The coronavirus will impact the growth of the battery market by around $10 billion this year, according to Ray Kubis who was forced to reconsider his previous forecast following the global pandemic.
In April, Kubis— chairman of bipolar lead battery maker Gridential— estimated the global market would grow by an average of 19% to $80 billion amid the developing trend for EVs, and high voltage and 48v hybrid vehicles.
However, in a report on 9 September, he revised his estimate for transportation batteries to $70 billion, reflecting about 7% growth.
He forecast that lithium batteries would still achieve double digit sales growth with lead-based transportation batteries likely to show an overall 2% (+/-) growth due to the replacement light vehicle and eBike battery markets.
In part the revised forecast was due to the sale of new light vehicles (LV) falling by almost 100% in some countries as the global lockdown moved from east to west, according to Kubis’ COVID-19 update of the Transportation Battery Forecast.
In February, China’s LV sales were down 79%, in April Italy’s sales were down 98% and in April and May sales in North America fell by 95% and 83% respectively.
In total, LV sales declined 28% across the globe in the first half of the year. Best estimates now are for a full year decline of 17% to about 72 million new vehicles worldwide.
He said: “The virus impact of shutdowns and curtailments hit Europe hard just after China, with the dramatic vehicle sales reductions shown for Germany and Italy, as plant shutdowns stopped supply, and stay at home orders meant few shoppers for the remaining inventory.
“North American new vehicle sales were hit hard in April and May, before modest recoveries began in supply chains, vehicle factories and consumer demand.”
He added: “Guessing ahead for the impact from the virus on transportation batteries requires a lot of guesses about working at home, re-acceptance of public transport and UBER, and the pace of economic recoveries.
“Yet I think it is safe to guess there will be a increase in the trends for private transport worldwide. That could be in eBikes in some countries, and more light vehicles, albeit more affordable ones with broad appeal, both EV and efficient 48v hybrids for urban and second family cars. And also in some countries like the US, Canada and Australia there could be increased demand for larger vehicles for mid- range trips rather than airplane travel.”
