Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. (CATL), one of the world’s largest EV battery manufacturers, is expected to invest a significant amount for further expansion – similar to other South Korean companies.
According to Reuters, the Chinese company is planning a private share placement to raise up to 58.2 billion yuan (nearly $9 billion), which is enough to build several new plants.
In the case of CATL, there are six projects in the pipeline – mostly in China (including new plants in Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces), but also in Germany.
Another topic is to fund the development of battery tech for energy storage systems. We guess that it might be a potential area for the use of newly announced sodium-ion batteries.
CATL has multiple lithium-ion battery chemistries in its portfolio and with supply contracts with the largest EV manufacturers – like Tesla, Volkswagen Group and Geely – the perspectives are promising.
This decade appears to be the decade of rapid expansion of the entire EV battery market and related industries, as all-electric vehicles are on track to increase their market share from a few percent globally to a significant double-digit value by 2030.
Not only that, the average battery pack capacity is increasing, which means that the EV battery market will regularly outpace the growth of EV sales, especially when mass electrification reaches big SUVs and pickups.
For CATL, focused mostly in China, one of the most interesting things is the expansion to Germany. A relatively small 14 GWh plant has been under construction since 2019 and scheduled for series production in 2022. Only time will tell whether we will see more and bigger projects in Europe. Another question is whether an expansion to the U.S. is being considered?
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