Everyone wants a piece of Tesla’s battery business
Everyone wants a piece of Tesla’s battery business
人人都想分特斯拉电池业务的一杯羹
First Tesla, then Ford, and now GM — it seems every automaker wants a slice of the energy storage market. It’s easy to see why. While EV sales have stagnated in the United States, sales of large, stationary batteries have doubled in the past two years. And they show no signs of stopping. Despite incentives being gutted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Solar Energy Industries Association expects annual installations to exceed 110 GWh per year by 2030, about double what they are today. 继特斯拉、福特之后，现在通用汽车（GM）也加入了战局——似乎每家汽车制造商都想在储能市场分一杯羹。原因显而易见：尽管美国电动汽车销量陷入停滞，但大型固定式电池的销量在过去两年中翻了一番，且增长势头丝毫没有减弱的迹象。尽管《通胀削减法案》（One Big Beautiful Bill Act）中的部分激励措施被削减，但美国太阳能工业协会（SEIA）预计，到2030年，年装机量将超过110 GWh，约为目前水平的两倍。
“There’s a lot of potential for this market,” Kurt Kelty, vice president of battery and sustainability at GM, told TechCrunch. GM has dabbled in energy storage before, but on Tuesday it took a bigger swing, rolling out an entirely new sodium-ion battery chemistry that’s aimed at the heart of the market. “这个市场潜力巨大，”通用汽车电池与可持续发展副总裁库尔特·凯尔蒂（Kurt Kelty）在接受TechCrunch采访时表示。通用汽车此前曾涉足储能领域，但在周二，该公司迈出了更大的一步，推出了一种全新的钠离子电池化学技术，旨在直击市场核心。
The skyrocketing energy storage market is being driven higher by the convergence of three trends. The most obvious is the expansion of data centers being built to serve AI. Data center energy demand is expected to nearly triple by the end of the decade. But alongside that growth, entire swathes of the economy, including transportation, manufacturing, and HVAC, are being electrified. “Data centers are a big part of the growth, but even without data centers, it started to really pick up,” Kelty said. 储能市场的飞速增长是由三大趋势共同推动的。最明显的是为人工智能（AI）提供支持的数据中心正在大规模扩张，预计到本十年末，数据中心的能源需求将增长近两倍。与此同时，交通、制造业和暖通空调（HVAC）等整个经济领域都在加速电气化。“数据中心是增长的重要组成部分，但即便没有数据中心，这一市场也已经开始真正起飞了，”凯尔蒂说道。
It’s not just automakers that are diving into energy storage. Startups have been raising large rounds to capture a chunk of the market. Base Power raised a $1 billion Series C in October to expand beyond Texas, while Lunar Energy raised $232 million to sell batteries to homeowners. Others, like Lightship, are pivoting somewhat. The electric RV manufacturer is now selling a mobile battery for job sites and other locations that need temporary power. 不仅是汽车制造商在进军储能领域，初创公司也在通过大规模融资来抢占市场份额。Base Power在10月份完成了10亿美元的C轮融资，旨在将业务扩展至德克萨斯州以外；Lunar Energy则筹集了2.32亿美元，致力于向房主销售电池。其他公司如Lightship则在进行转型，这家电动房车制造商目前正在销售一种用于施工现场及其他需要临时供电场所的移动电池。
So far, Tesla has taken the lion’s share of the energy storage market. Of the 57 gigawatt-hours installed last year, Tesla was responsible for 82% of those installations. The company’s annual revenue from energy generation and storage has doubled since 2023, largely due to growth in Megapack and Powerwall installations. Tesla’s gross profits for the segment are around 30%, about double what it makes selling EVs and at least three times higher than typical automaker margins. GM’s gross margin over the last 15 years has averaged just over 11%. 到目前为止，特斯拉占据了储能市场的绝大部分份额。去年全球安装的57 GWh储能系统中，特斯拉贡献了82%。得益于Megapack和Powerwall装机量的增长，该公司能源发电与存储业务的年收入自2023年以来翻了一番。特斯拉该业务板块的毛利率约为30%，约为其电动汽车销售毛利率的两倍，至少是传统汽车制造商平均利润率的三倍。相比之下，通用汽车过去15年的平均毛利率仅略高于11%。
But despite the market’s potential, GM isn’t exactly rushing in. Rather, its first major product, the sodium-ion cells, won’t be ready until later this decade. “We’re going to develop a family of cells that is appropriate for this market,” Kelty said. Kelty and his team point to sodium-ion’s strengths as reason enough for waiting: The materials are cheap and abundant, it doesn’t require an active cooling system, and it can withstand many more charge-discharge cycles than lithium-ion batteries. 尽管市场潜力巨大，但通用汽车并没有急于求成。其首款主要产品——钠离子电池，要到本十年后期才能准备就绪。“我们将开发一系列适合该市场的电池产品，”凯尔蒂说。凯尔蒂及其团队认为，钠离子电池的优势足以支撑他们的等待：材料廉价且储量丰富，无需主动冷却系统，且比锂离子电池能承受更多的充放电循环。
