🔦Autowist Report 103

• 🪙RESOURCE OF THE WEEK

• 💼BRIEFING

  • Cars with Android Automotive are about to get a lo …

  • This week in Battery Recycling/Battery Swapping

    • Northvolt sells stake in EV battery recycling vent …

    • BMW expands battery recycling partnership with SK …

    • Battery recycling solution provider Cyclewell Tech …

    • CATL, FAW Hongqi break ground on Hong Kong's first …

• 💹FINANCIALS

  • Joyson Electronics

    • Latest news about Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp.

• ⚡ROUNDUP

• 🔬PATENT WATCH

  • Prismatic Battery Can with a Thermally Conductive …

• 🐦AUTO BUZZ

• 📈MARKET SNAPSHOT

• 📆CALENDAR

🪙RESOURCE OF THE WEEK

💼BRIEFING

Top insights and analysis that is moving the needle in the automotive industry

Cars with Android Automotive are about to get a lot more apps (Link)

This week in Battery Recycling/Battery Swapping

Northvolt sells stake in EV battery recycling venture (Link)

Struggling Swedish battery maker Northvolt has sold its remaining stake in the battery-recycling joint venture Hydrovolt to Norwegian aluminium company Norsk Hydro for 78 million Norwegian crowns (roughly USD 6.79 million).

Northvolt, which is under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S., is divesting non-core businesses to focus exclusively on battery cell production.

Northvolt has faced production problems, lost a major customer contract, and encountered a funding crisis. Its bankruptcy loan from truckmaker Scania will soon run out, necessitating urgent cash infusions.

Norsk Hydro, which already owned a majority of Hydrovolt and has been financing it since mid-2024, will become sole owner. However, Hydro says it ultimately wants a new partner to help develop Hydrovolt further. The company does not plan to buy Northvolt’s on-site battery materials recycling unit (Revolt), aligning with its decision to move away from direct battery investment.

💡Future outlook for Northvolt:
Northvolt continues to seek fresh capital to avoid running out of money. It will provide an update on its financing efforts to a U.S. bankruptcy judge around January 28, when its existing bankruptcy loan is set to expire. Meanwhile, Northvolt will retain a commercial relationship with Hydrovolt as a buyer of recycled “black mass.”

BMW expands battery recycling partnership with SK tes (Link)

BMW Group and Singapore-based SK tes have formed a European battery recycling partnership aimed at recovering and reusing critical materials (nickel, cobalt, and lithium) from BMW’s end-of-life batteries.

Batteries from BMW’s European facilities will be sent to SK tes, which shreds them into “black mass.”

SK tes can recover up to 99% of the critical materials, which BMW will then feed back into its battery supply chain.

BMW also partners with U.S.-based Redwood Materials to recycle hybrid and electric vehicle batteries. Redwood claims a 95–98% recovery rate for critical minerals.

Battery recycling solution provider Cyclewell Technologies bags over 100 million yuan in Series A funding (Link)

Ganzhou Cyclewell Technology Co., Ltd. (Cyclewell Technologies), a Chinese lithium battery recycling solution provider, raised over 100 million yuan in its Series A funding round, alongside securing a bank credit line of over 300 million yuan. The investment, led by Glory Ventures and SV Investment, will primarily be used to bolster the company’s R&D and speed up the construction of its demonstration plant.

CATL, FAW Hongqi break ground on Hong Kong's first Choco-Swap station (Link)

On January 13, 2025, CATL, FAW Hongqi, and Shenzhen Longsheng New Energy Technology (LS energy) held a groundbreaking ceremony for Hong Kong’s first Choco-Swap battery swap station for passenger cars. This marks a major step toward expanding Hong Kong’s new energy vehicle (NEV) infrastructure.

The Hongqi E-QM5 is the first model supported by Choco-Swap in Hong Kong. LS energy will handle land resources, infrastructure modifications, and vehicle sales. The partnership intends to establish Choco-Swap stations throughout Hong Kong, deploying battery electric taxis based on the E-QM5 platform.

💹FINANCIALS

A focused look at recent automotive company financials

Joyson Electronics

Joyson Electronics is a global automotive supplier headquartered in Ningbo, China, specializing in intelligent vehicle systems, automotive safety, and connectivity solutions. Founded in 2004, the company has grown rapidly by developing advanced products such as zone controllers, driver assistance systems, and new energy vehicle components.

Highlights from the last earnings:

• In the first three quarters of 2024, the company achieved a total of CNY 70.4 billion in new orders on a global, full-lifecycle basis.

• Of this, CNY 37.6 billion (over half) is related specifically to new energy vehicles.

• New orders from the Chinese market reached CNY 31 billion, about 44% of the overall total.

• Business Segment Breakdown

  • Automotive Safety: New orders totaled CNY 49.1 billion.

  • Automotive Electronics: New orders totaled CNY 21.4 billion.

Joyson Electronics has secured its first mass-production order for zone controllers, set to appear in over one million vehicles under a major Chinese NEV brand beginning in 2025.

These controllers handle key vehicle functions—air conditioning, lighting, airbags, and more—while streamlining the vehicle’s electronic architecture by processing and transferring data to a central computing unit.

Citing this news, the stock ticked up.

Joyson’s nZone series offers a modular, scalable design for various customer needs and vehicle platforms. Alongside body domain controllers, the company also develops products for intelligent driving, connectivity (including 5G-V2X), and advanced safety systems. By leveraging cross-domain technology and a global presence, Joyson aims to foster smarter, safer, and more sustainable mobility solutions.

