Battery Certification in China
South Korea’s electric-vehicle battery makers Samsung SDI and LG Chem have no choice but to wait for the decision by the Chinese government. That is because they have no idea of when Beijing carries out its fifth certification after it excluded them from a list of the certified companies in the fourth certification round for electric car battery standard.
According to industry sources on August 21, Samsung SDI and LG Chem have made everything ready for the fifth electric car battery standard certification offered by the Chinese government.
There is a general opinion in the industry that the two Korean batter makers are less likely to fail in the fifth certification, as they have made up for their inadequacies, including the specific date to start the operation of their plants in China and the shortage of researchers, which were pointed out as the causes of their failure in the fourth certification.
The industry expects the fifth certification to be held in late this month to early next month, but it is still unknown that Chinese authorities will actually offer additional certifications.
Nonetheless, the two Korean firms think it is fortunate that the Chinese government did not make an official announcement that it would not give subsidies to uncertified battery makers. The prospect, however, is pointed out as being too much optimistic, as China is taking economic actions in retaliation for the recent South Korean decision to deploy the THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system on the Korean Peninsula.
Meanwhile, there is a growing uncertainty over the business of Samsung SDI and LG Chem due to their the exclusion from the list of 31 companies that got certified in the fourth battery standard certification, which was made in June by the Chinese government. Earlier, China-based Jianghuai Automobile Corporation stopped producing electric cars equipped with Samsung SDI batteries as it thought that the companies failing to get certificates would be highly likely to become illegible for subsidies, Battery makers will be the beneficiaries of government subsidies from January 2018, if they make it to the approval list.