China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance released data for August 2026: combined output of power and energy storage batteries was 237.0GWh, up 69.8% year on year; sales were 223.1GWh, up 65.9% year on year. Energy storage battery sales were 76.3GWh, up 114.3% year on year, and exports were 17.7GWh, up 134.2% year on year. LFP accounted for 82.4% of production and 85.6% of installations, continuing to dominate. CATL and BYD led the installation landscape, while the LFP route continued to benefit from dual growth in energy storage and exports.

LFP Further Expands: Energy Storage and Exports Accelerate in Tandem in August, LFP Route's Dominance Further Consolidated

The China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance (CABIA) recently released the monthly power battery data for August 2026. While production and sales continued their high growth, the structural shift in material routes deserves more attention: LFP's share continued to rise across production, sales, vehicle installation, and exports, while energy storage batteries became the most active source of incremental growth with doubling-level growth rates.

Production and Sales: LFP Dominates, Energy Storage Leads

On the production side, China's combined output of power and energy storage batteries in August was 237.0 GWh, up 8.8% month-on-month and 69.8% year-on-year; cumulative output from January to August was 1,523.9 GWh, up 57.0% year-on-year.

By material route, LFP battery output in August was 195.3 GWh, accounting for 82.4%, up 79.8% year-on-year, higher than the industry average; ternary battery output was 41.2 GWh, accounting for 17.4%, up 33.5% year-on-year. From January to August, cumulative LFP battery output was 1,249.6 GWh, accounting for 82%, up 63.3% cumulatively.

On the sales side, total sales in August were 223.1 GWh, up 20.5% month-on-month and 65.9% year-on-year. Among them, power battery sales were 146.8 GWh, up 48.5% year-on-year; energy storage battery sales were 76.3 GWh, up 114.3% year-on-year and 36.0% month-on-month. From January to August, cumulative energy storage battery sales were 450.5 GWh, up 83.8% year-on-year, and their share of total sales rose to 32.5%, up 5.9 percentage points from the same period last year.

Notably, 99.96% of energy storage batteries are LFP batteries. This means that the expansion of the energy storage sector translates almost equivalently into incremental demand for the LFP route, and also constitutes a second growth curve for LFP distinct from ternary.

Export Acceleration: Energy Storage Exports Become the Most Active Variable

In August, combined exports of power and energy storage batteries were 42.4 GWh, up 20.4% month-on-month and 87.5% year-on-year, accounting for 19.0% of total sales that month. From January to August, cumulative exports were 259.0 GWh, up 49.6% year-on-year.

By category, power battery exports were 24.7 GWh, up 64% year-on-year; energy storage battery exports were 17.7 GWh, up 134.2% year-on-year, with their share rising 9.8 percentage points from last month. Companies such as CALB, BYD, Gotion High-tech, and EVE Energy outperformed the industry average in export growth.

From the perspective of going global, the high growth of energy storage exports aligns strongly with the cost and safety characteristics of the LFP route. The requirements of large-scale and commercial & industrial energy storage for cycle life and thermal stability objectively strengthen LFP's suitability for overseas projects; moreover, energy storage is mostly delivered on a project basis overseas, with lower dependence on localized production capacity than passenger vehicle power batteries, which also provides Chinese battery companies with a relatively flexible entry path.

Stable Vehicle Installation: LFP Share Rises to 85.6%

In terms of terminal vehicle installation, domestic power battery installations in August were 79.0 GWh, up 5.9% month-on-month and 26.3% year-on-year; cumulative installations from January to August were 489.1 GWh, up 17.0% year-on-year. Compared with the nearly 70% growth on the production and sales side, the installation side was more stable.

By material route, LFP battery installations in August were 67.6 GWh, accounting for 85.6%, up 31.0% year-on-year; ternary battery installations were 11.0 GWh, accounting for 14.0%, up 0.9% year-on-year and down 1.0% month-on-month. From January to August, cumulative LFP installations were 402.7 GWh, accounting for 82.3%, up 18.3% cumulatively; ternary was 85.6 GWh, accounting for 17.5%, up 10.6% cumulatively.

In terms of vehicle model structure, in August, battery electric vehicles accounted for 84.3% of installations, up 29.3%, while plug-in hybrid vehicles accounted for 15.7%, up 12.5%. The average battery capacity per vehicle was 69.0 kWh, up 27.9% year-on-year, with BEV and PHEV passenger cars at 64.2 kWh and 41.2 kWh, respectively; the January-August average was 69.5 kWh, up 33.1%. The volume growth of plug-in hybrid models combined with the increase in battery capacity per vehicle jointly pushed up LFP's installation share.

Corporate Landscape and Upstream Transmission

In August, a total of 31 companies achieved vehicle installation supporting, with the top 2, top 5, and top 10 accounting for 62.1%, 80.3%, and 94.1%, respectively. CATL led with 32.54 GWh and 41.45%, followed by BYD with 16.47 GWh and 20.98%, while CALB, EVE Energy, and Gotion High-tech formed the second tier. From January to August, CATL and BYD had cumulative installations of 218.2 GWh and 88.1 GWh, with shares of 44.7% and 18.1%, respectively. In January-August, the total number of supporting companies decreased by 9 year-on-year, continuing the trend of resource concentration toward the top players.

Terminal growth is being transmitted upstream along the industrial chain. According to the alliance's estimates, in August the industry consumed 82,000 tons of ternary materials, 488,000 tons of LFP materials, 332,000 tons of anode materials, and 4.74 billion square meters of separators, while ternary and LFP electrolytes were 37,000 tons and 293,000 tons, respectively.

Next Steps for Technology Routes

At the media briefing for the China EV100 Annual Meeting and High-level Forum on Smart Electric Vehicle Development (2027) on September 15, Zhang Yongwei, chairman of the China EV100 Research Institute, citing Ouyang Minggao's judgment, said that LFP will remain dominant among liquid batteries, with its shipments having exceeded TWh; looking ahead, hybrid solid-liquid and sodium-ion batteries are expected to accelerate volume growth in the next one to two years, with sodium batteries already scaling up in energy storage, low-speed vehicles, and start-stop scenarios, while all-solid-state batteries remain focused on engineering validation, with large-scale commercialization expected in 2030-2035.

For companies going global, the LFP route currently plays a supporting role of 'scale and cost,' while the scaling of sodium batteries in energy storage scenarios and the advancement of hybrid solid-liquid routes will influence overseas product portfolio choices over a longer time horizon. The five characteristics presented by August data—high production and sales growth, energy storage leading, export acceleration, stable installation, and LFP dominance—constitute a near-term benchmark for observing this evolution.