, Columnist
Tesla May Be Trampled by CATL in China
The battery maker is the stuff that technology domination dreams are made of.
Photographer: Zhang Peng/LightRocket/Getty Images
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Sorry, Elon Musk. By the looks of it, every car of the future will be equipped with a powerful and cheap battery made in, and more importantly by, China.
This month, Nissan Motor Co. and Daimler AG put in orders for electric-car batteries with an emerging Chinese champion, privately held Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., or CATL. Volkswagen AG is already a customer, as is the joint venture of BMW AG and Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd. That’s quite an endorsement of the battery maker’s know-how.