CATL, the world’s largest battery maker, is considering expanding its battery-swapping business overseas to meet rising demand from electric vehicle manufacturers, the company said on Wednesday. The high-speed swapping stations replace batteries in electric vehicles as fast as gas cars can be filled up with fuel and are especially useful when drivers run out of charge away from home or office. CATL has already built three large battery swapping stations in China, and plans to build more across the country next year, the company said at a news conference in Shanghai.
According to a senior official who spoke to CNBC, the largest manufacturer of electric car batteries in the world, CATL, is considering expanding its battery swapping business to other markets.
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited, sometimes known as CATL, is a provider to organisations including Tesla and Ford.
The EVOGO battery changing service was introduced by a Chinese battery manufacturer in January in ten Chinese cities. The idea is to do away with the requirement that electric vehicles stop at charging facilities. Instead, when their other battery runs out, drivers may hire battery packs from CATL and install them in their vehicles. This only takes a few minutes.
Nio, a Chinese electric vehicle start-up, also has a competing battery switching scheme. According to Nio co-founder Qin Lihong, the business intends to increase that by constructing 1,000 battery switching stations outside of China by 2025, with the bulk being located in Europe.
In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Li Xiaoning, executive president of international commercial application at CATL, stated that the business is also considering expanding its battery switching solution into Europe.
“In my judgement, this will probably start in China this year. Li promised that we would gradually explore EVOGO’s global reach.
“We are starting to evaluate the possibility of cooperating with many partners. He mentioned that in order to understand the details in practise. ” We consider a variety of criteria. Product technology is one thing, but we also need to take other factors into account, such as the business case, the legislation, local regulations, and other issues of a similar nature.
If CATL expands its business internationally, it could be able to provide battery swapping services to customers without having to make the expensive infrastructure-related investments.
The rising cost of the raw materials required to create CATL’s batteries, such lithium, is one problem the company is facing.
Nevertheless, the company was nevertheless able to more than treble its earnings in the second quarter, despite the sustained strength of the demand for electric vehicles.
