China issued on Wednesday new guidelines for its lithium-ion battery industry in a bid to put quality over quantity in battery manufacturing, whose boom led to overcapacity and eroded prices for companies in the sector. “China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Wednesday unveiled revised guidelines for the lithium-ion battery industry to further strengthen standardized management and promote high-quality development of the sector,” the government said.
In 2023, China’s production of lithium-ion batteries alone was enough to meet global demand for batteries, BloombergNEF estimated earlier this year. Globally, demand for lithium-ion batteries for the electric vehicle EV industry and stationary storage was estimated at around 950 gigawatt hours GWh in 2023. China’s output was enough to meet that demand, while the world’s battery manufacturing capacity was nearly 2,600 GWh last year, more than twice the demand.