On May 13, according to the official WeChat official account of Shanghai Lingang Management Committee, the construction permit of Tesla Shanghai Energy Storage Super Factory has been issued. This is Tesla's first energy storage super factory project outside of the United States. According to the company's official announcement, the factory plans to start construction in May this year and achieve mass production in the first quarter of next year.
The news also shows that the total area of the project is about 200000 square meters, with a total investment of about 1.45 billion yuan. Tesla's Shanghai Energy Storage Super Factory will produce mega packs of ultra large commercial energy storage batteries to help grid operators, utility companies, and others store and distribute renewable energy more efficiently. More than 200 Megapacks can form an energy storage power plant, storing 1 million kilowatt hours of electricity.
According to Tesla's official website, Megapack can reliably and safely store energy for the grid, without the need to build natural gas peak shaving power plants and avoid power outages. Each unit can store over 3.9MWh of energy, sufficient to meet the hourly electricity demand of 3600 households.
Regarding issues such as Tesla's Shanghai Super Energy Storage Plant, a reporter from Time Weekly sent an interview email to Tesla, but as of the time of publication, Tesla has not yet responded.
"The construction permit for Tesla's energy storage factory means that the project has completed the preliminary planning and approval process, officially entering the substantive construction phase. This marks Tesla's first energy storage super factory project outside the United States has been officially recognized and supported, and can start construction according to plan." Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, said in an interview with Time Weekly reporters, "Obtaining the construction permit also means that Tesla can start investing funds, manpower, and resources, providing strong guarantees for the smooth progress of the project."
On May 13th Eastern Time, Tesla closed at $171.890 per share, up 2.03%.
Is energy storage business the hope of the entire village?
Since the rapid development of domestic new energy vehicles, Tesla's market share in the electric vehicle business has been continuously eroded.
Tesla's predicament is highly related to product discontinuation. Except for the well-known Model Y/S/X and Cybertruck, Tesla has not launched a new model for a long time. Tesla, which has not launched a new model for several years, has also shown significant financial performance.
According to the 2024 Q1 report, Tesla's total revenue was $21.3 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 8.7% and a month on month decrease of 15.4%; The gross profit margin of GAAP was 17.4%, a year-on-year decrease of 2.0 pcts.
According to a research report by Everbright Securities, Tesla's performance in the first quarter of 2024 has declined month on month, mainly due to factors such as "seasonal factors+global economy yet to be repaired", "domestic price reductions, reduced US Model 3 IRA subsidies", "US Model 3 upgrades, Cybertruck ramp up", and "Berlin factory shutdown".
Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated during the 2024 Q1 earnings conference call that the challenges of the first quarter and the discontinuation of the Model 3 in Fremont, as well as other automakers withdrawing from electric vehicles and pursuing plug-in hybrid vehicles, have put pressure on the global penetration rate of electric vehicles. In the long run, electric vehicles will dominate the market. Despite facing challenges, the Tesla team did an excellent job in execution. Megapack reached a historic high in the first quarter, which is closely related to the record breaking profitability of its energy business. And in the coming quarters and years, this profitability may continue to grow at a faster rate than the automotive business. We continued to expand our artificial intelligence training capabilities in the first quarter, with training calculations doubling continuously.
According to Time Weekly reporters, Musk mentioned during the 2023 Q4 earnings conference call that Tesla's energy storage business will grow much faster than its electric vehicle business. At the 2024 Q1 financial report conference call, Musk once again mentioned his views on the energy storage business.
In fact, Tesla has already started betting on the energy storage track.
In 2021, Tesla installed over 250000 Powerwall energy storage stations worldwide. This device uses cylindrical lithium batteries as its battery cells and is currently the second generation product with a capacity of 13.5kWh. It can be combined with Tesla's own solar roof to provide energy storage solutions for households.
On April 9, 2023, the Tesla Energy Storage Super Factory project officially landed in Shanghai. According to the news on Tesla Tsela official account at that time, the factory was originally planned to start construction in the third quarter of 2023, and put into production in the second quarter of 2024. The product supply covers the global market. At that time, securities firms had pointed out that Tesla's construction of factories in China may stimulate a new round of competition in the global energy storage market.
