The overseas lithium battery equipment industry started early. In 1990, Kaido Company in Japan successfully developed the first square lithium-ion battery winding machine. In 1999, Koem Company in South Korea developed the lithium primary battery winding machine and lithium primary battery assembly machine. In the development process of lithium battery equipment, Japan and South Korea have always been in a relatively leading position in terms of technological level.

At present, the overall industry chain focus of the lithium battery industry has shifted to Asia, with market share mainly occupied by China, South Korea, and Japan. The development of Japan's lithium-ion battery industry focuses on power lithium-ion batteries, while the Korean lithium-ion battery industry is influenced by domestic 3C digital electronics brands such as Samsung and LG. 3C digital and power batteries are advancing side by side. In recent years, China's power lithium-ion batteries and 3C digital lithium-ion batteries have gradually squeezed into the market share of Japanese and Korean enterprises, and their global market share is steadily increasing.

1. Development History of China's Lithium Battery Equipment Industry

The first stage was from 1997 to 2002, which was the initial stage of lithium battery equipment in China. During this stage, there were almost no professional lithium battery equipment manufacturers in China, and manual production was the main method, resulting in low production efficiency. Battery manufacturers heavily rely on imports. Although imported equipment has good performance, there are shortcomings in terms of price, operating system, and after-sales service. Moreover, the models of equipment exported to China are relatively backward. Chinese lithium battery equipment manufacturers and relevant research institutes have started collaborating to develop the first generation of lithium battery manufacturing equipment, providing strong support for the development of China's lithium battery industry.

The second stage was from 2003 to 2006. The rise of new application fields for lithium-ion batteries such as 3C digital products, electric toys, and military industry led to a significant increase in demand for lithium-ion batteries. Manufacturers gradually abandoned manual production models and instead adopted semi-automatic and automated equipment. More companies joined the lithium-ion equipment industry, and some companies hired experts from countries such as Japan. The first batch of lithium-ion equipment manufacturing enterprises have emerged in China, At this time, the technical level of the equipment is relatively weak, and battery manufacturers still need to import foreign equipment. But at this stage, China's lithium battery equipment began to be exported overseas, marking the beginning of recognition of China's lithium battery equipment manufacturing level by international customers.

The third stage is from 2007 to present. With the investment and establishment of factories by overseas lithium battery giants in China, as well as strong support from the Chinese government's new energy policies, China's lithium battery industry has entered a high-speed development stage. At this stage, foreign imported equipment cannot fully meet the requirements of domestic battery manufacturers. Firstly, foreign imported equipment has high quality requirements for raw materials, and some domestic raw materials cannot be used on imported equipment; Secondly, imported equipment is expensive, with a long delivery cycle, and is mainly designed according to a single battery model. Due to frequent model changes in the domestic lithium battery industry, the utilization rate of imported equipment is not high. Some domestic lithium battery equipment manufacturers seize the opportunity to fully learn from foreign lithium battery equipment manufacturing technology, research and produce lithium battery manufacturing equipment with independent intellectual property rights, and take the lead in turning to fully automated control, large-scale and stable production of lithium battery equipment research and manufacturing, so that domestic lithium battery equipment can develop to the international level.

The development of lithium-ion devices is no longer just a simple implementation of functions, but now more attention is paid to the accuracy, safety, and consistency of production of the equipment. Lithium battery equipment will develop towards high-precision, high-efficiency, serialization, and fully automated production lines. The lithium battery equipment manufacturing industry has characteristics such as high industry correlation, no obvious seasonality, technology intensive, and capital intensive.

2. Analysis and Prediction of the Market Scale of Lithium Battery Equipment Industry

A group of strong and national brand manufacturers have emerged in the lithium battery equipment industry chain of China in terms of front-end, mid-range, back-end, and overall production line, and some products have achieved import substitution. Benefiting from favorable factors such as downstream industry expansion, equipment automation rate, and localization rate improvement, the scale of the lithium battery equipment market continues to grow. The market size of lithium battery equipment in 2020 reached 28.7 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 54.4 billion yuan by 2026.

3. Development Trend of Lithium Battery Equipment Industry

The manufacturing of lithium-ion equipment is developing closely with the demand of the lithium-ion battery market. With the expansion of lithium-ion battery market applications and the improvement of performance requirements, lithium-ion equipment manufacturing will also face greater technological breakthroughs.

With the continuous improvement of the capacity and performance requirements for lithium-ion batteries in 3C digital electronic products, as well as the increasing demand for lithium-ion battery power in energy storage and power batteries, the lithium-ion equipment manufacturing industry must further improve its research and development level, technical strength, equipment process level, and automation level to meet the needs of downstream lithium-ion batteries for high capacity, high power, and high performance The continuous growth of demand for high stability.

Taking the energy storage and power batteries with the most obvious market growth trend as an example, the demand for lithium-ion batteries is mainly high magnification, high cycle times, and long service life. For example, lithium-ion batteries for new energy vehicles often require thousands of battery cells connected in series to ensure energy supply. Therefore, the unity of each cell standard and the stability of performance play a crucial role in the performance and quality of the battery pack. In the field of power batteries, the technical level and automation level of production equipment will play an important role in the production process, quality control, standardization of battery cell standards, stability of performance, and improvement of efficiency after grouping. To some extent, it can be said that the technological improvement and quality control of lithium-ion production equipment are important foundations for the improvement of downstream lithium-ion battery processes and performance, and also important guarantees for the future development of the lithium-ion industry and the new energy industry represented by lithium-ion applications.