Lithium battery giants enter the robotics arena

Author | Zhou Zhiyu

Editor | Zhang Xiaoling

Battery giants are intensively entering the robotics field.

According to Wall Street Insights, EVE announced on December 22nd an investment of 1 billion to establish a sodium battery headquarters, along with plans to build a 50,000 square meter Jinyuan Robotics AI Center. This robotics center will cover the entire production process from research and development, trial production, pilot testing to mass production. Xiao Gang, director of EVE's Jinyuan Robotics Research Institute, revealed that robots are expected to roll off the production line and go overseas next year.

This lithium battery giant, with a market value of over 100 billion, is attempting to shed the label of a mere "energy supplier" and is entering the trillion-yuan robotics market.

Currently, the robotics sector is fiercely competitive. From "Xiao Mo" starting work at CATL's factory to BYD investing in UBTECH and Zhiyuan, lithium battery giants are crossing over in various ways. In the current environment of intensified competition among new energy vehicle companies, this is not only an arms race about technology but also a contest for future manufacturing dominance.

From an external perspective, the most logical path for battery manufacturers to enter robotics is to produce the "heart of the robot"—the battery. However, EVE's recent actions have gone beyond the scope of the supply chain.

Xiao Gang told Wall Street Insights that the company will play three roles in the robotics ecosystem: first, as a core component supplier (including batteries and AI components); second, as a complete machine integrator, personally involved in making robots; and third, as a supplier of intelligent solutions for industrial scenarios.

"If our robotic products have sufficient competitiveness, then we must have core technology," Xiao Gang stated. It is reported that EVE has developed seven series of robots, covering various forms such as bipedal, wheeled, and heavy-duty.

EVE is taking a "task-driven" reverse approach. As a manufacturing giant with hundreds of production lines, EVE faces numerous harsh working conditions such as heavy loads, high temperatures, and dust, which are difficult for humans to endure and are challenging for existing general-purpose robots to meet. Therefore, EVE chooses to create tools for its own needs, first solving the tough tasks in its factories, and after verification, it will export the solutions externally. To this end, the new center will build a 1:1 replica real-world robot skills training center to achieve a closed-loop iteration of practical combat right after production.

EVE's entry is just a microcosm of the collective crossover of lithium battery giants.

After the penetration rate of new energy vehicles exceeds 50%, the industry's growth rate has slowed down, which is an undeniable fact. Finding the next super terminal that can support a trillion-yuan market value has become a common challenge for the giants. Robotics, especially embodied intelligent robots, are seen as the next generation of smart terminals following smartphones and new energy vehicles.

Internally, CATL has the 21C Innovation Laboratory and is establishing an ecosystem through investments in startups like Qianxun Intelligent and Galaxy General. BYD has invested in leading companies like UBTECH and Zhiyuan Robotics, and has introduced cooperative enterprise robots into work as a training ground, seeking incremental growth through industry chain collaboration.

EVE is attempting to connect the underlying data chain of "equipment-robot-process." Xiao Gang believes that without data, models cannot be iterated, and EVE possesses a vast amount of verified industrial process data, which is an unmatched "treasure" for technology companies Lithium battery giants are entering the robotics arena, driven by a deep-seated pursuit of "extreme manufacturing."

In traditional lithium battery production lines, to accommodate human operation and safety requirements, the lines often stretch for hundreds of meters and need to be equipped with comprehensive temperature control, fire protection, and passage facilities. However, in EVE's vision, the introduction of robots will completely reshape the factory layout.

"If I can achieve (multi-degree-of-freedom operation) in a very small space, then this production line that originally needs to be 200 meters long can be reduced to just 20 meters to produce this battery," said Xiao Gang. He indicated that with the introduction of high-degree-of-freedom robots, future factories may no longer need to reserve passages for humans, significantly reducing energy consumption and footprint, thereby maximizing production density.

This transformation also represents a competitive dimension for battery manufacturers, shifting from enhancements in electrochemical technology to a tangible manifestation of competition in intelligent manufacturing capabilities.

As the dividend period for the new energy vehicle industry gradually fades, the boundaries for lithium battery giants are becoming blurred. They are no longer satisfied with merely being suppliers (Tier 1) for automakers but are attempting to evolve into "intelligent manufacturing platforms" that master core manufacturing data and productivity.

As Xiao Gang stated, the future intelligent factory will be a collective where equipment, robots, and humans collaborate, and EVE's goal is to become a supplier of intelligent solutions for all industrial scenarios.

In this new competition, the identity of battery manufacturers is being reshaped. As battery giants begin to manufacture robots, the gears of industrial transformation are also set in motion