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CATL, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicle batteries, plans to bring battery swapping and recycling technology to Europe amid the global battle to ensure a more sustainable EV supply chain.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Jiang Li, the board secretary of the Chinese group, said that replacing batteries with fully charged ones has “great potential” to make batteries cheaper and lasting in Europe.
The technology, pioneered by Chinese electric car manufacturer NIO, takes minutes and reduces the upfront cost of purchasing an electric car, as drivers don’t own their own batteries. It also allows the cells to last longer.
CATL Chairman Jiang Li said international cooperation is important to ensure a sustainable battery supply chain ©CATL
Battery replacements were slow to expand outside of China due to the high cost of building the required service stations. But it has gained traction amid growing geopolitical tensions and growing concerns about the battery supply chain behind growth in EV sales.
Other companies are already beginning to introduce battery replacements to Europe. NIO operates 60 power swap stations in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Stellantis recently brought battery replacements to a fleet of Spanish Fiat 500 electric vehicles via Free2Move’s car sharing service.
However, CATL, which added the list of Hong Kong in May, has extensive plans. They hope to build 1,000 battery swap stations and 10,000 stations in three years by the end of this year.
“Then you can copy your business model in Europe and elsewhere,” Li said at an event in London. The group added that it has already been debated using carmakers using swapping technology on the continent.
Li’s comments are as Brussels puts pressure on Chinese companies entering the EU automotive market to form a joint venture with European companies or licensing portion of technology.
Li said international cooperation is important to ensure a sustainable battery supply chain. The US-led country aims to reduce its dependence on China on key minerals that are essential for the transition to electric vehicles. Companies are also looking for ways to make batteries last longer and recycle materials for reuse.
CATL already has approved battery manufacturing technology for Ford and Tesla and has a joint venture with Stellantis to build a 4.1 billion euro lithium battery factory in Spain.
“We face some challenges in geopolitics, but we are still open to working together, especially in research and development,” he added. “We don’t want to make money from just one company. We want to share it.”
CATL Battery Swapping Station © Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
CATL is partnering with the non-profit organization The Ellen MacArthur Foundation on initiatives designed to create a circular economy. “To create that market demand (for the circular economy), we need a crisis and a turning point. This is right now.”
CATL, which acquired China’s battery recycling group BRUNP in 2015, claims it can achieve a 100% recycling rate of core critical minerals such as nickel, cobalt and manganese. Swapping technology can be collected in large quantities from service stations rather than individual vehicles, making it easier to recycle batteries.
Li warned that CATL wants to bring recycling technology to Europe, but the more strict regulations and costs, the more difficult it will be to establish profitable businesses on the continent.
In China, CATL has signed up over 12 truck makers to use batteries as part of a broader strategy to diversify revenue streams.
The group also plans to install as many as 300 swapping stations on many of China’s major trucking routes, with the aim of expanding its network to 150,000km of highways and trunk roads.
