Guoxuan Hi-Tech acquired the Göttingen plant of Bosch Group and established the first new energy production and operation base in Europe.

Total import volume of NPI in March 2021 was 334,000 mt. Imports from Indonesia stood at 278,000 mt, an increase of 18.38% month-on-month but a year-on-year decrease of 1.9%. NPI and stainless steel capacity in Indonesia has commissioned simultaneously, and the growth in exports of NPI to China should be limited in the short term;

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Equipment Centre and other departments held a meeting that set the national standards for low-speed electric vehicles, which are expected to be officially released in September.

Nickel prices fluctuated at a low levels last week. The market quotations of battery-grade nickel sulphate was slightly lowered to 35,000-36,000 yuan/mt. The cost of dissolving nickel beans into nickel sulphate was more effective at 28,000-30,000 yuan/mt. However, the dissolution capacity was limited, and the supply of nickel sulphate was tight, which had slowed down the fall in spot prices. The actual transaction prices last week were between 34,500-35,000 yuan/mt. The transactions were scarce as the buyers and sellers were standing sideline.

With the advancement of the NEV industry, battery technologies has become the highlight in the New Energy Cobalt-Lithium industry, especially the solid-state battery considering its outstanding performance in energy density and safety. 

According to Experian's new car registration data, Tesla will surpass Audi in 2020 and become the fourth largest luxury brand in US, and is gradually approaching the top three BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz.

China's new energy vehicle market demand has grown rapidly, leading to stronger demand for ternary and iron-lithium materials. The global supply of nickel and cobalt raw materials is tightening, and the increase in downstream demand will support the rise of lithium prices in 2021.

Automobile sales have shown a gradual recovery trend since April. China automobile production and sales have achieved year-on-year growth for eight consecutive months as of November.

According to the insurance data of new energy passenger cars, the number of insured cars in November stood at 177,000, up 40.5% from the previous month.

A brief summary on the other keynote addresses at Shanghai Metals Market's 2020 Nonferrous Metals Industry Chain Annual Conference, which was held in Suzhou on December 3-4.