Envision AESC has slightly “upped” its manufacturing plan for lithium-ion rechargeable batteries (LIB). The company recently gave a phone interview to Nikkei XTECH. Specifically, the original plan for lithium battery capacity to reach more than 300GWh/ year by 2026 has been changed to “400GWh/ year by 2026” (the company). It can be seen that the company is responding to the accelerating global transition to pure electric vehicles (EVs).
The capacity of 400GWh/ year is about twice the production scale of pure electric vehicle batteries by the end of 2022 of China’s CATL, the world’s largest lithium battery company. If full capacity is achieved, even considering future capacity enhancement plans in the CATL, this is the production scale that can aim for the top position.
Data from South Korea’s SNE Research show that CATL’s pure electric vehicle lithium battery production in 2022 is 191.6GWh.
CATL does not officially announce future production plans, which are based on estimates from several research companies. However, the competing Chinese CALB (China Innovation Aviation Technology), SVOLT(Honeycomb Energy technology), Gotion High Tech(Guoxuan High-tech) strive to reach 600GWh/ year, 500GWh/ year, 300GWh/ year of production capacity by 2025. Therefore, even if vision power reaches 400GWh/ year, it may not be able to rank first.
Envision AESC is a subsidiary of China Envision Technology Group, a large enterprise in wind turbines and power storage control systems. Its predecessor is the joint venture “Automotive Energy Supply (AESC)” of Nissan, NEC and NEC Tokin. Acquired by Envision Technology Group in 2019.
Plants are being built in 6 countries around the world
Envision AESC is currently advancing the construction or expansion of lithium battery production plants in six countries around the world. Specifically, it includes Japan (Kanagawa Prefecture, Ibaraki Prefecture), the United Kingdom (Sunderland), China (Jiangyin City, Ordos City, Shiyan City, Cangzhou City), France (Duai), the United States (Tennessee, Kentucky and South Carolina, with a total of 70GWh/ year), Spain (Extremadura), etc. The completion date is mostly 2024 to 2026. The company said “work has started outside Spain”.
The Ibaraki plant is scheduled to start production in 2023, with a production scale of 6G to 18GWh/ year. The Kentucky plant is currently under construction at Kentucky Transpark in Bowling Green, Warren County, with an annual production capacity of 30g to 40GWh. (Source: Envision AESC)
Envision AESC envisages the supply of lithium batteries to Nissan Motor, France’s Renault Group and Honda. Recently, it has received orders from German manufacturers BMW and Mercedes Benz.