It is obvious that the reason why China's "tiger and wolf" power batteries have traveled thousands of miles to build factories in Europe is undoubtedly based on the huge demand gap for power batteries brought about by the electrification of European car enterprises. However, this is only one of the reasons. On the other hand, the most direct reason is that most of these battery companies have received orders from European car companies.

Needless to say, the Ningde era, when we first went to Europe to build factories. As early as May 2018, Ningde Era entered the Daimler battery supply chain system; In July of the same year, BMW announced that it would purchase 4 billion euros of batteries from Ningde Times, of which 1.5 billion euros would come from the new factory of Ningde Times in Germany. In 2019, BMW signed another 3.3 billion euros order with Ningde Times, and the total order of both parties increased to 7.3 billion euros. At the same time, Ningde Times has also established cooperation with Jaguar Land Rover, Volkswagen, Volvo, Bosch and other European car enterprises.

Also in 2018, Funeng Technology, which focuses on soft pack batteries, also signed an order agreement with Daimler. The time span is as long as 10 years, and the cumulative battery will exceed 170GWh. In October 2020, Funeng Technology officially announced that it had signed a cooperation agreement with Türkiye's first pure electric vehicle brand TOGG.

Interestingly, at the end of 2020, Honeycomb Energy also entered the Türkiye market and signed a fixed-point agreement with OTOKAR, a leading bus manufacturer. This is after obtaining the order from PSA Group in France, Honeycomb Energy has again won the European customer designation. Before that, Honeycomb Energy signed a procurement contract with PSA Group of France to supply batteries for electric vehicles under PSA, with an order demand of about 7GWh.

It is worth noting that in September 2020, foreign media reported that BYD would supply Daimler with the latest lithium iron phosphate "blade battery". In addition, it was also reported that "BYD is negotiating with Jaguar Land Rover on battery supply and production.

It is logical to obtain orders from European car companies and build factories in Europe. Do you have to build a factory in the local area when you get the order? This is not necessarily. After all, it is necessary to make a concrete analysis of specific problems. For example, Yiwei Lithium Energy did not go, Xinwangda has not made a big move at present, and Wanxiang One, Two, Three also did not take action, but they also got enviable international large orders.

Also in 2018, Yiwei Lithium Energy signed an agreement with Daimler to supply Daimler with ternary flexible power batteries; In July 2020, Yiwei Power, a subsidiary of Yiwei Lithium Energy, received another letter from BMW suppliers. In April 2019, Xinwangda said that it had received a fixed-point letter from the Renault Nissan Alliance, and the demand for related models was expected to reach 1.157 million, with a conservative estimate that the order amount would exceed 10 billion yuan. In July 2020, Wanxiang 123 was confirmed to have won the order of 10 billion yuan power battery from Volkswagen.

However, although the above enterprises have not yet set up factories in Europe or other places abroad, it does not mean that they will not set up factories in the future. Because the benefits of building a factory locally are obvious. In the words of an industry leader, "it can form a local power battery supply capacity, further close to customers, provide more timely and effective product solutions, and respond to user needs faster, so as to enhance the competitiveness of products worldwide."

That is to say, the localized production of batteries can realize the "nearby supply" for key customers, achieve close to the terminal market, optimize transportation costs, and provide customers with high-quality services. Daimler, which has signed large orders with many Chinese enterprises, believes that the localization of batteries is an important factor in the success of the company's electrification strategy, as well as a key link to flexibly and effectively meet the needs of the global electric vehicle market.