On May 14, according to foreign media reports, Tesla will acquire battery maker Maxwell for a purchase price of about $ 235 million, equivalent to RMB 1.615 billion.
235 million acquisitions
According to the starting lithium battery data, Tesla issued a final takeover offer to Maxwell on Monday local time. The offer showed that Tesla would use its common shares to exchange all the issued shares of Maxwell Technology ’s common shares.
An offer is a statement of intention on the part of one party to present a contract condition to the other party for the purpose of entering into a contract and hopes that the other party will accept it.
If the offer is completed before the deadline, each share of Maxwell common stock will receive 0.0193 shares of Tesla common stock, and a fraction of the shares of Tesla common stock received by Maxwell will be (excluding interest and withholding tax) ) Get compensation in cash.
The value of the entire transaction mentioned above will reach $ 235 million.
Tesla said that the offer will expire after May 15, 2019, unless the parties "further extend or terminate early (the offer)".
In fact, on February 5 this year, Tesla announced the acquisition of Maxwell at a premium of $ 218 million, a 55% premium. The Maxwell board agreed to the Tesla bid, and the company's directors and senior executives will transfer all of their shares, accounting for 7.56 of the outstanding shares. %.
The acquisition plan was not smooth. On the one hand, Maxwell filed a class action to try to prevent the company from being acquired by Tesla. On the other hand, Tesla's financial situation was not optimistic. Now Tesla is not afraid of resistance and insists on acquiring Maxwell. What is the purpose?
Insufficient Panasonic capacity
According to the starting point of lithium battery big data, Tesla is the world ’s largest consumer of lithium batteries, and Panasonic is the only supplier of Tesla lithium batteries. Recently, the media reported the problem of insufficient Panasonic battery supply.
On May 14, Kazuhiro Tsuga, CEO of Panasonic, said, "If Tesla starts selling Model Y next year and expands its business, battery supply will be exhausted."
The meaning of Panasonic's CEO is very clear, Panasonic does not have enough power batteries to supply Tesla's newly-produced model-Model Y, that is, Panasonic's insufficient battery supply.
A report from Asia last month stated that Tesla and Panasonic have suspended investment in the expansion of "Super Factory No. 1."
Tesla to some extent denied the report and said it still plans to invest, but hopes to focus first on providing output from existing equipment.
Musk said that although Panasonic has invested in an annual production capacity of 35 kWh of batteries, the current annual production capacity is limited to about 23 kWh. Due to Panasonic's lithium battery supply restrictions, Tesla has not been able to produce more Model 3 in the first quarter.
With the upcoming launch of Model 3 at Tesla's Shanghai plant and plans to build a plant in Germany, Tesla's demand for lithium batteries will continue to increase, and in order to meet future lithium battery demand, Tesla's battery strategy has changed.
Seeking new suppliers
In January, foreign media said that Tesla had signed a preliminary agreement with Tianjin Lishen, but then Tesla made a clarification that it received a quote from Tianjin Lishen without further processing.
In March, foreign media said that Ningde Times was in contact with Tesla and was preparing to supply power to the latter. Ningde Times issued a clarification saying that it had not reached a cooperation intention with Tesla and had not signed any business agreements.
During an investor conference call in the first quarter of 2019, Musk said that the company was looking for multiple battery suppliers for the Shanghai plant, but it declined to name the specific suppliers.
Tesla's power battery is cylindrical, and domestic cylindrical battery companies include Tianjin Lishen, Far East Foster, Eternal Lithium Energy and BAK Battery. If Tesla continues to use the cylindrical battery previously used, the supplier is very There may be these domestic companies.
However, Tesla vehicles have been spontaneously ignited several times recently. Whether Musk will change Tesla's usual practice of using cylindrical batteries has to wait for time to verify.
No matter what choice Tesla makes in terms of batteries, it is urgent to find new battery suppliers.
The Maxwell advantage
Having suffered from the "loss" of Panasonic's insufficient battery supply, Musk has made more important changes in addition to looking for new suppliers. The acquisition of Maxwell is a major change made by Tesla.
In the first quarter of this year, Tesla's financial report showed a loss of about $ 700 million. In order to solve the cash flow problem, Tesla announced financing and received $ 2.7 billion in financing.
The first thing Tesla was financing was to acquire Maxwell because Tesla's battery strategy changed, and it began to lay out future battery technology strategies by absorbing external technology teams.
According to the starting point of lithium battery big data, Maxwell is a leading global developer and manufacturer of innovative, cost-effective energy storage and transmission solutions, known in the industry for producing supercapacitors.
The core of Maxwell supercapacitor lies in its patented energy storage electrode technology-dry electrode technology. This technology combines material science with electrode formulation, and streamlined industrial production processes, making Maxwell supercapacitor electrodes unique in the field of energy storage.
Dry cell electrodes have the following four advantages:
Energy density:> 300 Wh / kg has been verified with 500 Wh / kg implementation path
Extend battery life: Improve durability and double battery life.
According to Maxwell's display results, the same battery cell with dry electrode technology can still maintain a capacitance retention rate close to 90% after nearly 1500 charge and discharge cycles, and it is stable.
Reduce cost: 16 times increase in production density, compared with the wet electrode of the prior art, the cost is reduced by 10% -20%
Technical support and environmental responsibility: solvent-free, next-generation materials, cobalt-free, solid
Leading chemists and battery scientists at Maxwell described the technology as follows: Unlike traditional pouring of slurry on wet battery electrodes, Maxwell's dry electrode technology has extremely high load rates and can produce thick electrodes, which can be used in Producing high-energy-density batteries without affecting physical and electrochemical performance, Maxwell's dry electrodes exhibit better discharge capabilities than wet electrodes.
Maxwell has demonstrated the scalability of this new technology by producing self-supporting dry electrode roll coatings with good long-term electrochemical cycling performance. In addition, Maxwell has created prototypes of large soft-pack batteries that are larger than 10 amps.
According to a report, Maxwell's process for manufacturing battery modules is significantly more efficient than the industry-wide process. Even compared to the most efficient battery manufacturing processes on the market today, Maxwell's processes can significantly reduce the cost of producing electric vehicles.
With so many advantages of dry electrode technology, Musk's acquisition of Maxwell is self-evident, and it is clear that Tesla will apply the technology to its own batteries after the acquisition is completed.