Batteries

The Top 10 EV Battery Manufacturers in 2022

Published

12 months ago

October 5, 2022

Bruno Venditti

Graphics/Design:

Sabrina Lam

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The Top 10 EV Battery Manufacturers in 2022

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The global electric vehicle (EV) battery market is expected to grow from $17 billion to more than $95 billion between 2019 and 2028.

With increasing demand to decarbonize the transportation sector, companies producing the batteries that power EVs have seen substantial momentum.

Here we update our previous graphic of the top 10 EV battery manufacturers, bringing you the world’s biggest battery manufacturers in 2022.

Chinese Dominance

Despite efforts from the United States and Europe to increase the domestic production of batteries, the market is still dominated by Asian suppliers.

The top 10 producers are all Asian companies.

Currently, Chinese companies make up 56% of the EV battery market, followed by Korean companies (26%) and Japanese manufacturers (10%).

The leading battery supplier, CATL, expanded its market share from 32% in 2021 to 34% in 2022. One-third of the world’s EV batteries come from the Chinese company. CATL provides lithium-ion batteries to Tesla, Peugeot, Hyundai, Honda, BMW, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Volvo.

Rank	Company	2022 Market Share	Country
#1	CATL	34%	China 🇨🇳
#2	LG Energy Solution	14%	Korea 🇰🇷
#3	BYD	12%	China 🇨🇳
#4	Panasonic	10%	Japan 🇯🇵
#5	SK On	7%	Korea 🇰🇷
#6	Samsung SDI	5%	Korea 🇰🇷
#7	CALB	4%	China 🇨🇳
#8	Guoxuan	3%	China 🇨🇳
#9	Sunwoda	2%	China 🇨🇳
#10	SVOLT	1%	China 🇨🇳
	Other	8%	ROW 🌐

Despite facing strict scrutiny after EV battery-fire recalls in the United States, LG Energy Solution remains the second-biggest battery manufacturer. In 2021, the South Korean supplier agreed to reimburse General Motors $1.9 billion to cover the 143,000 Chevy Bolt EVs recalled due to fire risks from faulty batteries.

BYD took the third spot from Panasonic as it nearly doubled its market share over the last year. The Warren Buffett-backed company is the world’s third-largest automaker by market cap, but it also produces batteries sold in markets around the world. Recent sales figures point to BYD overtaking LG Energy Solution in market share the coming months or years.

The Age of Battery Power

Electric vehicles are here to stay, while internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles are set to fade away in the coming decades. Recently, General Motors announced that it aims to stop selling ICE vehicles by 2035, while Audi plans to stop producing such models by 2033.

Besides EVs, battery technology is essential for the energy transition, providing storage capacity for intermittent solar and wind generation.

As battery makers work to supply the EV transition’s increasing demand and improve energy density in their products, we can expect more interesting developments within this industry.

Batteries

Ranked: The World’s Top Cobalt Producing Countries

Cobalt, an essential component for certain types of EV batteries, has seen a significant shift in its global production landscape.

Published

2 months ago

July 24, 2023

Bruno Venditti

Ranked: The World’s Top Cobalt Producing Countries

This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on real assets and resource megatrends each week.

Cobalt, an essential component of key chemistries of the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used in EVs, has seen a significant shift in its global production landscape.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has long been the world’s largest cobalt producer, accounting for 73% of global output in 2022.

However, according to the Cobalt Institute, the DRC’s dominance is projected to decrease to 57% by 2030 as Indonesia ramps up its cobalt production as a byproduct from its rapidly expanding nickel industry.

Indonesia Became Second Largest Cobalt Producer in 2022

Indonesia accounts for nearly 5% of global cobalt production today, surpassing established producers like Australia and the Philippines.

In 2022, Indonesia’s cobalt production surged to almost 9,500 tonnes from 2,700 tonnes in 2021, with the potential to increase production by tenfold by 2030.

Country	2022 Production (tonnes)	% of Total Production
🇨🇩 DRC	144,936	73.3%
🇮🇩 Indonesia	9,454	4.8%
🇦🇺 Australia	7,000	3.5%
🇵🇭 Philippines	5,400	2.7%
🇨🇺 Cuba	5,331	2.7%
🇷🇺 Russia	3,500	1.8%
🇲🇬 Madagascar	3,500	1.8%
🇨🇦 Canada	3,100	1.6%
🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	3,060	1.5%
🇹🇷 Türkiye	2,300	1.2%
🌐 Other	10,210	5.2%
Total	197,791	100.0%

Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding.

In total, global cobalt production reached 197,791 tonnes, with the DRC contributing just under 145,000 tonnes of that mix.

The EV industry is the largest consumer of cobalt, accounting for approximately 40% of total demand. The exponential growth of the EV sector is expected to drive a doubling of global cobalt demand by 2030.

Share of cobalt demand by sector

While the shift in cobalt production is notable, it is not without challenges. Plummeting cobalt prices, which fell almost 30% this year to $13.90 a pound, have severely impacted the DRC.

Furthermore, the longer-term prospects of cobalt could face hurdles due to efforts to reduce its use in batteries, partly driven by human rights concerns associated with artisanal cobalt mining in the DRC and related child labor and human rights abuses.

In a 2021 ruling by a federal court in Washington, Google parent Alphabet, Apple, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla were relieved from a class action suit claiming their responsibility for alleged child labor in Congolese cobalt mines.

The Future of Cobalt

Despite ongoing efforts to substitute cobalt in battery applications, cobalt is expected to remain a vital raw material for the entire battery supply chain in the near future.

The demand for cobalt is forecasted to more than double by 2030 to 388,000 tonnes.