power battery brand with global competitiveness. They have become the main force to promote the transformation and upgrading of the global automobile industry, and will make greater contributions to the development of the global new energy vehicle market!