Battery Makers - September 2014

The Small Ones Are Getting Bigger Edition 

This is looking like another positive year for battery makers, with EV's selling more and more, the demand for batteries just keeps on growing, we still have three months to go, but the numbers are already higher than last year. There are new, ambitious players in the market.

- The leader Panasonic is following the market growth, mainly thanks to battery-hungry Tesla, will 2015 be another leadership year?

- AESC, a joint venture between NEC and Nissan, continues to lose share (36% in '12, 28% in '13 and 23% now), despite the success of the Leaf (Renault is to blame), and with Nissan outsourcing to LG in the future, it looks that the share will keep on going down;

- LG has also been losing share, mainly because the Chevy Volt sales haven't been on the upside;

 - Lithium Energy Japan (GS Yuasa / Mitsubishi), it benefits from the success from the Outlander PHEV, to grow one percent share to 7%;

- BYD is one of this years sales champs, with the success of the Qin propelling sales and doubling share in batteries, from 3% last year to the current 6%; 

- Samsung has a partnership with BMW, and with the bavarian maker plug-in sales getting better and better, Samsung is experiencing a sales surge, it's now #6 with 4% share. 

- Air Lithium, battery supplier for Kandi, is just the tip of the iceberg on a series of chinese battery makers, growing from insignificance to a small player status, AL is now #7 with 3% share, but there are others, like Tianneng in #9 (Chery provider), and Wanxiang in #11 (That's right, those of Fisker deal, they supply batteries for Zotye) . 

A final remark for their chemistry, Li-Ion batteries dominate the market, but now they only own 88% vs 92% the year before, because chinese battery makers prefer LiFePo4 and the cheaper Lead Acid ones.

Pl	Battery Makers	2014	*       2013	%14	%'13
1	Panasonic	1.731	1.700	35	35
2	AESC	1.149	1.289	23	28
3	LG Chem	739	812	15	18
4	Mitsubishi/GS Yuasa	335	293	7	6
5	BYD	274	117	6	3
6 7 8 9 10	Samsung Air Lithium (Lyoyang) ACCUmotive Tianneng Siemens	215 143 71 55 50	N/A N/A N/A N/A 91	4 3 1 1 1	N/A  N/A  N/A N/A 2
	TOTAL	4.939	4.667

* - MWh's