Nation's EV, battery strides boosting global transition

China's strides in developing its electric vehicle and power battery industries are making significant contributions to global sustainable development and the fight against climate change, officials and business leaders said on Sunday.

Wan Gang, president of the China Association for Science and Technology, said that China sold 9.495 million new energy vehicles last year, leading the global auto industry in an accelerating transformation toward electrification and adding new momentum to the global industry's development.

He made the remarks while addressing the two-day 2024 World Power Battery Conference, which opened on Sunday in Yibin, Sichuan province.

"As a key driver of the electrification transformation, China's power battery industry has been leading the world for seven consecutive years in terms of market scale," he said, noting that six of the world's top 10 power battery enterprises in terms of installed capacity are based in China.

Wan said the power battery industry is still facing some bottlenecks in technology innovation, industrial development, and market applications, while new development trends and demands have brought new challenges.

He called on experts, scholars, entrepreneurs, and policymakers in the global power battery field to work together to explore cutting-edge technologies, further build industrial and supply chains, and realize green and low-carbon industrial development.

Miao Wei, deputy director of the Committee on Economic Affairs of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the nation's top political advisory body, highlighted that dealing with global climate change is a shared responsibility of all countries, and the trend toward electrification is unstoppable.

"China's progress in the power battery industry has extended the driving range and reduced the cost of NEVs, thus boosting the rapid growth of the NEV industry," said Miao, who is also former minister of industry and information technology.

Statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed that in the first seven months of this year, China's production of NEVs reached 5.914 million, up 28.8 percent year-on-year, while sales stood at 5.934 million units, up 31.1 percent.

Miao said that China's NEV sales had seen a compound annual growth rate of 82.1 percent from 2012 to 2023. He added that he expects the growth rate to remain at 15 to 20 percent in the coming years, until sales reach 20 million units, at which point sales will begin a stable growth phase.

The electrification of equipment such as robots, drones, and engineering machinery, as well as the development of the energy storage sector, will also significantly increase the demand for power batteries, he added.

Hussain bin Ibrahim Al Hammadi, ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to China, said that advanced battery manufacturing technology is a key component of sustainable energy solutions and is of great significance to the UAE, as the country is at the critical stage of its energy transition.

"The UAE considers China an important partner in the transition toward sustainable and renewable energy," he said, adding that his country sees numerous opportunities for further cooperation and exchanges of professional expertise with China.

The conference, which has drawn some 400 delegates from China and abroad, invited the UAE, as the guest of honor country, to build an international cooperation platform for the development of the power battery industry.

Robin Zeng Yuqun, founder and chairman of CATL, a Chinese electric vehicle battery giant, said that power batteries, which are crucial for promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of energy and transportation, have entered a new development stage that requires higher standards.

He suggested that power battery companies take a high degree of safety as the lifeline for sustainable development, use high reliability to build long-term competitiveness, and depend on high performance to open new growth space.

Zeng said he expects the power battery industry to create multidimensional economic and social values, for instance using vehicle-to-grid technology to enable power batteries to discharge power back to the grid during peak power consumption periods.

A total of 137 NEV and power battery projects worth 95.25 billion yuan ($13.4 billion) have been signed during the conference. These projects are expected to generate a total output value of 100 billion yuan and create 20,000 jobs upon reaching full production capacity, the conference organizers said.