History

Pre-20002005 Long term Roadmaps Laid the Foundation for Battery R&D and Technology Catch-up

Pre-2000 The 10th Five-Year Plan was the first time the central government identified battery development as a strategic national priority, establishing targets for the industrialization of electric vehicles EVs and their core materials

Pre-2000 1995: BYD founded by Chuanfu Wang, focused on reverse-engineering Japanese NiCd batteries to cut manufacturing costs by 56x 1998: Tianjin Lishen founded by Xingcai Qin, and by 2004, operated the most automated production lines in China using equipment imported from Japan 1999: ATL (predecessor to CATL) founded by Robin Zeng, to manufacture batteries for consumer electronics.

20002001 China's 863 Program (launched in 1987 outlined the national NEV technology roadmap in 2001 known as the "three verticals and three horizontals, 三纵三横". The "three verticals" refer to fuel-cell vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and battery-electric vehicles. The "three horizontals" refer to multi-energy powertrain systems, electric drive motors, and traction batteries

20002001 2001 BAK founded by Xiangqian Li, and by 2003, it had become one of the global top 10 manufacturers of LIBs 2001 A123 founded to commercialise nanophosphate lithium-ion technology, with an initial commercial focus on power tools 2001 EVE founded by Jincheng Liu, with initial commercial focus on lithium primary batteries

20012003 China became a member of WTO in December 2001 The government offered major incentives for domestic companies to support LIB for vehicle applications, covering up to 75% of the total cost, and up to 85% for smaller companies

20022003 BYD became the first Chinese supplier of LIBs for global brands Motorola 2000) and Nokia 2002, signaling Chinese firms' capability to meet global quality standards. It later acquired Xi'an Qinchuan Automobile 2003) to transition into vehicle manufacturing. BYD IPO-ed in Hong Kong in 2002

Source: Developments in Lithium-Ion Battery Technology in The Peoples Republic of China, 2008, From Laptop Batteries to Global EV Dominance: The BYD Story

20042005 Many joint ventures formed between Western and Japanese firms and Chinese battery makers to access incentives and lower labor costs.

20042005 BAK Battery began collaborating with U.S.-based A123 Systems to implement advanced mass-production lines Technological Catch-up: In 2000, China' s lithium-ion battery R&D trailed Japan's by 10 years in terms of technology performance and cost; by 2005, this gap was reduced to less than two years. By 2004, China had already surpassed the U.S. in the number of scientific publications related to LIBs

Extracted from the PDF; charts and images may read imperfectly.