On December 22, 2023, according to Xinhua News Agency, Tesla completed a land acquisition contract in Shanghai and announced the official launch of the energy storage super factory project. As Tesla's first energy storage super factory project outside the United States, the initial plan is to produce 10000 commercial energy storage batteries annually, each capable of storing over 3MWh of energy, suitable for multiple scenario applications such as renewable energy systems and peak demand management. The total energy storage capacity of the project is nearly 40GWh, and it is planned to be put into operation within 2024.
"Tesla's energy storage batteries are particularly famous in the United States and have been commercialized on a large scale. However, there are already energy storage battery suppliers like CATL in China, and Tesla's entry into the industry at this point is not as significant as Tesla's entry into the Chinese market ten years ago." Zhang Xiang, Secretary General of the International Association of Intelligent Transportation Technology, said, "Now China's energy storage battery industry is relatively mature, and Tesla's entry into the market is only an additional heavyweight player."
Zhang Xiang analyzed that Tesla energy storage batteries may not necessarily have advantages compared to domestic ones. Overseas, Tesla has accumulated a wealth of experience in commercial applications in private households, but domestically it mainly operates for commercial purposes and sells less to private households. "The application scenarios of the two markets are different," he said.
According to Cao Guangping, a partner at Chefu Consulting, in an interview with Time Weekly reporters, Tesla has built a new energy storage super factory in Shanghai, which can break through the trend of fixed energy storage and return to small-scale and safer electric vehicle energy storage. The overall risk is not too high.
However, Cao Guangping believes that the technology route for using lithium-ion batteries for fixed energy storage is not yet mature. "Tesla's energy storage plants have experienced relatively serious fires before, unless Tesla has made significant breakthroughs in battery fires, battery isolation, thermal management, and other areas.".
Some securities firms have pointed out that China's domestic industrial chain has significant cost advantages, and Tesla's energy storage super factory products are positioned relatively high-end, expected to mainly supply overseas markets. However, its smooth landing in China makes it difficult for it to leave the domestic industrial chain supply support.
The global energy storage market size may reach 1.2 trillion US dollars by 2030
The energy storage track is gradually showing new heat.
According to data from Gaogong Lithium Battery, the bidding scale of domestic energy storage projects reached 11.22GW/25.75GWh in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 160% year-on-year. The increase in the proportion of centralized procurement and frame procurement projects has made the industry's leading effect increasingly apparent. In the first quarter of 2024, the top ten companies in the global energy storage cell market accounted for more than 90% of the market share.
According to a research report by Donghai Securities, in terms of price, due to the incomplete digestion of excess production capacity in the previous period, the first quarter quotation continued the trend of last year's low prices. In March 2024, the average bid price of the 2-hour energy storage system fell to 0.69 yuan/Wh, a year-on-year decrease of 48.7%; From the perspective of battery cell procurement types, the demand for 314Ah large battery cells has gradually increased. In the first quarter of 2024, the global penetration rate of 300Ah and above large battery cell products has reached 22%. The short-term pressure on the industry has put higher requirements on the funding and technical strength of related enterprises. Leading energy storage product suppliers with advanced technology research and development and excellent product performance are expected to further strengthen their market position.
It is not difficult to see from the commercial performance of major domestic battery factories that energy storage business has become a new growth point for various enterprises. As the global leader in power batteries, CATL, achieved a revenue of 59.901 billion yuan in energy storage battery system business in 2023, accounting for 14.94% of the revenue; The gross profit margin is 23.79%, which is close to the gross profit margin of the power battery system business (22.27%).
In 2023, Yiwei Lithium Energy achieved a revenue of 16.34 billion yuan from energy storage batteries, accounting for 33.50% of the revenue; The gross profit margin is 17.03%, which is higher than the gross profit margin of the company's power battery business (14.37%).
According to Bloomberg's forecast, the global market demand for energy storage batteries will reach 1000GWh by 2030, with a market size of up to 1.2 trillion US dollars. It is still unknown whether the start of Tesla's Shanghai Energy Storage Super Factory means that Tesla will intensify competition in the energy storage market.
Jiang Han believes that Tesla's success in the field of new energy vehicles has proven its strength in technological innovation and market promotion. However, the energy storage market is different from the new energy vehicle market in terms of market size, application scenarios, and competitive landscape. Therefore, whether Tesla can replicate the "miracle" of new energy vehicles in the energy storage field still depends on its performance in technological innovation, market promotion, and cost control.
"However, based on Tesla's successful experience in the field of new energy vehicles, it also has strong competitiveness and development potential in the energy storage field," he added.