Tesla extends China CATL's battery supply to 2025

China's largest power battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) has extended its supply agreement with electric vehicle producer Tesla to the end of 2025.

This follows a two-year supply agreement signed by the two firms in early 2020. More details including the supply volumes and models of power battery were undisclosed.

CATL's mainly supplies the lithium-ion battery using the lithium phosphate cathode material to Tesla, according to market participants.

Tesla initially used power batteries comprising the lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminum oxide cathode material produced by Panasonic from its US factory. It then added LG Chem to its supply chain with LG Chem's power battery using lithium-nickel-cobalt-manganese oxide, after it established the Shanghai factory. It then signed the purchase agreement with CATL in early 2020.

CATL reported a sales volume of 46.84GWh of lithium-ion batteries in 2020, with year-on-year growth of 14.7pc, including 44.45GWh of power batteries, up by 10.4pc from a year earlier. According to data issued by China Automotive Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, China's installed volume of power batteries totalled 63.6GWh in 2020, including CATL's 31.8GWh, with a market share of 50pc.

By the end of 2020, CATL's production capacity of power battery systems stood at 69.1GWh, with a capacity utilisation rate of 74.8pc.

Tesla Shanghai began production in November 2019. The plant had a capacity of 250,000 units/yr in 2020 and sales of 137,459 in the same year, according to China's Automotive Manufacturers Association data. It is projected to raise capacity to 500,000 units/yr in 2021. Tesla at the end of 2019 launched production of Model 3 and Model Y at the end of 2020.

Top 10 power battery manufacturers in the Chinese market Company Installed volume (GWh) Ratio (%) CATL 31.79 50 BYD 9.48 15 LG Chem 4.13 6 AVIC Lithium Battery 3.55 6 Gotion High-tech 3.32 5 Panasonic 2.24 4 Energy Very Endure (EVE) 1.18 2 Ruipu Energy 0.95 2 Tianjin Lishen 0.92 1 Farasis Energy 0.85 1 Total 58.41 92 Source: China Automotive Battery Industry Innovation Alliance Tesla&#39;s global delivery of electric vehicles Year No. of vehicles y-o-y &#177; % 2016 76,230 51 2017 103,084 35 2018 245,240 138 2019 367,800 50 2020 499,550 36 Sources: Tesla, public information

Related News