BYD To Build 20 GWh Battery Factory In Wenzhou, China
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We just reported on a rumor floating around in the Chinese press that BYD will begin manufacturing sodium-ion batteries in the first half of 2023, a rumor that the company has denied. Yet today the company announced it will build a new battery factory in Wenzhou, China, that will produce 20 GWh of batteries by the time it is finished in 2024.
But what kind of batteries will it make? That is the key question and BYD is being coy about answering it, other than to say in a press release that the batteries made in the new factory will be “produced with one of the currently available promising battery technologies.”
BYD is heavily involved with its Blade batteries, which use LFP chemistry. But is it possible the new factory will be the first to manufacture sodium-ion batteries? Of course, anything is possible. However, the timing of the rumor and the new announcement certainly suggest that’s what BYD is planning. There are also rumors that BYD may be close to manufacturing solid-state batteries. If true, that would make it the first company in the world to do so.
CnEVPost reports that BYD currently has about 20 power battery production bases in China, and is one of the largest battery manufacturers in China, second only to CATL. Globally, it ranks third in battery production behind only CATL and LG Energy Solution. In China, BYD is far and away the largest manufacturers of vehicles with plugs, many of them buses that use the company’s LFP battery chemistry.
In August, BYD signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Yichun city government in Jiangxi province, where it plans to invest $4 billion in a power battery factory as well as a mining project. The factory will have an annual capacity of 30 GWh while the mining project will be able to produce 100,000 tons of battery grade lithium carbonate and ceramic clay, including lithium, annually.
The Takeaway
The comments to our prior story are far more informative than anything in the press reports and rumors coming out of China. If you want to know more about the pros and cons of sodium-ion batteries, scoot on over to the comments section of that post. As always, I am amazed at the breadth and depth of knowledge CleanTechnica readers have at their fingertips. I often learn as much from our them as I do from the internet.
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