Li Auto's In-House Batteries Now Across All Models, Accelerating Reshuffling of Multi-Supplier Landscape for Automakers
nashnova research
Li Auto invested RMB 2.65 billion in Sunwoda EVB and announced in-house batteries for its full lineup including the flagship MEGA. This means → CATL's share in Li Auto's supply chain faces systematic compression, and the industry-wide push to reduce CATL dependence is now operational.
What did Li Auto just do?
On Sept 4, Li Auto subscribed for 8.79% of Sunwoda EVB's new shares; post-deal, Li Auto entities will hold a combined 11.17%, making it the second-largest shareholder.
On Sept 7, Li Auto said its in-house cells already power the L8, L6 and i8. The flagship MEGA will switch from CATL's 5C ternary pack to the in-house solution; the i9 and 2026 i6 will follow.
In plain terms = Li Auto is moving on two tracks at once — taking an equity stake to lock in a supplier, and replacing CATL cells with its own.
Why take a stake in Sunwoda?
Li Auto has delivered roughly 1.4 million vehicles to date; about 1 million still carry CATL cells, while Sunwoda supplied around 400,000 — CATL's share exceeds 70%.
The stake secures a battery partner with stronger bargaining leverage and less dependence on any single buyer. The two companies go back to 2017 and in Sept 2025 co-founded a 50-50 JV, Shandong Li Auto Battery.
This means → Li Auto is not merely switching suppliers — it is turning a supplier into an aligned stakeholder, squeezing CATL's pricing power.
What is Sunwoda's own game plan?
A RMB 1.68 billion Series C closed in May; a RMB 805 million C+ round from Sungrow Power and Tianqi Lithium's Shehong unit followed in July. Frequent backing from industry heavyweights is widely read as groundwork for an IPO relaunch.
Financials: 2025 revenue RMB 20.09 billion, net loss RMB 3.17 billion; H1 2026 revenue RMB 15.53 billion, loss narrowed to RMB 324 million.
In plain terms = Sunwoda is still losing money, but the shrinking losses give it a runway to reattempt a listing — and Li Auto's stake adds one more "industry endorsement card" to the deck.
Is this just Li Auto — or an industry-wide shift?
The AITO M6 BEV variant now carries Gotion High-tech LFP cells, formally ending CATL's exclusive supply to AITO. Other HarmonyOS Intelligent Mobility brands plan to bring in CALB, Gotion and Sunwoda.
Xiaomi's third model "Xuntian" has tapped CALB as a secondary source at roughly a 60-to-40 split (Sunwoda as primary). HarmonyOS, Xiaomi, Li Auto, XPeng, Leapmotor and GAC Aion have all introduced second or multiple battery suppliers beyond CATL.
This reflects a shared industry calculus: batteries account for over 30% of an EV's cost, and long-term concentration in a single supplier leaves automakers passive on pricing, delivery and capacity allocation.
How much can switching suppliers actually save?
Industry estimates put CALB, Gotion and Sunwoda LFP pack quotes 3% to 10% below CATL's.
On an 81-kWh pack, a 3% gap translates to roughly RMB 2,000 per vehicle. For a model selling over 100,000 units a year, that implies savings in the hundreds of millions of yuan.
This means → the "de-CATL" push is not sentiment-driven — hard cost arithmetic is pulling automakers toward diversification.
Where does this leave CATL?
On Sept 8, CATL's A-shares fell over 3% and H-shares over 4%. Since the Aug 6 peak, cumulative A-share drawdown has exceeded 18%. Lithium carbonate futures have dropped over 11% in September, adding to the pressure.
Yet dominance is intact: in Q1 2026, CATL's share of China's NEV passenger-car battery market rebounded to 50.1% — reclaiming the "half the market" mark for the first time in five years. Over the past four years the figure oscillated between 43% and 48%.
Zhang Xiang, secretary-general of the International Intelligent Transportation Technology Association, argues that "de-CATL" is not about one player replacing another — it is the inevitable rebalancing of a maturing supply chain. Whether CATL can defend its pricing power even as share comes under pressure is the key variable to watch next.
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