Visualizing China's Dominance in Battery Manufacturing (2022

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With the world gearing up for the electric vehicle era, battery manufacturing has become a priority for many nations, including the United States.

However, having entered the race for batteries early, China is far and away in the lead.

Using the data and projections behind BloombergNEF's lithium-ion supply chain rankings, this infographic visualizes battery manufacturing capacity by country in 2022 and 2027p, highlighting the extent of China's battery dominance.

In 2022, China had more battery production capacity than the rest of the world combined.

With nearly 900 gigawatt-hours of manufacturing capacity or 77% of the global total, China is home to six of the world's 10 biggest battery makers. Behind China's battery dominance is its vertical integration across the rest of the EV supply chain, from mining the metals to producing the EVs. It's also the largest EV market, accounting for 52% of global sales in 2021.

Poland ranks second with less than one-tenth of China's capacity. In addition, it hosts LG Energy Solution's Wroclaw gigafactory, the largest of its kind in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Overall, European countries (including non-EU members) made up just 14% of global battery manufacturing capacity in 2022.

Although it lives in China's shadow when it comes to batteries, the U.S. is also among the world's lithium-ion powerhouses. As of 2022, it had eight major operational battery factories, concentrated in the Midwest and the South.

Global lithium-ion manufacturing capacity is projected to increase eightfold in the next five years. Here are the top 10 countries by projected battery production capacity in 2027:

China's well-established advantage is set to continue through 2027, with 69% of the world's battery manufacturing capacity.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is projected to increase its capacity by more than 10-fold in the next five years. EV tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act are likely to incentivize battery manufacturing by rewarding EVs made with domestic materials. Alongside Ford and General Motors, Asian companies including Toyota, SK Innovation, and LG Energy Solution have all announced investments in U.S. battery manufacturing in recent months.

Europe will host six of the projected top 10 countries for battery production in 2027. Europe's current and future battery plants come from a mix of domestic and foreign firms, including Germany's Volkswagen, China's CATL, and South Korea's SK Innovation.

Regardless of the growth in North America and Europe, China's dominance is unmatched.

Battery manufacturing is just one piece of the puzzle, albeit a major one. Most of the parts and metals that make up a battery—like battery-grade lithium, electrolytes, separators, cathodes, and anodes—are primarily made in China.

Therefore, combating China's dominance will be expensive. According to Bloomberg, the U.S. and Europe will have to invest $87 billion and $102 billion, respectively, to meet domestic battery demand with fully local supply chains by 2030.

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How much oil is saved by adding electric vehicles into the mix? We look at data from 2015 to 2025P for different types of EVs.

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As the world moves towards the electrification of the transportation sector, demand for oil will be replaced by demand for electricity.

To highlight the EV impact on oil consumption, the above infographic shows how much oil has been and will be saved every day between 2015 and 2025 by various types of electric vehicles, according to BloombergNEF.

A standard combustion engine passenger vehicle in the U.S. uses about 10 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per year. A motorcycle uses 1, a Class 8 truck about 244, and a bus uses more than 276 BOEs per year.

When these vehicles become electrified, the oil their combustion engine counterparts would have used is no longer needed, displacing oil demand with electricity.

Since 2015, two and three-wheeled vehicles, such as mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles, have accounted for most of the oil saved from EVs on a global scale. With a wide adoption in Asia specifically, these vehicles displaced the demand for almost 675,000 barrels of oil per day in 2015. By 2021, this number had quickly grown to 1 million barrels per day.

Let's take a look at the daily displacement of oil demand by EV segment.

Today, while work is being done in the commercial vehicle segment, very few large trucks on the road are electric—however, this is expected to change by 2025.

Meanwile, electric passenger vehicles have shown the biggest growth in adoption since 2015.

In 2022, the electric car market experienced exponential growth, with sales exceeding 10 million cars. The market is expected to continue its strong growth throughout 2023 and beyond, eventually coming to save a predicted 886,700 barrels of oil per day in 2025.

While the world shifts from fossil fuels to electricity, BloombergNEF predicts that the decline in oil demand does not necessarily equate to a drop in oil prices.

In the event that investments in new supply capacity decrease more rapidly than demand, oil prices could still remain unstable and high.

The shift toward electrification, however, will likely have other implications.

While most of us associate electric vehicles with lower emissions, it's good to consider that they are only as sustainable as the electricity used to charge them. The shift toward electrification, then, presents an incredible opportunity to meet the growing demand for electricity with clean energy sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear power.

The shift away from fossil fuels in road transport will also require expanded infrastructure. EV charging stations, expanded transmission capacity, and battery storage will likely all be key to supporting the wide-scale transition from gas to electricity.

Graphite represents almost 50% of the materials needed for batteries by weight, no matter the chemistry.

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The demand for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has skyrocketed in recent years due to the increasing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy storage systems.

What many people don't realize, however, is that the key component of these batteries is not just lithium, but also graphite.

Graphite represents almost 50% of the materials needed for batteries by weight, regardless of the chemistry. In Li-ion batteries specifically, graphite makes up the anode, which is the negative electrode responsible for storing and releasing electrons during the charging and discharging process.

To explore just how essential graphite is in the battery supply chain, this infographic sponsored by Northern Graphite dives into how the anode of a Li-ion battery is made.

Graphite is a naturally occurring form of carbon that is used in a wide range of industrial applications, including in synthetic diamonds, EV Li-ion batteries, pencils, lubricants, and semiconductor substrates.

It is stable, high-performing, and reusable. While it comes in many different grades and forms, battery-grade graphite falls into one of two classes: natural or synthetic.

Natural graphite is produced by mining naturally occurring mineral deposits. This method produces only one to two kilograms of CO2 emissions per kilogram of graphite.

Synthetic graphite, on the other hand, is produced by the treatment of petroleum coke and coal tar, producing nearly 5 kg of CO2 per kilogram of graphite along with other harmful emissions such as sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide.

The battery anode production process is composed of four overarching steps. These are:

Each of these stages results in various forms of graphite with different end-uses.

For instance, the micronized graphite that results from the shaping process can be used in plastic additives. On the other hand, only coated spherical purified graphite that went through all four of the above stages can be used in EV Li-ion batteries.

Despite its growing use in the energy transition all around the world, around 70% of the world's graphite currently comes from China.

With scarce alternatives to be used in batteries, however, achieving supply security in North America is crucial, and it is using more environmentally friendly approaches to graphite processing.

With a lower environmental footprint and lower production costs, natural graphite serves as the anode material for a greener future.

Click here to learn more about how Northern Graphite plans to build the largest Battery Anode Material (BAM) plant in North America.

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