According to the survey, from September 14 to September 20, 2024, the weekly operating rate of lead-acid battery enterprises in five provinces surveyed by SMM was 62.24%, a decrease of 6.87 percentage points compared to September 13.
According to the survey, during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday (September 15-17), lead-acid battery enterprises had holidays ranging from 0 to 3 days, with most enterprises taking 1-2 days off, resulting in a decline in the weekly operating rate of lead-acid battery enterprises. Recently, the replacement demand in the lead-acid battery market for electric bicycles and automobiles has been weak. Coupled with the continued weakness in lead prices, the battery wholesale market is in a promotional state, and dealers are basically restocking as needed. The production enthusiasm of large enterprises is not high. During this period, there were minor differences in production among automotive lead-acid battery enterprises. A few enterprises, due to low finished product inventories, began to increase the operating rate of production lines and planned to build up inventory for the winter. Meanwhile, some automotive lead-acid battery export-oriented enterprises were affected by the anti-dumping investigation by the Gulf Cooperation Council, resulting in poor finished product orders and proactive production reduction, with a 3-day holiday during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
In August and September, the government intensively issued some favorable policies to stimulate the release of replacement demand in the lead-acid battery market. For example, on August 29, 2024, the General Office of the People's Government of Hunan Province issued the "Implementation Plan for Supporting the Trade-in of Consumer Goods with Ultra-Long-Term Special Treasury Bonds in Hunan Province," which requires: by the end of 2024, achieve the retirement and renewal of 24,000 old operational trucks, new energy buses and power batteries, 20,000 various types of agricultural machinery, 40,000 cars, 70,000 personal consumer passenger cars, and the trade-in of over 300,000 electric bicycles and other vehicles.
On August 30, 2024, the General Offices of five departments, including the Ministry of Commerce, issued the "Implementation Plan for Promoting the Trade-in of Electric Bicycles," which mentioned: organizing qualified products from compliant electric bicycle producers to participate in the consumer goods trade-in activities; and appropriately increasing subsidies for consumers who replace old lithium-ion battery electric bicycles with lead-acid battery bicycles.
On September 19, 2024, the Science and Technology Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology publicly solicited opinions on the mandatory national standard "Safety Technical Specifications for Electric Bicycles (Exposure Draft)," with the deadline being October 19, 2024. The draft proposes: to enhance product practicality, the weight limit of the whole vehicle using lead-acid batteries will be relaxed from 55kg to 63kg, and the installation of pedal riding devices will no longer be mandatory.
