SK Innovation enters the Chinese battery-replaceable electric vehicle market, which is expected to grow more than KRW 15,3153 trillion. Excluding the battery, which accounts for 40% of the price of an electric vehicle, only the body is sold at low prices, and then the battery is provided with a rental service. The battery rental business is expected to be used to improve battery performance in the future as it is possible to collect actual battery usage data on a large scale in various driving environments.
On the 21st, SK Innovation announced that it has secured a position as a major strategic investor by acquiring a 13.3% stake in’Blue Park Smart Energy (BPSE)’, a battery reuse company under Beijing New Energy Motors. Through this investment, SK Innovation will be able to secure a seat on the BPSE board of directors and participate in business decisions. The investment amount was decided not to be disclosed through discussions between the two companies. According to the Chinese securities industry, the battery-replaceable electric vehicle market in taxis and shared vehicles is expected to grow by more than 15,3153 billion won.
SK Innovation established a battery manufacturing joint venture with Beijing Motors in 2013, and this investment laid a bridgehead to promote the battery service business in China, which accounts for nearly half of the global electric vehicle market. The two companies actually decided to promote cooperation in the’BaaS’ business field through a business agreement. SK Innovation is expected to create synergies with the existing battery business in China. Bath refers to a service industry based on electric vehicle batteries such as battery rental, charging, reuse, and recycling.
The battery replacement method drastically reduces the charging time, a weakness of electric vehicles. When an electric vehicle enters the replacement station, the robot automatically removes the battery protection cover at the bottom of the vehicle and replaces it with a charged battery. It only takes three minutes to replace an electric vehicle with a fully charged battery. In addition to shortening the charging time, it can solve the problem that the life of the car was determined by the battery life. In addition, it is possible to significantly reduce the price burden of electric vehicles by selling only the body and providing a rental service for batteries. In particular, it is a factor in which companies that secure a large number of cars such as taxis and shared cars and run platform businesses can boldly choose electric cars.
BPSE is a specialized company licensed for battery reuse business by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China. It is an industry leading company that operates battery replacement stations for taxi and shared service (MaaS) operators in Beijing. It is leading the establishment of Chinese national standards for replaceable batteries and exerting influence on related industrial policies.
In particular, BPSE’s parent company invested by SK Innovation, Beijing New Energy Motors, occupies a 20% share in the taxi and shared vehicle market, and synergy is expected in the future.
SK Innovation is expected to obtain various and abundant battery actual usage data through this project. In addition, based on SK Innovation’s battery business experience, it plans to utilize battery management know-how and technology in the bath business that the two companies work with. In particular, through this investment, SK Innovation’s high-performance nickel, cobalt, and manganese (NCM) batteries are supplied instead of lithium, phosphate, and iron (LFP) batteries, which are widely used in China due to the difficulty of battery recycling, but the price is low, leading to battery recycling. The plan is to provide an opportunity to build a circular economy.
The battery replacement service is also advantageous in that it can be extended to various service fields such as energy storage (ESS) and reuse as it can separate ownership of electric vehicles and batteries. In addition, SK Innovation expects that the battery replacement stations will operate as ESSs in various parts of the city in the future, helping to build an auxiliary power supply infrastructure in the region. Since SK Innovation has the largest number of gas stations in Korea, it can expand into battery exchange stations and ESS business in Korea in the future.
“We will change the paradigm of the future electric vehicle market by combining SK Innovation’s high-quality long-life battery and BPSE’s interchangeable battery operation technology,” said Ji Dong-seop, president of SK Innovation.
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