Faced with the influx of executives from car brands around the world to visit their battery supplier, a hotel had to be opened in 2023 near the headquarters of Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL). The establishment faces the tower, shaped like a giant battery, which dominates the complex of factories spread over 481 hectares in Ningde, in Fujian province, on the Chinese coast, halfway between Guangzhou and Shanghai.
Nothing predestined this third-tier city, without an airport, to become the new world capital of new energy vehicles. Its rise has been meteoric to the point that, when mentioning China’s dominance in this sector, which is decisive for this century, this group alone illustrates this success: its production lines currently produce nearly 40% of the world’s car batteries.
Its main competitor, BYD – a car brand that, thanks to its success in China, is the world’s number one in electric cars – also supplies batteries to other manufacturers and has a 15.8% market share in the sector.
Two Chinese groups alone now dominate 55% of the battery market. By adding even more modest suppliers from the Middle Kingdom, the country controls two-thirds of the world market, ahead of a few South Korean players (LG in particular) and Japan. This trend is only getting stronger month after month, placing CATL at the heart of geopolitical tensions today, between China in an unlimited race for production and Western states which fear this dependence on a country considered their main strategic competitor.
We can’t blame consumers for never having heard of this giant that targets manufacturers. Its name, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, is not evocative and is not even the same in China, where it is known simply as “Ningde Shidai”. – the “Ningde era” –very much in tune with this new hegemony. However, whether you own a Peugeot e-208, a Volkswagen ID.4, a BMW iX SUV, an Audi Q4 e-tron, or even the luxurious Mercedes EQS, the motorist drives thanks to a CATL battery. The same is true if you can afford an electric Porsche Macan. Tesla is not left out, CATL estimates that it has so far supplied it with two million batteries. The group, founded thirteen years ago, claims to have equipped one in three vehicles among the forty million electric cars on the road worldwide.
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