It doesn’t hurt that China has yet to corner the market on materials for sodium-ion batteries, like it has with other chemistries. Nearly all of the world’s cobalt is processed by Chinese companies, for example. “It gives us a path towards supply-chain resilience and low-cost materials,” Andy Oury, business planning manager at GM, told TechCrunch. “Sodium-ion is very much in its infancy with the opportunity for the supply chain to grow anywhere people want to invest in it.” 此外，中国尚未像垄断其他电池化学材料那样垄断钠离子电池材料，这也是一个优势。例如，全球几乎所有的钴都由中国公司加工。“这为我们提供了一条实现供应链韧性和低成本材料的路径，”通用汽车业务规划经理安迪·奥里（Andy Oury）告诉TechCrunch，“钠离子电池仍处于起步阶段，供应链可以在任何人们愿意投资的地方发展。”
GM could have taken a path of lesser resistance by simply repackaging the lithium-ion cells it’s currently pumping out at its gigafactories, like Tesla and Ford have done. But the automaker is still bullish on the future of EVs, and it doesn’t want to reassign its lithium-ion manufacturing capacity for fear of being caught flat-footed if there’s a resurgence in the EV market. “It’s one thing to build cells when there’s excess capacity,” Oury said. “It’s another thing when we return to a high-growth mode and every new battery you want needs a new plant.” 通用汽车本可以走一条阻力较小的路，像特斯拉和福特那样，直接重新包装其超级工厂目前生产的锂离子电池。但这家汽车制造商依然看好电动汽车的未来，不愿重新分配其锂离子电池产能，以免在电动汽车市场复苏时措手不及。“在产能过剩时生产电池是一回事，”奥里说，“但当我们回到高增长模式，且每一块新电池都需要一座新工厂时，情况就完全不同了。”
Such a resurgence could be partly under GM’s control. The company is developing an entirely new chemistry, lithium-manganese-rich (LMR), that’s set to debut in 2028. LMR promises to deliver most of today’s range while cutting the cost of a new EV by about 10%. That would bring EVs near parity with fossil fuel vehicles, eliminating one of the main hurdles to adoption. 这种复苏在一定程度上可能由通用汽车掌控。该公司正在开发一种全新的富锂锰基（LMR）化学技术，预计将于2028年首次亮相。LMR有望在保持现有续航里程的同时，将新电动汽车的成本降低约10%。这将使电动汽车的成本接近化石燃料汽车，从而消除普及过程中的主要障碍之一。
After LMR, sodium-ion is another chemistry that could disrupt the automotive industry. Chinese automakers have already begun to dabble with it. EVs powered by sodium-ion packs are heavier and have less range, but they’re cheaper and less prone to catching fire. Plus, they have the potential to charge rapidly. Altogether, that makes for an attractive combination for lower-cost EVs. “Is this the right play for EVs in the long run? That’s yet to be decided,” Kelty said. “It does give us the advantage that if we want to go that direction, it’ll be very easy for us because we’re going to be right doing a lot of research on this anyway. We’re not ruling it out.” 继LMR之后，钠离子电池是另一种可能颠覆汽车行业的化学技术。中国汽车制造商已经开始尝试使用它。由钠离子电池组驱动的电动汽车虽然更重、续航里程更短，但成本更低，且不易起火。此外，它们还具备快速充电的潜力。总而言之，这对于低成本电动汽车来说是一个极具吸引力的组合。“从长远来看，这是电动汽车的正确选择吗？这还有待决定，”凯尔蒂说，“但它确实给了我们一个优势：如果我们想朝那个方向发展，会非常容易，因为我们无论如何都会对此进行大量研究。我们并没有排除这种可能性。”
The risk in moving more deliberately than its competitors, of course, is that the AI bubble bursts, data center construction halts, and GM misses the wave. Paul Menson, director of energy storage commercialization at GM, thinks the bet on sodium-ion will pay off even if that happens. “No market grows indefinitely forever,” he said. “That’s why you have to have the best product. Because if you have the best product, it doesn’t really matter what happens in the market contraction because you still have the best product.” 当然，采取比竞争对手更审慎的行动也存在风险，即如果AI泡沫破裂、数据中心建设停滞，通用汽车可能会错过这波浪潮。通用汽车储能商业化总监保罗·门森（Paul Menson）认为，即使这种情况发生，对钠离子电池的押注依然会得到回报。“没有哪个市场会永远无限增长，”他说，“这就是为什么你必须拥有最好的产品。因为如果你拥有最好的产品，无论市场如何萎缩，你依然拥有最好的产品，这才是最重要的。”
Even still, Kelty has a sense of urgency. “We’re actually exploring other ways to get in the market faster,” he said. “We’re definitely going to try and go as fast as possible.” 尽管如此，凯尔蒂仍有一种紧迫感。“我们实际上正在探索其他进入市场的方法，以求更快地切入，”他说，“我们一定会尽全力以最快的速度推进。”