Who is producing the most EV batteries? Which countries are leading the way in battery production?
Without a doubt, you know the country that is leading the way. It has more than half of the world’s EV production and more than half of the world’s EV battery production. That’s China, of course. But who’s next?
Second and third were the US and Germany, and then the UK came in 4th and France came in 5th. These rankings and the underlying figures come from Adamas Intelligence.
Notably, although China-made EV battery capacity (98.7 GWh) was 16% more than in the second quarter of 2023 and 30% more than in the third quarter of last year, its share of the global EV battery market was down. It dropped from 58% of global EV battery capacity in Q3 2022 to 54% of global EV battery capacity in Q3 2023.
US-produced EV battery capacity was 27.4 GWh, up 9% compared to Q2 2023 and up 49% compared to Q3 2022. That gave the United States 15% of the global EV battery capacity market, one percentage point up from last year’s 14%.
Germany was in a similar boat as the US in terms of growth, but less than half in terms of total capacity produced. Europe’s largest economy produced 11.5 GWh of EV batteries in Q3 2023, which was 6% of the market. Despite having the same share of the market as last year in the same period, total capacity produced was 51% higher than in Q3 2022, and 28% higher than in Q2 2023.
The UK market, with 6.9 GWh of EV battery capacity produced, grew 14% compared to Q2 2023 and 50% compared to Q3 2022. The UK had 4% of the global EV battery market, up from 3% in Q3 2022.
France was then the 5th largest EV battery producer in the world, with 4.6 GWh of battery capacity produced. That was actually down 10% quarter over quarter, but still up 53% year over year. So, despite being down quarter over quarter, the year-over-year growth was the highest among the top five countries. France accounted for just under 3% of the world EV battery market in the third quarter.
World EV Battery Production Up 45% In 2023
As you can tell from the numbers above, the global EV battery market has increased markedly this year. In the third quarter, it was up 39% compared to the third quarter of 2022. Furthermore, it was up 11% quarter over quarter. The total EV battery production output in Q3 2023 was 182.6 GWh.
The numbers look even better for the first nine months of the year. Total production output was 477.5 GWh, which is an increase of 45% compared to the first nine months of 2022. In fact, that total for the first three quarters of 2023 are nearly as much as the total for 2022 as a whole.
“As we continue to highlight, the rate of battery capacity deployment growth (up 45% YoY) continues to run well ahead of global EV unit sales growth (up 33% YoY), which to-date amounts to just under 13.5 million BEVs, PHEVs and HEVs sold worldwide,” Adamas Intelligence adds. “Notably, PHEVs have seen a 50% surge in sales growth so far this year, coupled with an 20% increase in the average PHEV’s battery capacity, from 17.3 kWh to 20.4 kWh. Consequently, PHEVs captured an impressive 12% share of the market by GWh deployed through the first nine months of this year versus just 10% the same period last year.”