BEIJING, January  31 (TMTPOST)—One of Tesla’ Chinese rivals with fastest growth was recently said to ditch its key battery partner Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) battery company.

文章图片

Xpeng would gradually transit from CATL batteries to products made from China Lithium Battery Technology Co., Ltd. (CALB) to address pressure of cost increase due to CATL’s raising prices significant, JW Insights, a Chinese semiconductor media outlet cited the EV maker’s comment during a recent institutional research. Owing to price increase in the upstream product battery, the vehicle  price of China’s overall new energy vehicles (NEVs) market, including battery electric vehicles (BEVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and other non-fossil fuel-powered vehicles, also experienced price hikes in 2020 and Xpeng started to raise prices by RMB4,800 per unit from January 11, the company revealed.
Last weekend, a separate report said Xpeng has decided to apply the fast-charging 4c batteries made by Sunwoda Electronic Co.,Ltd., a Chinese lithium-ion battery maker, in G9, an SUV model released in last September, instead of its major battery supplier CATL.
Xpeng then responded that neither of these above-mentioned reports appeared any closer to the truth. “We will choose suppliers with strength such a CATL, as usual, to become our core partners,” it added.
China’s EV market saw an explosive growth these years, with no fewer than 500 assemblers rushing out models to compete in a nation where three of every five new vehicles coming on to the roads are expected to be fully electric by 2030, according to a UBS forecast. UBS expects that China’s EV sales would increase to more than 4 million vehicles this year, increasing 35% from its 2021 projection of 3 million units, and the sales could grow to 7.05 million units in 2025.
Last year saw Xpeng consolidated its position as one of the emerging EV startups that boasted significant shipment growth despite of the prolonged global supply chain disruptions inclucing the chip shortage. It delivered 16,000 vehicles with a year-over-year (YoY) increase of 181% in December, refreshing the record a month ago when the manufacture for the first posted more than 15,000 units in a month, and the annual delivery increased to 98,155 units, 3.6 times more than the year of 2020.
【English|China’ Top EV Battery Maker CATL May lose One of Most Promising Domestic Clients】Annual sales of NEW jumped by nearly 160% 3.521 million in 2021 from a year earlier, suggesting a seven-year reign at the top of the world’s NEV sector with a market share of 13.4% in China, well above 2020’s share 5.4%, according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).