Apr 08, 2021 (China Knowledge) - China’s push towards carbon neutrality as well as its growing manufacturing might will allow electric vehicles (EV) to compete equally with standard cars by 2030, and drive the sector to new heights, said Peng Zhou, chief executive of Octillion Power Systems, a lithium-ion battery supplier headquartered in Hefei in Anhui province.

While battery cost is the main driver, economy of scale coupled with innovation will be sufficient to reach the parity line by 2030, said Zhou.

China aims to bring emissions to a peak before 2030 and to become carbon neutral by 2060. Zhou says that tougher emission standards, more competitive EV models and a national commitment to curb greenhouse gas are driving growth.

Octillion designs and builds customized battery modules for automakers and counts Total, Softbank and Samsung Venture Investment among its shareholders. In the second half of 2020, the company supplied 10% of China’s battery EV market. It shipped 95,191 units in 2020, up from 24,844 a year earlier.

It aims to raise production capacity from 1.4 gigawatt-hours in 2020 to more than 22 gigawatt-hours by 2025.  It is also planning to diversify geographically and build on existing business in Brazil, India and North America.

With environmental groups warning that the boom in EV ownership will cause a surge in battery waste, Chinese cities are setting up recycling schemes in response to the warning.

Zhou says he is not worried about any imminent “pollution nightmare” as batteries contain scarce resources like nickel and cobalt. He believes that materials or waste are not going to be thrown away somewhere as by sheer economics there is money to be made reclaiming these resources in the batteries.

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