China has contributed about 52.7 percent of the global lithium iron phosphate sales volume which stands at 11 kilotons in 2013, thanks to the growth of electric vehicles, says a new report from Reportstack.
Electric vehicles largely use power battery with lithium iron phosphate as cathode materials. Power battery cathode materials mainly include lithium cobalt oxide, lithium manganese oxide, multi-element materials and lithium iron phosphate, of which, global market share of lithium cobalt oxide has kept declining over the recent years, while that of both multi-element materials and lithium iron phosphate has got improved to some extent.
Internationally, lithium iron phosphate manufacturers mainly refer to the U.S.-based A123 and Valence, Canada-based Phostech, Taiwan-based Formosa Lithium Iron Oxide Corp., Aleees and HIROSE TECH. Among them, the first three companies grasp more mature mass-production technology.
However, driven by the Asia-Pacific new energy electric vehicle industry, global lithium iron phosphate industry is gradually shifting focus towards Mainland China and Taiwan, the report said.
China’s pure electric vehicles (PEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) industry strive to reach cumulative output and sales volume of 500,000 by 2015; over five million by 2020, with production capacity of two million.
As the most important cathode material of battery power in China, lithium iron phosphate will see a significant increase in demand driven by the new energy automotive industry in the future, the report said.
There are more than 100 companies involved in lithium iron phosphate by the end of 2013, and over ten of them such as Tianjin STL Energy Technology, Pulead Technology Industry, Sichuan Huangming Lithium Energy New Materials, Nanjing Lasting Brilliance New Energy Technology and Yantai Zhuoneng Battery Material can achieve large-scale production, according to Reportstack.