Lithium battery giant enters the robotics track
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Author | Zhou Zhiyu
Editor | Zhang Xiaoling
Battery giants are intensively entering the robotics track.
Wallstreetcn has learned that EVE Energy announced on December 22 the investment of 1 billion yuan to build its sodium battery headquarters, while simultaneously planning to construct the Jinyuan Robotics AI Center with a built-up area of about 50,000 square meters. This robotics center will cover the entire process of mass production from R&D, prototype making, pilot testing to final assembly. Xiao Gang, director of the Jinyuan Robotics Institute of EVE Energy, disclosed that the robots are expected to roll off the production line and go global next year.
This lithium battery giant, with a market value of 100 billion yuan, is trying to shed the tag of a mere "energy supplier" and enter the trillion-yuan robotics track.
Right now, the robotics field is in fierce competition. From "Xiao Mo" going to work at CATL's factory, to BYD investing in UBTECH and Zhiyuan Robotics, lithium battery giants are crossing over in various ways. As internal competition among new energy vehicle companies intensifies, this is not just a tech arms race, but also a battle for manufacturing leadership of the future.
From an outsider's perspective, the most straightforward path for battery companies making robots is to build the "heart of robots"—the battery. But EVE Energy's recent move goes beyond the typical supply chain scope.
Xiao Gang told Wallstreetcn that the company will play three roles in the robotics ecosystem: first, as a supplier of core components (including batteries and AI parts); second, as a complete machine integrator, personally ensuring the robots are built well; third, as a provider of intelligent solutions for all industrial scenarios.
"If our robot products are competitive enough, then they must possess core technologies," said Xiao Gang. Reportedly, EVE Energy has developed seven series of robots so far, covering bipedal, wheeled, heavy-load and other types.
EVE Energy’s route is “task-driven” and reverse-oriented. As a manufacturing giant with hundreds of production lines, EVE Energy faces harsh conditions like heavy loads, high temperatures, and dust—jobs humans struggle with and current general-purpose robots can't handle well. Therefore, EVE chooses to design solutions for its own factory’s toughest tasks first, testing and refining them before rolling out externally. To this end, the new center will feature a 1:1 replica real-life robot skills training center, achieving a closed-loop iteration of "offline to live operation" capability.
EVE Energy's entry is just a microcosm of the larger cross-industry moves by lithium battery giants.
After new energy vehicle penetration broke 50%, the industry's growth rate has slowed—an undeniable fact. Finding the next super terminal product that can support a trillion-yuan market cap has become the shared mission of industry giants. Robots, especially embodied intelligent robots, are seen as the new generation of smart terminal after smartphones and new energy vehicles.
Internally, CATL has its 21C Innovation Lab; it also invests in startups like Qianxun Intelligent and Yinhe Universal to build an ecosystem. BYD invests in leading companies like UBTECH and Zhiyuan Robotics, introducing their partner robots into operations to train the workforce and seek growth through supply chain collaboration.
EVE Energy is attempting to connect the underlying data chain of "equipment-robot-process". Xiao Gang believes that without data, models cannot be iterated. EVE possesses massive, verified industrial process data, which is an invaluable "resource pool" difficult for tech companies to match.
The deeper motivation for lithium battery giants entering the robotics track is their pursuit of "extreme manufacturing."
On traditional lithium battery production lines, to accommodate human operation and safety requirements, lines are often hundreds of meters long and equipped with comprehensive temperature control, fire protection, and access facilities. But in EVE Energy’s vision, introducing robots will completely restructure the factory layout.
"If I can achieve (multi-degree-of-freedom operations) in a small spatial range, then instead of a 200-meter-long production line, I can manufacture this battery in just 20 meters," said Xiao Gang. By introducing high-degree-of-freedom robots, future factories may no longer need human passageways, and energy consumption and footprint will drop dramatically, thereby maximizing output density.
This transformation is also shifting the competitive dimension among battery plants from electrochemical technology improvement to a concrete contest of intelligent manufacturing capability.
As the boom in the new energy vehicle industry fades, the boundaries for lithium battery giants are blurring. They are no longer content with being Tier 1 suppliers to car manufacturers; instead, they aim to evolve into “intelligent manufacturing platforms” mastering core manufacturing data and productivity.
As Xiao Gang noted, future intelligent factories will be collaborative groups of equipment, robots, and humans, and EVE Energy’s goal is to become a provider of intelligent solutions for all industrial scenarios.
In this new contest, the identity of battery factories is being reshaped. As battery giants start making robots, the gears of industrial transformation are also turning.
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