The world’s largest manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles is to build a 100 gigawatt-hour plant of which Mercedes-Benz will be the first customer.
China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) will invest $7.54 billion to build a factory in Hungary, the world’s largest maker of batteries for electric vehicles announced on Friday.
This 100 gigawatt-hour plant in Debrecen in eastern Hungary will be the largest investment project in the country, according to Hungarian officials.
This will be CATL’s second battery factory in Europe, after a first in Germany.
German automaker Mercedes-Benz said it would be “the first and biggest customer” of the new plant.
Senior Mercedes-Benz official Markus Schaefer called the plant “an important new milestone for the development of [leur] electricity production with [leurs] key partners”, emphasizing that it would produce batteries for the German manufacturer while being neutral in terms of CO2 emissions2.
Construction is expected to begin this year following shareholder approval, CATL said in a statement.
Spread over 221 hectares in an industrial complex, the plant will supply other European manufacturers, CATL said.
CATL’s other customers besides Mercedes-Benz include BMW, Stellantis and Volkswagen.
“There is no doubt that our Debrecen plant will allow us to strengthen our competitive advantage, better meet the demand of our European customers and accelerate our transition to electric mobility in Europe,” says CATL boss Robin Zeng in the press release.
Through a policy of opening to the East”, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has sought to strengthen his country’s ties with Russia and China in recent years, drawing criticism from the opposition in this member country. of the European Union.
“Today we end more than two years of negotiations, which lead to the achievement of the largest investment in the history of our country,” a senior Hungarian foreign ministry official Levente Magyar said in a video. posted on Facebook about the project.