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Today, Toyota announced a joint venture with Panasonic to form a new battery company and signed a business merger contract and a joint venture contract to supply batteries to Toyota, Mazda, Dafa Motor and Subaru in the future. In fact, the joint venture to build a new battery company is not only Toyota, at present, including Tesla, Volkswagen, Daimler and other international giants to participate in the new battery factory plan.

On February 3, Toyota Motor Company and Panasonic Industrial Co., Ltd. signed a business merger contract and a joint venture contract for the establishment of a new vehicle square battery company, and then actively promoted the relevant preparations for the establishment of the joint venture company. Toyota and Panasonic formed a joint venture company with a share ratio of 51:49.

With the rapid development of new energy vehicles around the world, it seems that every automobile company wants to control the battery technology, which is the most important part of the new energy vehicle. The power battery is the core component of the electric vehicle, and its cost accounts for up to 40% of the total vehicle cost. For this reason, it has received great attention from various car companies. Many car companies and power battery manufacturers have launched strategic cooperation to seek their own long-term development.

Take Ningde Times, the largest power battery manufacturer in China, as an example, it has established power battery companies in joint ventures with SAIC, Geely, GAC GROUP and other automobile companies.

Among them, SAIC Group first set up two companies together with Ningde Times in 2017. SAIC is 51% owned by Ningde Times, which is mainly engaged in the development, production, sales and after-sales service of lithium-ion batteries and lithium polymer batteries. SAIC era is 51% owned by SAIC, mainly engaged in the development, production and sales of power battery modules and systems.

Over the next two years, Ningde Times also formed a power battery company in a joint venture with FAW, GAC GROUP, Dongfeng Motor and Geely Group, all of which are mainly owned by Ningde Times, with a proportion of 51%. All are engaged in the production and sales of power battery cells and modules and power battery system products.

At the end of 2018, Zhejiang Jirun Automobile Co., Ltd., owned by Geely Automobile, announced a joint venture with Ningde Times, which is also 51% owned by Ningde Times and 49% owned by Zhejiang Jirun.

In addition to the Ningde era, many domestic car companies have cooperated with other power battery companies, including BYD, the second largest power battery manufacturer in the country, and Guoxuan Hi-Tech. In July 2018, Changan Automobile and BYD signed a strategic cooperation agreement and battery joint venture framework agreement in Shenzhen. The two sides plan to jointly establish a power battery joint venture company with independent legal status in Liangjiang New area of Chongqing. And BAIC New Energy chose to sign a cooperation agreement with Guoxuan Hi-Tech and buy shares.

The establishment of power battery companies is not only domestic car companies, foreign car companies are also in great demand. Although Tesla, who is in great demand for power batteries, has recently announced that he has won the cooperation of Ningde era and is supplied by Panasonic, LG Chemical, and Ningde era battery manufacturers, Tesla has always hoped to set up a power battery factory on his own in order to reduce the cost of the whole vehicle. As early as 2016, Tesla CEO Musk announced that the company would build a super battery factory in Europe. In the summer of the same year, Tesla's $5 billion superbattery factory in Nevada officially opened.

Volkswagen, which aims to surpass Tesla, also planned to invest 900m in battery research with Swedish battery start-up Northvolt in June last year and announced in 2018 that it would build its own battery factory. In early 2019, luxury brand Daimler said it planned to build a ninth electric car battery factory in Poland.

On February 3rd, foreign media reported that PSA Group and French battery manufacturer Saft (Shuai Ford) will jointly set up two car power battery factories. The two will invest a total of 5 billion euros to set up a joint venture called Automotive Cell Company (ACC), which will be initially owned by 50:50 and then controlled by the PSA Group.

Although new energy vehicles still account for only 2.5% of the market, major car companies around the world believe that electric vehicles are the future trend, so they plan to build power battery factories and companies in advance in order to further enhance their competitiveness in the new energy vehicle market. at the same time, through self-building and joint construction of battery factories, car companies can also reduce the purchase cost of power batteries.

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