US battery industry chain "catching up"

         The U.S. battery materials company Sila nano has received $59million (3.8 billion yuan) of f-round financing to support its construction of silicon based negative material production base in North America, foreign media reported.

         Founded in 2011, Sila nano developed a series of negative battery products with silicon as the main material, aiming to replace traditional graphite electrodes with this material, thus improving the capacity of the electric core.

        Sila nano said its materials could increase the energy density of lithium batteries by 20 percent, or even 40 percent. These materials are used in the production of new generation batteries, which have the characteristics of long service life, low expansion rate and high energy density.

       Since its establishment, Sila nano has successively obtained investment from Daimler, BMW, ATL, 8vc, Bessemer venture partners, Samsung, Chengwei capital, matrix partners, Siemens next47 and ute Hill ventures in Korea. Currently, it is valued at 3.3 billion US dollars (about 21.5 billion yuan).

       Currently, Sila nano is working with BMW, ATL and other enterprises to develop the next generation battery. However, Sila nano claims to plan to mass produce its silicon based negative materials by 2024, which means that its new battery materials are not yet commercially available.

      To get certification from car companies means years of work to ensure the reliability of battery materials over the next 10 to 20 years, "said gene bertichevsky, CEO of Sila nano, our partnership is geared to mid-2020 production goals, but it takes a long time to qualify.

      Behind the acceleration of the mass production of new battery materials, Sila nano is strengthening the construction of the battery supply chain of domestic electric vehicles in the United States, so as to enhance the competitive advantage of the United States in the electric vehicle industry chain.

      President Biden signed an executive order on February 24 to address vulnerabilities in the supply chain of essential goods in the United States, including semiconductors and electric vehicle power cells. Its climate plan aims to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and it is expected to launch a long-term development plan for new energy vehicles at the federal level in the future.

This means that the United States will invest more funds and policy support in the construction of the local power battery industry chain, and then provide good development opportunities for local lithium battery enterprises.

      For American carmakers, they also want to produce batteries locally. At present, except Tesla, the battery supply of the main engine plants including GM, Ford and Volkswagen in the United States is dependent on import. The United States lacks the capacity of large-scale production of power batteries and supporting services of industrial chain in the United States.

To ensure the stability of battery supply, the U.S. mainframe plant has also begun to strengthen its layout in the field of power battery.

      GM is considering building a second joint venture battery plant in the United States with LG energy, its battery supplier, to boost its electric vehicle production, foreign media reported.

Before that, GM and LG energy have invested $2.3 billion (converted at the exchange rate of RMB 16.2 billion at that time) to establish a battery plant, ultium cells LLC, in rhodestown, Ohio, with a planned capacity of 30gwh, and is expected to be put into operation by the end of 2022.

     Mary Barra, GM's chief executive, said the battery shortage was one of the reasons GM invested in its own battery manufacturing.

     Ford and Volkswagen, which were banned by ITC for selling batteries, modules, battery packs and related parts in the United States for the next 10 years, were finally ruled by the International Trade Commission (ITC) for their battery supplier ski had embezzled the trade secrets of LG Chemical.

     Ski is currently building two power cell plants in the United States, and has billions of dollars in battery orders from Ford and Volkswagen. Once the ITC officially implements the ban, it will undoubtedly have a great impact on ski's battery business in the United States and the battery supply of Ford and Volkswagen.

      In this case, the construction process of the electric supply chain in the United States will be further accelerated.