Benchmark Mineral Intelligence is also known as Benchmark Minerals and was founded in the UK by Simon Moores in 2014. The company is a specialist information provider for supply chains that involve lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicles (EVs). Benchmark ranks lithium-ion battery manufacturers into three tiers, depending upon the quality of their products and their ability to provide automakers with sufficient quantities and support for their electrification efforts.
There is a fine balance of quality, quantity, and qualification that a battery manufacturer must attain to reach Tier One status. Every three months, Benchmark assesses each lithium-ion battery cell producer to determine which of the three Tiers it belongs.
Benchmark’s highest level is Tier One. To reach Tier One and battery manufacturer must:
- Be qualified to supply multinational automotive OEMs / EV producers outside of China
- Be a supplier to the domestic Chinese EV market
- Have an annual cumulative capacity of greater than 5 gigawatt-hours (GWh) or equivalent at the time of the assessment
There are presently seven companies that meet Benchmark’s Tier One standards. Two of the companies are located in China, three are in Korea, and two are in Japan (although one of those two is majority-owned by a Chinese company). To rank these seven companies based upon their 2021 market share, we used 2021 market share data published in June 2021 from SNE research.
These are the companies that are driving the lithium-ion battery industry forward and are making a wide range of EVs possible as electrification moves forward.
Kevin Clemens is a Senior Editor with Battery Technology.
