Heavy! Xiaomi and Huawei jointly invest in solid-state battery enterprises

According to news from 36 krypton, Weilan New Energy will receive investment from Xiaomi Group, Huawei and other strategic institutions, with a valuation of 5 billion yuan and an investment of about 500 million yuan.

According to sources, Huawei, Xiaomi Group and Shunwei Capital signed up in August to invest in Weilan New Energy. At present, Xiaomi has entered the delivery process.

The fifth home of Xiaomi and the first one of Huawei

In fact, this is Xiaomi's fifth power battery company. The top four are Ganfeng Lithium, Honeycomb Energy, AVIC Lithium and Zhuhai Guanyu.

While storing "future suppliers", Xiaomi is also actively planning self-made batteries. Xiaomi Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., founded on November 18, is one of Xiaomi's ambitions for power batteries.

In terms of capital and scale, Xiaomi automotive technology is mainly for intelligent driving, chip research and development, power battery research and development, as well as the matrix of future development and exploration.

Of course, this time the investment of Weilan New Energy is the investment department of Xiaomi industry, not the strategic investment department that can directly reflect the will of Xiaomi. However, 36 krypton news shows that Lei Jun also often participates in Xiaomi's project decision-making meetings, especially in the automotive field.

For Huawei, this is the first power battery company to invest in. In the automotive sector, Huawei has repeatedly reiterated that it has never invested and will not invest and control any car company in the future. This time, Huawei chose to bet on Weilan New Energy, obviously taking a fancy to Weilan New Energy's solid-state battery technology.

About Weilan New Energy

According to official data, Weilan New Energy was founded in 2016, focusing on the R & D and production of mixed solid-liquid electrolyte lithium-ion batteries and all-solid-state lithium batteries, and is the only industrialization platform for solid-state battery technology in the Clean Energy Laboratory of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

At present, Weilan New Energy has three major production bases in Fangshan, Beijing, Liyang, Jiangsu and Huzhou, Zhejiang, with main products including solid-state batteries and solid-state battery modules. the former is widely used in important core fields such as new energy vehicles and ships, large-scale energy storage, 3C consumption, and other industries, while the latter is used in industries that require long time and low magnification requirements, such as patrol inspection, security, photography and aerial photography.

Vico Lithium noted that Weilan New Energy also has a close relationship with the two major materials giants in the lithium battery industry. Lithium giant Tianqi Lithium holds a 5% stake.

Shanghai Enjie and Weilan New Energy and Liyang Tianmu pilot Battery material Technology Co., Ltd. have signed an agreement to jointly establish a solid electrolyte coating diaphragm joint venture company to develop and produce coating separators and specially customized coating separators. The joint venture company will give priority to supplying Weilan New Energy and its subsidiaries in the future.

Who are the suppliers of semi-solid state batteries in Weilai?

Li Bin, founder and CEO of Xilai Automobile, launched the 150kWh solid-state battery package on Chengdu NIO Day on January 9 this year and announced that it would be used in the fourth quarter of 2022. This kind of battery pack can achieve the energy density of 360Wh/kg and make the mileage of ET7 exceed 1000 km.

According to 36 krypton news, it has learned from a number of sources that the semi-solid battery solution is provided by Weilan New Energy. In the industrial and commercial information of Weilan New Energy, Zeng Shuxiang, a senior executive from Weilai, is also listed as a director. Not long ago, Weilai called XPT to hold an external communication meeting. Zeng Shuxiang's external position is the senior vice president of Weilai call driver and battery industrialization. According to management sources, Weilai has tilted a lot of engineering resources to help Weilan New Energy deliver on time.

However, after Xilai released semi-solid battery technology in January, the list of suppliers widely rumored in the industry included Ningde Times, an existing battery supplier, Qingtao Energy, which was previously rumored to have been selected, and Huineng Technology, which has a cooperation agreement with Weilai. At that time, Li Bin only said that the supplier must be the leading company in the industry, but it is not convenient to mention it now.

According to Li Bin's original introduction, this semi-solid battery has three core technologies: "in-situ solidified solid-liquid electrolyte", "inorganic pre-lithiated silicon-carbon negative electrode" and "nano-coated ultra-high nickel cathode".

In other words, Weilai's 150kWh solid-state battery pack has not only semi-solid solutions, but also ultra-high nickel technology. The 100KWh battery pack released on the same day has previously confirmed that the ternary high-nickel battery cell of the Ningde era will be supplemented by CTP technology, which means that the ultra-high nickel technology of the 150kWh solid-state battery pack is also likely to come from the Ningde era.

If Weilan New Energy is determined to become a semi-solid solution supplier of Weilai, it will also become the second battery supplier after Ningde era. And with the investment of Xiaomi and Huawei, Weilan New Energy is expected to be born in the power battery industry with the help of three parties.

It is worth mentioning that recently, Li Kun, chairman of Guoxuan Hi-Tech, publicly announced that "Guoxuan Hi-Tech achieves ultra-1000km mileage of semi-solid batteries for domestic high-end pure electric batteries, which is twice as long as its first-generation models." Market people speculate that the supporting may be Lulai ET7.

From this point of view, who are the suppliers of solid-state batteries in Weilai is still a mystery.