2024-09-09 15:30:10
Faced with the flow of executives from automotive brands from around the world, who come to visit their battery supplier, it is necessary to open a hotel in 2023 near the headquarters of Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL). The establishment faces the tower, built like a huge battery, which dominates a series of factories spread over 481 hectares in Ningde, in Fujian province, on the coast, halfway between Guangzhou and Shanghai.
Nothing is planned for the city of the third level, without the airport, to become the new world capital of new energy vehicles. The rise has been meteoric to the point that, when the Chinese government in this sector, the goal for this century, was mentioned, this group alone describes this success: its production lines currently produce almost 40% of the world’s car batteries .
Its main competitor, BYD – the car brand which, due to its success in China, is the world number one in electric cars – also supplies batteries to other manufacturers and has a 15.8% market share in the sector. Thus, only two Chinese groups dominate 55% of the battery market. By adding more modest Chinese suppliers, the country has control over two-thirds of the global automotive battery market, ahead of a few South Korean players (LG in particular) and Japan. This trend is only strengthened, month after month, today moving CATL to the heart of geopolitical tensions, between China working in an endless race for production and Western states that fear this reliance on a country that consider their first candidate.
We can’t blame consumers for not having heard of this giant targeting manufacturers. Its name, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, is not exciting and not even the same in China, where it is known simply as “Ningde Shidai”. – “Ningde time” –well in tune with this new hegemony. However, whether you have a Peugeot e-208, a Volkswagen ID.4.4, an iX SUV, from BMW, or a Q4 e-tron, from Audi, or even a luxurious Mercedes EQS, a car thanks to the CATL battery. The same goes if you can afford the electric version of the Porsche Macan. Tesla is not giving up, CATL estimates that it has supplied with two million batteries so far. The group, founded thirteen years ago, claims to have supplied one in three of the forty million electric vehicles worldwide.
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