The Top Companies Behind the EV Battery Supply Chain
Since 2016, demand for li-ion batteries in the automotive sector has exploded, roughly doubling every two years. Going forward, experts are forecasting 20 to 30 percent growth each year through 2030. Meeting this demand is no simple task. It requires the coordination of a complex, globe-spanning, and still often highly concentrated supply chain, filled with chokepoints and geopolitical tensions.
ithium-ion (or li-ion) batteries are a type of rechargeable battery widely used in consumer electronics, energy storage, and electric vehicles (EVs). As electric motors, li-ion batteries represent an alternative to fossil fuels and are at the center of the clean energy transition.
Since 2016, demand for li-ion batteries in the automotive sector has exploded, roughly doubling every two years. Going forward, experts are forecasting 20 to 30 percent growth each year through 2030. Meeting this demand is no simple task. It requires the coordination of a complex, globe-spanning, and still often highly concentrated supply chain, filled with chokepoints and geopolitical tensions.
More than any other country, China finds itself at the epicenter of the lithium-ion battery revolution. Not only is it the world’s largest market for EV batteries, but Chinese companies dominate nearly every stage of the production. The following list includes industry leading firms in China across various aspects of the EV supply chain. While not a comprehensive list, these are some of the largest and most well-known EV firms in China.
- Registered location: Guangdong, PRC
- Year founded: 1998
- Registered capital: ¥6.16B
- About: Shenzhen BYD Lithium Battery is a subsidiary of BYD Co., Ltd. The company specializes in the lithium-ion battery business. Its business scope covers the research and development and design of battery positive and negative materials, separators, electrolytes, and the design of battery cells, modules and systems.
- Registered location: Fujian, PRC
- Year founded: 2011
- Registered capital: ¥2.44B
- About: Contemporary Amperex Technology, abbreviated as CATL, is one of the largest lithium-ion battery manufacturers in the world. CATL was founded in 2011 and specializes in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems, as well as battery management systems. CATL grew out of Amperex Technology Limited (ATL), which was founded by the same co-founders in Hong Kong in 1999.
- Registered location: Jiangxi, PRC
- Year founded: 2000
- Registered capital: ¥1.44B
- About: Ganfeng Lithium Group is one of the world's biggest miners of lithium. The company produces lithium, lithium products, other metals, and batteries in mainland China and globally. Ganfeng Lithium's products are widely used in electric vehicles, energy storage, 3C products, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
- Registered location: Guangdong, PRC
- Year founded: 2001
- Registered capital: ¥5.14B
- About: GEM is a China-based service provider of urban mining, resources recycling, and waste electrical and electronic equipment recycling. The company is engaged in the recycling of waste metals including cobalt, nickel, tungsten, copper and electronic waste.
- Registered location: Anhui, PRC
- Year founded: 1995
- Registered capital: ¥1.78B
- About: Gotion High-Tech is a Chinese conglomerate involved in batteries, real estate and entertainment. In 2021, it was China's fourth largest electric vehicle battery manufacturer. In 2022, it opened a new factory in Germany, and later pledged to invest $2.4 billion to build a battery cathode and anode factory in the state of Michigan, in the U.S. Gotion is headquartered in Hefei, Anhui province, and has more than 11,000 employees.
- Registered location: Guizhou, PRC
- Year founded: 2004
- Registered capital: ¥11.07B
- About: Guizhou Zhenhua E-Chem Inc. ("ZEC") is focused on the R&D, production and sales of cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries that are mainly used in new energy vehicles and 3C consumer electronics.
- Registered location: Zhejiang, PRC
- Year founded: 1992
- Registered capital: ¥44.93B
- About: Ningbo Shanshan Co., Ltd. ("Shanshan") started as a manufacturer of men's suits and apparel and was listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange in 1997. In 1999, Shanshan decided to diversify into the high tech industry investing Rmb80 million in a lithium battery project in Anshan. The company also acquired Kinwa, a listed high-tech firm that was part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and it bought stakes in mines in Australia and Argentina to secure supplies for its lithium battery operations. Ningbo Shanshan Co Ltd now is focused on Lithium battery materials and polarizing film.
- Registered location: Sichuan, PRC
- Year founded: 1995
- Registered capital: ¥1.64B
- About: Tianqi Lithium, a leading lithium supplier, is primarily engaged in lithium resource investment, lithium concentrate extraction and the production of advanced lithium specialty compounds. The company offers high-end lithium products such as battery-grade lithium carbonate and battery-grade anhydrous lithium chloride.
- Registered location: Zhejiang, PRC
- Year founded: 2003
- Registered capital: ¥2.8B
- About: Tsingshan Group is the world's biggest stainless steel maker and the biggest nickel producer in Indonesia. It has invested in Indonesia's Morowali territory to produce battery-grade nickel chemicals. In November 2020, Tsingshan Holding Group agreed to co-invest with Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group in a 5.5 billion yuan ($843 million) new energy vehicle (NEV) project in the eastern Chinese city of Xuzhou. Tsingshan will provide nickel matte, which is used to make batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), to Huayou Cobalt and battery materials maker CNGR Advanced Material. Tsingshan also said it planned to expand investments in Indonesia, and expected its nickel equivalent output to reach 600,000 tonnes in 2021, 850,000 tonnes in 2022 and 1.1 million by 2023.
- Registered location: Zhejiang, PRC
- Year founded: 2002
- Registered capital: ¥1.71B
- About: Huayou Cobalt focuses on the manufacturing of new energy lithium battery materials and processing of new cobalt materials. The company's main products include lithium battery anode materials, cobalt new materials as well as other critical minerals such as nickel and copper. Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt is the core enterprise of Huayou Holding Group (华友控股集团有限公司).
The following graphic presents a list of the key companies at each step of this supply chain—from mineral extraction to EV manufacturing—with a special focus on China’s footprint.
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