Recently, CATL announced that the company will invest 7.34 billion euros to build the second European factory in Debrecen, Hungary, with a planned power battery production capacity of 100GWh. This investment far exceeds the scale of the company's construction in Germany in 2019 (1.8 billion euros, 14GWh).
Industry insiders pointed out that Europe is becoming an important battlefield for power battery companies to compete in the international market. In addition to the Ningde era, BYD, which has power battery and new energy vehicle businesses, is also deploying overseas markets such as Europe.
Compared with the German factory, CATL's investment and planned production capacity in the Hungarian factory have increased several times. According to CATL, after the approval of the shareholders meeting and other procedures, the first factory building is expected to start construction this year, and the overall construction period is not expected to exceed 64 months.
The Hungarian plant will produce cells and modules for European automakers.
CATL introduced that the Debrecen plant in Hungary is close to OEMs such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Stellantis, and Volkswagen, which will help the company to better respond to the needs of the European market, further improve its global strategic layout, and accelerate European electrification and energy transformation. It is reported that in addition to the battery production line, the company is actively discussing with local partners to jointly develop solar energy projects and establish battery material factories.
At present, CATL has ten production bases, and only one is located overseas, that is, the factory built in Germany in 2019. The factory has now obtained a license for the production of 8GWh cells, and the first batch of cells will be rolled off the production line by the end of 2022. Overseas markets are becoming more and more important to CATL. From 2019 to 2021, the proportion of overseas revenue in revenue will increase from 4.37% to 21.38%.
BYD's "going to the sea" pace is also accelerating. Recently, BYD announced to enter the passenger car market in Thailand, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Japan and other places. BYD previously disclosed the July production and sales express data showing that 4,026 new energy passenger vehicles were sold overseas that month.
