Can Beijing Tolerate an EV Battery Monopoly?
China’s giant powerpack manufacturer is entering dangerous territory. It may be the next company to feel the wrath of Xi Jinping’s big tech crackdown.
A vast ecosystem surrounds the company.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergThe world’s largest electric-vehicle battery maker is getting bigger. Whether it can maintain its global reign will come down to Beijing’s tolerance of a private enterprise’s monopoly in a key industrial sector.
China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. announced on Dec. 30 it was investing 24 billion yuan ($3.77 billion) to expand its battery production capacity in Sichuan province, maintaining its global dominance. It has also begun construction of an industrial park in Hubei to eventually power as many as 4 million electric vehicles. In addition, the firm is looking at factory sites in Poland for a total investment of around 2 billion euros, while Hungary is vying for a role in CATL’s expansion plans, too. There’s also a plant under way in Germany.