CATL targets battery JVs with Europe in 2025: Davos

Market: Battery materials
22/01/25

The world's largest battery maker, CATL, is looking to sign more joint ventures (JVs) with European carmakers this year, co-chair Pan Jian said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week.

"It's not healthy to concentrate too much production capacity in one space," Jian said, suggesting CATL is looking to diversify its production plants worldwide in case of supply chain bottlenecks.

CATL last month announced a JV for a 50GWh plant in Zaragoza, northeastern Spain, with Franco-Italian-American car conglomerate Stellantis, owner of 14 brands including Fiat, Jeep, Chrysler and Alfa Romeo.

The firm operates at 13 plants worldwide, including 11 in China and two in Germany and Hungary. And the firm has construction plans in Indonesia, Thailand, as well as with Ford in the US state of Michigan and with Tesla in Nevada.

CATL also supplies top models such as Tesla models 3 and Y, BMW iX, Mercedes EQ series and Volkswagen iD series in China.

Software development key to EV success

While electric vehicle (EV) sales in China surged by nearly 40pc last year, sales figures were more mixed in Europe and the US, with growth in the UK and the US, but sales falling in Germany and France.

"The bottleneck really lies in the software development capability [of legacy carmakers]," Jian said, adding the example of US carmaker Ford, which has an "internal, traditional culture [that] they need to break through", despite its "visionary" chief executive, Jim Farley.

German carmaker Volkswagen is hoping to make itself an exception, after having announced a 49:51 JV with Chinese tech firm Thundersoft in 2023 to develop connectivity and infotainment, to build "innovative and smart cockpits", among other features.

The firm also bought a 5pc stake in Chinese EV maker Xpeng in 2023 and announced a charging partnership earlier this month. Volkswagen's battery EV (BEV) sales in China last year rose by 8.1pc to 207,400 units.

Elsewhere, western carmakers have struggled to integrate tech into EVs. US carmaker General Motors incurred a $600mn loss last year after ending production of its Cruise Origin autonomous vehicle.

US tech giant Amazon also invested heavily in Rivian in 2019, which has struggled to scale up sales and fallen behind as the fifth-largest EV maker in the US past year, far behind Tesla.

Autonomous driving start-up Waymo, owned by Alphabet, last May was reportedly being investigated by US safety regulators following a series of crashes involving its autonomous robotaxis.

And US tech giant Apple cancelled plans last February to launch a self-driving EV after spending $10bn on the project, codenamed ‘Titan'. British firm Dyson, known for making hoovers and hair dryers, cancelled its own EV plans in 2019.

By Chris Welch

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