The power battery industry has entered Phase 2.0, with projections for a doubling of its scale over the next five years.

time:2026-09-07
The power battery industry is moving from a large-scale expansion stage to a new stage of high quality transition, and the market will expand to a global electric scale in the future.
On September 3, the 2026 World power battery conference with the theme of "electric drive, integration and symbiosis" was held in Yibin, Sichuan province. The conference released the innovative technological achievements of power battery from 2025 to 2026, as well as many important documents such as "power battery industry development index (2026)", "power battery industry development vision and technology path.
These reports show that China's power battery industry has stood on a historic key node.
Lead
with the rapid rise of the new energy automobile industry, China has built the largest and most complete power battery industry system in the world. Its key core technology level ranks first in the world, and its production and marketing scale ranks first in the world for many consecutive years, the products are exported to the world's major new energy vehicle markets, forming a situation that new energy, new materials and other emerging industries are integrated and symbiotic with power batteries.
ouyang Minggao, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor of Tsinghua University, introduced that in 2025, the installed capacity of domestic power batteries was 769GWh, up 40% year on year. In 2025, China, the top 10 global power battery installed capacity, had 6 seats exclusively, with a cumulative installed capacity of 70%. In 2025, China's total shipments of lithium-ion batteries were about 1875GWh, up 53% year-on-year, accounting for more than 80% of the world's total.
Moreover, China has made many original technological contributions to the lithium ion battery industry. Ouyang Minggao said: "The basic principle of lithium-ion batteries is invented abroad, but from the perspective of products, it is mainly small battery of consumer products. China has developed it into a large battery of power and energy storage."
he introduced that China's lithium battery has grown from the initial range of 100 kilometers to the current 1000 kilometers; The charging speed has grown from an hour level to about ten minutes; durability has developed from 300 cycles to 1500 cycles of energy storage battery. Economically, the cost has been reduced by 90%, and now it has reached 0.3 to 0.5 yuan per watt hour.
However, Wan Gang, vice chairman of the 13th CPPCC National Committee and honorary chairman of China Association of Science and Technology, said at the opening ceremony that China's power battery industry still faces many contradictions and problems that need to be solved urgently.
Wan Gang pointed out that from the countryFrom an international perspective, the global economic and trade pattern has been deeply adjusted, and the regional and localized layout of the industrial chain supply chain has become more and more obvious, which puts forward higher requirements for steadily and orderly promoting the overseas development of enterprises; From a domestic perspective, some key core technologies still have shortcomings, and the research and exploration of forward-looking and leading technologies still need to be strengthened, and the recycling link of retired batteries still has blocking points.
Zhang Jinhua, chairman of China Automotive Engineering Society, said that at present, the global power battery industry is moving from scale expansion 1.0 to high quality 2.0.
He believes that in the 1.0 stage, the global power battery industry chain and manufacturing system are rapidly mature, which strongly supports the rapid penetration of new energy vehicles. However, the growth driven by a single scale has touched the boundary and the performance bottleneck at the technical end is highlighted, problems such as homogeneous competition and insufficient coordination at the industrial end appear.
Facing the 2.0 stage, it is urgent to consolidate the underlying capabilities of the industry through five major technological transformations, including material system, intrinsic safety, fast energy supplement, full climate application and digital intelligence, and rely on application ecology, Circular Ecology, the ecological transition of three major industries, such as collaborative ecology, expands the value boundary and jointly supports the power battery industry to achieve higher quality and more sustainable development.
Xiong Jijun, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, also said in his speech that at present, the global automobile industry reform is still accelerating its evolution, and China's power battery industry is in a critical period of improving quality, increasing efficiency and expanding advantages. Next, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will further strengthen technological innovation, strengthen standard guidance, standardize competition order, expand application scenarios, deepen open cooperation, and promote China's power battery industry to accelerate to high-end, intelligent, green, internationalMove forward.
Transition
in fact, at present, the power battery industry is facing some practical problems. On the one hand, consumers are looking forward to continuously improving the performance experience of endurance, fast charging, durability and all-round safety; On the other hand, the global industry is increasingly competitive. Only by relying on systematic innovation can the core competitive advantage be stabilized.
Moreover, with the continuous expansion of energy storage demand, the application boundary of power batteries is also rapidly extending outward, and emerging scenarios such as low-altitude aircraft and equipped intelligent robots are booming. Diversified expansion of scenarios not only opens a new incremental space for the power battery industry, but also brings a new test of working conditions, access specifications, product forms and safety systems.
In particular, the rapid expansion of multiple applications in scenarios puts forward higher requirements for the battery industry. Luo Guochun, director of the Equipment Industry Development Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, pointed out at the conference that one of the future trends is the expansion of the market from new energy vehicles to global electric vehicles.
Luo Guochun said that it is expected that the shipments of energy storage batteries will increase by 60% year-on-year in 2026, and the global shipments of lithium batteries will move towards the 5TWh era in 2030. Low altitudeEconomy (eVTOL) and humanoid robots put forward high requirements for battery performance, opening up trillions of incremental space; The penetration rate of electric ships, construction machinery and other fields continues to rise.
Ouyang Minggao said that the development trend of lithium power batteries in China is mainly reflected in three aspects: battery safety in the whole process, AI empowerment in the whole industry chain, and green and low carbon in the whole life cycle.
He believes that the battery material system will form a dual technical route in the future, and the two routes are indispensable to China's power and energy storage battery industry. The first route is high specific energy liquid, solid-liquid mixing and all-solid-state batteries; The second route is low-cost, long service life lithium ion batteries and sodium ion batteries.
Luo Guochun also analyzed the future trend. From the perspective of technical route, in the short term, liquid lithium battery is still the main product with continuous iteration of performance. Lithium iron phosphate focuses on energy density improvement, low temperature performance optimization, cycle life extension, and cost exploration and iteration; High nickel ternary focuses on safety upgrade, stability optimization, attenuation control, and deep cultivation of medium and high-end long endurance market.
In the medium term, multi-technology routes evolved in parallel to accelerate the implementation of industrialization. The parallel pattern of "liquid lithium battery + sodium battery + semi-solid battery" continues to evolve. Sodium ion replaces some low-end lithium battery markets on a large scale; Semi-solid commercialization is fully implemented, becoming an upgrade plan for medium and high-end models.
Zhang Jinhua believes that material system iteration is becoming the core driving force for the layered upgrade of power battery energy base. The material system determines the upper limit of the energy density of the power battery, which will form a ladder pattern of liquid foundation building, solid-liquid connection and solid-state breakthrough. Liquid batteries cover the mainstream demand of 200 ~ 300Wh/kg; In the next three years, solid-liquid hybrid batteries will enter the commercial application window, mainly equipped with medium and high-end models; All-solid-state batteries will gradually break through the performance limit, it is expected to enter large-scale application in 2035, and the energy density will reach more than 600Wh/kg.
Ouyang Minggao said that looking forward to the future, China's battery industry will continue to lead the world. China, 2025 lithium ion battery shipments are about 1875GWh, accounting for more than 80% of global shipments. International authorities predict that the global lithium ion battery market will exceed 5000GWh in 2030, and China's lithium ion battery shipments will exceed 3600GWh in 2030, doubling the growth of China's lithium battery industry.