The global expansion of electric vehicles continues, pulling with it even faster growth in the battery industry, which must not only supply batteries for more EVs but also increasingly higher capacity batteries (on average).
Today, we will take a look at the list of the top lithium-ion battery suppliers for passenger cars and vans, which was shared with us by EV Volumes.
According to the report, from January 1 through June 30, 2023, the top battery manufacturer by capacity is CATL with almost 93 gigawatt-hours deployed and a big chance for 200 GWh in 2023.
The Chinese manufacturer has a huge advantage over the second LG Energy Solution (57.1 GWh). BYD, which is third with 49.4 GWh, doubled its volume year-over-year and might potentially become the number two at some point in the future.
For reference, EV Volumes' data indicate that in 2022, the volume amounted to about 550 GWh (up 65 percent year-over-year from 330 GWh in 2021).
Top automotive cell suppliers by GWh - January-June 2023
Top automotive cell suppliers by GWh - 2015 to 2022
The chart with cumulative EV battery cell deployment over a period of eight years - from 2015 to 2022 - is also quite interesting.
As it turns out, the EV battery industry (most of the largest manufacturers) noted a significant increase in the past three years. CATL is the lone leader with over 150 GWh of batteries supplied during the period. No other manufacturer was able to get into three digits, although as of 2023, LG Energy Solution and BYD are already in the 100+ GWh club as well.
The weakest growth among the top players seems to be noted by Panasonic, but this does not surprise us as the Japanese company is heavily reliant on Tesla and has not been investing too much until just recently.
We will see if, in the coming years, Tesla will also appear in the stats, as the company is quickly ramping up its in-house production of 4680-type cylindrical battery cells. Other than that, it's hard to see any major change in the industry dominated by Asian companies.
