CATL is considering three countries – Germany, Poland, Hungary, which strongly support battery investments and are close to EV assembly facilities.
Poland was already chosen by LG Chem, while Hungary got the nod from Samsung SDI.
For CATL, it would be its first factory outside of China, but that’s the way to go as the European market is expanding. Among customers, BMW was mentioned.
There are no numbers, but Bloomberg suggests that CATL’s capacity in Europe will be bigger than Tesla’s Gigafactory.
“Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. is close to picking one of three sites in the European Union for its first overseas plant, Chairman Zeng Yuqun said in an interview. The company is exploring Germany, Hungary and Poland for the plant, according to a person familiar with the plan who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public.
“We see a big opportunity in Europe,” Zeng said on the sidelines of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Beijing. “Korean companies, using a low-price strategy to compete with us, haven’t made much technological progress in the past two years, while we have managed to grow fast and surpass them.”
The European factory wouldn’t be CATL’s only addition though. A new factory in Ningde, Fujian is planned to “quintuple its production capability and make it the world’s largest EV battery cell maker”.
