October 24, 2019: Leoch Battery, China’s fourth largest lead battery maker, plans to open a lithium battery factory with a capacity of 4GW a year, chairman and founder Dong Li told BESB on October 23.
The factory will be sited in eastern China’s Anhui province and its batteries will be used in three main areas: telecoms, data centres and networks; starter batteries and motorcycles; and low-speed EVs, motive and traction applications.
Dong Li says the company intends to place its lithium products alongside its lead, as the newer chemistry gains market share.
“Lithium will take a lot of market share but it will not kill lead for many reasons such as cost, recycling, the environment, and safety,” he said. “The global market now for lead batteries is $45 billion, for lithium it’s $30 billion. I predict that by 2025 lead will be worth around $50 billion, lithium double that, $100 billion.
“For Leoch, we will be a company of two arms — lead and lithium. Lead will still take the major part, and at the moment we are not interested in other chemistries as they are more niche.”
As well as adding lithium to its portfolio, Dong Li still wants to give it competition — which it is hoping to achieve with bipolar technology through its work with bipolar firm Gridtential.
“We have invested in Gridtential,” he said. “It’s challenging, but it’s moving. The technology is there and we are going to try to commercialize it in China in EV, hybrid and data centre applications.
“The future, say the next 15 to 20 years, will be 48V bipolar batteries for hybrid vehicles, starter batteries, motive and network applications.”
Leoch was officially founded by Dong Li in 1999, so is marking its 20th anniversary.
Based in the southern city of Shenzhen, it has sales in the UK, US, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Singapore, India, Australia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and South Africa, and employs 11,000 people.