💡Is there actually a competitive advantage for an OEM to have a single vendor do “all” the strategic components. Is it worth taking on the “single supplier” risk and put all the eggs in a single basket.

There are some factors that go into these kind of strategy:

1. How big is the supplier and how big of a client is the OEM for the supplier: From an OEM’s perspective, you don’t want to be the smallest customer of your supplier. Internally the supplier is arbitrating their resources among all their customers. And during crunch time, they would favor their bigger customers over others.

2. What is the supplier’s long term play? The ideal play is the supplier grows together with the OEM. More often than not, the OEM contract win ends up being the training ground for the supplier to figure how to run such a project.

3. Conflict of interest is the Achilles heal of this whole setup: The fundamental conflict in these kind of relationships is that the OEM wants a one-of-a-kind product meeting all their specific customer requirements. While the supplier is trying to sell their “generic” product with as little customer specific changes so they can earn more money on existing IP. Both these can lead to long term friction in how development would take place over time.

4. Pricing power: Will the supplier be priced out of it’s own product line? From a supplier’s perspective, there is always a risk that the OEM pushes for “enough” customer specific changes that would eat up on the supplier’s margin. Eventually the whole affair not so profitable.

Latest news about Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp.

⚡ROUNDUP

Key headlines shaping the auto industry this week

• Cadillac Aims To Become America’s Best-Selling Luxury EV Brand In 2025 (Link)

• Check out the futuristic Honda 0 SUV (Link)

• Volkswagen Group with 9 million deliveries after strong fourth quarter (Link)

• New Škoda Enyaq Revealed (Link)

• Mercedes-Benz Expands Google’s Partnership to Feature New AI Agent (Link)

• XPeng’s AD Chief Praises Tesla FSD V13.2 After Testing It In LA (Link)

• Aurora takes feds to court over safety rules as it nears self-driving truck launch  (Link)

• Tesla recalls over 239K vehicles for rearview camera display fault (Link)

• Can holograms improve Hyundai's infotainment? (Link)

• CES 2025: Neusoft unveils AI-driven automotive solutions (Link)

• Joyson Electronics secures zone controller supply deal for over one million NEVs (Link)

• Battery recycling solution provider Cyclewell Technologies bags over 100 million yuan in Series A funding (Link)

• CATL, FAW Hongqi break ground on Hong Kong's first Choco-Swap station (Link)

• Mahindra partners with Vector Informatik to strengthen network architecture (Link)

• BMW expands battery recycling partnership with SK tes (Link)

• Porsche Rethinks EV-Only Macan (Link)

• Record Number Battery Electric Vehicles Sold Worldwide In December (Link)

• ​China's annual auto output, sales both hit record high in 2024 (Link)

• BYD Has Obtained 538 New Patent Authorizations This Year Already (2025) (Link)

• Xpeng and BP Pulse opened charging networks to each other in China (Link)

• China produced and sold 31.282 million and 31.436 million vehicles in 2024 (Link)

• Elon Musk misrepresents data that shows Tesla is still years away from unsupervised self-driving (Link)

• MAN TruckScenes: the world’s first freely available sensor and driving data for autonomous trucks (Link)

• Tesla Overtakes Audi in Annual Global Sales for the First Time (Link)

• Northvolt sells stake in EV battery recycling venture (Link)

• Cars with Android Automotive are about to get a lot more apps (Link)

• Tesla to split $100M award for electric truck charging corridor in Illinois (Link)

• Porsche’s EV sales took a hit last year, but the electric Macan sparks hope (Link)

• Volkswagen's bet on scaling platforms across BEV models appears to be slowly paying off... across Europe (Link)

• Honda Expands Propulsion Options in 2025 (Link)

🔬PATENT WATCH

Fresh Innovations from global automotive OEMs

Prismatic Battery Can with a Thermally Conductive Insert

This patent describes a prismatic (rectangular) battery can design with an internal, thermally conductive insert to improve heat management in rechargeable batteries—particularly lithium-ion cells for electric vehicles and other electric-powered devices.

1. Thermally Conductive Insert

   • A thin metallic insert—made of aluminum, copper, or their alloys—divides the battery can into two sections.

   • Heat generated during charging is channeled away from the cell’s center to actively cooled regions (e.g., side cooling manifolds or a bottom cold plate).

   • This reduces battery temperatures and helps prevent thermal runaway.

2. Flexible Cooling Options

   • Side Cooling: Cooling manifolds are placed on opposing vertical sides of the can, each with channels that circulate coolant.

   • Bottom Cooling: The can is mounted on a cooled plate with embedded flow channels.

   • Immersion Cooling or Top Cooling (alternative configurations) can also be employed.

3. Cell Arrangement

   • The can can hold one large “jelly-roll” cell or two half-width jelly-rolls separated by the insert.

   • Stacked layers may include anode, separator, cathode, and current collector layers, each tailored for lithium-ion chemistry.

   • Electrode tabs, collector plates, and terminals are generally located at the top or sides.

4. Trade-Off Between Thermal Performance and Energy Density

   • Simulations show that thicker inserts enhance heat conduction and reduce peak temperatures during charge (e.g., from ~53°C to ~50°C).

   • However, a thicker insert also slightly lowers energy density.

5. Manufacturing Methods

   • The insert can be welded to the can walls or co-extruded together with the can for a one-piece construction.

   • The insert typically does not extend entirely to the top of the can, leaving space for wiring and terminals.

🐦AUTO BUZZ

Top posts, tweets, and videos from the automotive industry

📈MARKET SNAPSHOT

This week’s key movers in the automotive stock market

📆CALENDAR

Upcoming auto industry events and and earnings calls