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Daily Newsletter

08 August 2023

Daily Newsletter

08 August 2023

Battery startup plans IPO

Building four new plants in China

Graeme Roberts August 08 2023

Chinese electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturer Beijing WeLion New Energy Technology (WeLion) plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO) by 2025 to help fund expansion and put new EV batteries on sale.

The Beijing company was building four new plants in China with the aim of increasing annual capacity to 30GWh by 2025 from 6GWh now.

Founder Li Hong said he was targeting a 20 times increase in annual revenue to CNY10bn (US$1.4bn) by 2025 and noted that, in the latest private funding round, the company was valued at CNY16bn.

WeLion is known for high energy batteries which give EVs a range of 1,000 km (600 miles) on a single charge. Chinese EV manufacturer Nio began using WeLion’s semi solid state 150KWh battery pack in the ES6 SUV unveiled in May.

WeLion plans to expand capacity mainly to make solid state batteries which are seen as next generation due to their high capacity cathodes which significantly increase range and performance compared with most batteries. WeLion claimed its latest solid state cells have energy density of 360Wh per kg, higher than the newest batteries used by EV makers Tesla and Lucid. Li said his technology was attracting interest from a number of global vehicle manufacturers including Volkswagen, Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Geely.

AI is a key part of the digital revolution shaping the automotive sector

GlobalData estimates the total AI market will be worth $909 billion in 2030, having grown at a CAGR of 35% between 2022 and 2030. The automotive sector is undergoing a digital transformation fuelled by changing global supply-chain dynamics, tighter market competition, and rising inflation. AI is a key part of this digital revolution. Focus is directed toward driver assistance features for safety and hazard detection and greater automation of many vehicle processes and functions. Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), facial recognition, and motion tracking will be vital for developing incockpit safety features such as early driver fatigue detection. For the most part, the automotive sector will not play a significant role in creating and developing generative AI hardware or platforms. Instead, it will be a key driver for innovations in machine learning platforms and associated IoT hardware for autonomous driving and ADAS. This will also help to drive advances and greater scale-up of adoption of these AI technologies in adjacent sectors such as travel and tourism and construction.

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