BYD to more than double battery production by 2020
BYD’s planned battery factory in Qinghai province is becoming much bigger than previously thought. Bloomberg reports BYD is planning to scale up to full capacity of 24 GWh already next year. Globally BYD aims to churn out 28 GWh this year before doubling their output to 60 GWh in 2020.
BYD is constructing their battery plant in Qinghai province in true Chinese style as they race to get ahead in the battery game. Recent reports suggested they had advanced to join the Top 3 of the world’s battery makers.
On completion next year, the new facility will be among the largest on earth with a capacity for 24 GWh worth of battery cells a year. Note though that Tesla aims to grow the Gigafactory to reach an annual output of 35 GWh. Also CATL is working on a huge battery factory and targets 24 GWh capacity by 2020 in order for CATL to expand its production capacity to 88 GWh by that time.
BYD invested 10 billion yuan (about 1.5 billion dollars) in the Qinghai factory, which will help meet their target plan to increase its battery-making capability massively by 2020. BYD expects to reach a global capacity of 28 GWh this year, and rise further to 48 GWh and 60 GWh in 2019 and 2020, according to He Long, a VP for battery business quoted by Bloomberg.
The new BYD battery plant will cover 1 million square meters, about the size of 140 football fields. It will be fully automated with about 100 robots handling logistics and production.
BYD is looking beyond China however and Julia Chen, Global Sales Director at BYD Batteries, said earlier in June that that a battery factory “would be possible wherever there’s a market” (we reported).
There is a market in Europe and so Tesla has been talking about a battery facility, that is a Gigafactory, in Germany last, and so has CATL reportedly.
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