There are four key materials for lithium-ion battery cells: positive electrode, negative electrode, electrolyte, and separator. When assembling them into power lithium batteries, the materials can be further separated into the category of assembly components. Currently, these four components—separator, electrolyte, positive electrode material, and negative electrode material—account for 85% of the total cost of power lithium batteries, approximately 25%, 15%, 30%, and 15%, respectively.
Looking at some imported electrolyte materials, lithium hexafluorophosphate is the most important raw material for electrolyte production, accounting for about 50% of the electrolyte cost. Currently, only my country and Japan have achieved industrial-scale production of lithium hexafluorophosphate globally. Only a few companies in China can produce it, but the output is relatively small, and the quality lags behind that of foreign products. This results in my country heavily relying on imported lithium hexafluorophosphate, with foreign companies controlling the pricing.
With the rapid development of the new energy vehicle industry, the market demand for power lithium-ion batteries is booming. In the past year, the price of lithium cobalt oxide has increased by more than 100%, and the price of lithium nickel cobalt manganese oxide precursors has increased by nearly 60%. Since cathode materials account for a high proportion of the total production cost of lithium-ion batteries, close to 30%, the price increase of cathode materials will inevitably lead to a significant increase in the cost of lithium-ion battery companies, thereby squeezing their profit margins.
Another type of lithium-ion battery separator material with higher technical content has a higher dependence on imports. This is because the important difference between some domestic separators and excellent foreign separators is the poor consistency of domestic products. Using certain domestic separators can lead to unstable battery quality. In particular, in the field of power lithium-ion batteries, the parameters of each cell must be highly uniform, which some domestic companies have not yet fully solved.
Many domestic companies, when launching lithium-ion power battery projects, only consider the market and the technological capabilities of domestic companies, and their market selection is not comprehensive, leading to some misjudgments. It is precisely this incomplete understanding that causes companies to face high technology costs due to imports when actually implementing production, thus impacting the development of the domestic industry.
