Battery value shifts upstream
Chinese battery suppliers such as CATL are consolidating scale and pricing power while many EV makers face margin squeeze, shifting value upstream in the EV ecosystem (scmp.com). At the same time, policymakers and industry groups are flagging used‑battery recycling and disposal as rising operational issues in regional EV rollouts (siamnews.net), and US battery‑storage projects remain dependent on imported cells despite local expansion (reuters.com).
Battery makers are taking a bigger share of the electric-vehicle profit pool as car brands cut prices, while the same cells remain a supply and disposal problem elsewhere. (scmp.com) Contemporary Amperex Technology, known as CATL, said on March 10 that 2025 revenue rose 17% to 423.7 billion yuan and net profit jumped 42% to 72.2 billion yuan. CATL said lithium-ion battery sales reached 661 gigawatt-hours, and its global power-battery share was 39.2% for a ninth straight year at No. 1. (catl.com) The South China Morning Post reported that CATL’s 2025 profit was only 8% below the combined net income of four big listed Chinese carmakers: BYD, Chery, Geely Auto and SAIC, which together made 78.6 billion yuan. The paper said CATL’s domestic market share also hit an 18-month high as weaker battery rivals lost ground. (scmp.com) A battery pack is the most expensive part of many electric vehicles, so scale at the cell supplier can translate into leverage over the automaker that buys it. The International Energy Agency said batteries are now central not only to cars but also to power grids and data-centre backup, pushing the global lithium-ion battery market above $150 billion in 2025. (iea.org) That concentration is still heavily tilted toward China. The International Energy Agency said China remains the largest battery producer and a major source of cost advantage, while current project pipelines for newer chemistries such as sodium-ion are also concentrated there. (iea.org) The same upstream grip shows up in the United States energy-storage market, where developers are adding domestic assembly but still buying many cells from China. S&P Global Commodity Insights said Chinese lithium-ion batteries dominate U.S. imports, and non-electric-vehicle lithium-ion batteries from China are already set to face a 25% Section 301 tariff in 2026 on top of other duties. (spglobal.com) In Southeast Asia, the bottleneck is moving from supply to cleanup. Dialogue Earth reported on April 9 that United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific transport-policy chief Katrin Luger called for centralized collection centres or producer-responsibility groups so used packs are not broken apart informally with hammers or burned. (dialogue.earth) Thailand’s Industry Ministry has already been seeking investment in battery recycling as scrapped packs begin to rise with electric-vehicle adoption. Bangkok Post reported in November 2025 that officials want recycling capacity both to handle waste and to deepen the domestic battery supply chain. (bangkokpost.com) Market-share data shows how concentrated the winners have become. SNE Research data published in February showed CATL installed 464.7 gigawatt-hours of electric-vehicle batteries in 2025, up 35.7% from 2024, while second-place BYD reached 194.8 gigawatt-hours and 16.4% share. (cnevpost.com) The result is a value chain in which batteries are no longer just one component cost for carmakers or grid developers. They are the profit center for the suppliers with scale, and the waste-management obligation for the markets still building the rest of the system. (scmp.com)
