Local Chinese news outlets have reported that Sunwoda formally opened a battery manufacturing base in Lanxi, a county-level city in Zhejiang Province, on November 3. Sunwoda has spent a total of RMB 5.2 billion in setting up this base, which represents the largest investment project in Lanxi to date for new energy and smart manufacturing. The base is still in its first phase of development and spans an area of 315 mu. The area occupied by the facility building is around 400,000 square meters. The products that are going to be shipped from the base include lithium-ion battery cells and battery modules. Outfitted with the latest smart manufacturing technologies offered by domestic solution providers, the base is capable of churning out 240 million cells and the same number of modules per year. In terms of economic benefits, the base is projected to generate an annual revenue of more than RMB 10 billion and provide employment opportunities for more than 12,000 people.
Based in Shenzhen, Sunwoda provides electronic manufacturing services and supplies lithium-ion batteries for various devices. Its battery solutions are used in smartphones, laptop computers, tablet computers, medical devices, etc. According to reporting by automotive news websites, Sunwoda has recently formed a joint venture with Chinese carmaker Geely to develop and manufacture batteries used in hybrid vehicles (i.e., 48V batteries).
Wang Mingwang, co-founder of Sunwoda, said that the new base in Lanxi is going produce high-standard and high-quality lithium-ion battery cells. The processing lines in the base have adopted the most advanced manufacturing technologies offered by domestic solution providers. This enables vertical integration in which cell manufacturing and module assembly are done together within a single process flow. Hence, the base gives Sunwoda a major competitive advantage in the market for batteries used in consumer electronics.