CATL starts construction of its first overseas factory in Germany

"Germany is home to a strong automotive industry and several of CATL's key customers," says Matthias Zentgraf, Co-president Europe CATL, in a press release. "We believe that the combination of Germany's industrial tradition and CATL's tradition of innovative battery technology will greatly accelerate the electrification of the automotive industry in Europe." CATL has developed partnerships with a slew of European companies in automobile industry including BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler, Volvo, and Bosch. After purchasing the former property from Solarworld, CATL starts a new stage of capacity expansion to achieve 14GWh production capacity of battery by 2022. Production lines for both battery cells and modules will be finalised in this phase of expansion. To enable the production, a comprehensive support team will be developed in Thuringia, including logistics, quality management, operations maintenance and local purchasing and development departments. Experts from CATL's headquarters in the fields of technology, process and management will also come and support the Thuringia factory for a smooth start-up phase. Since June this year, CATL has been on site with the first employees, and up to 2,000 jobs will be created by 2024/2025. "Thuringia is centrally located, enabling us to respond to customer requests in a timely fashion. And the availability of renewable energy, which already reaches almost 40% in the public network of Thuringia, is another important decision criterion." Matthias Zentgraf continues, "And finally, thanks to the support from the Thuringian Ministry of Economic Affairs and the LEG Thuringia, we believe Thuringia's manufacturing and R&D environment will contribute to CATL's development."