In recent years, CATL has continued to accelerate its globalization, and has established ten battery production bases, nine of which are located in China and one in Germany, which was put into production in April this year. At the same time, CATL's factories in the United States and Indonesia are also making intensive preparations. Now, CATL has set its sights on the Mexican market again. CATL plans to invest 33.7 billion yuan to build a battery factory in Mexico to supply batteries for Tesla and Ford.

It is understood that CATL has been supplying Tesla since July 2020. Tesla will become CATL's largest customer for the first time in 2021, purchasing a total of 13 billion yuan of lithium batteries, accounting for 10% of CATL's total revenue. Lisa Drake, chief operating officer of Ford Motor, also announced in December 2021 that five companies including CATL have been selected as power battery suppliers for Ford vehicles. Ningde Times later responded that the customer's caliber shall prevail.

Specifically, CATL Mexico currently has two candidate addresses, namely Juarez, Chihuahua, and Saltillo, Coahuila, both of which are located near Texas, USA. state's Mexican border. It is worth mentioning that the US state of Texas is the location of Tesla's new headquarters. The Texas factory is Tesla's sixth super factory after California, Nevada, New York, Shanghai, and Berlin. It is also the largest Tesla factory in the world. It covers an area of 12,000 acres and has been put into operation in April 2022. close to 1000.

Additionally, the city of Juarez is geographically close to the San Jeronimo-Santa Teresa port in New Mexico, USA, a shipping route that bypasses the Texas border crossing. Saltillo is not only geographically close to Texas, but Coahuila, where it is located, is the most important auto parts production base in Mexico, where General Motors and Mercedes-Benz once built factories. CATL may split its planned investment into two parts, one for a plant in Mexico and the other for a plant in the United States, but no final decision has been made.

In March 2022, it was reported that CATL was considering investing US$5 billion to build a battery factory with an annual capacity of 80GWh in North America. At that time, foreign media also mentioned in the report that among the three North American countries, CATL is more likely to choose to build a factory in Mexico, and its executives have also traveled to Mexico to investigate potential plant locations. In May, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, responded to the company's establishment of a factory in North America at the performance briefing, saying that the company discussed various possible supply and cooperation plans with American customers, as well as the possibility of localized production, but the specific circumstances Factors such as worker training, efficiency, unions, etc., need to be considered for the impact on quality and cost.

CATL's US battery factory has entered the final stage of review. The plant, which will supply both BMW and Ford, includes Kentucky and South Carolina, near BMW's South Carolina plant and Ford's Kentucky plant, respectively. In addition to laying out the North American market, CATL also went overseas to Indonesia. A few days ago, Septian Hario Seto, deputy minister of the Ministry of Oceans and Investment of Indonesia, said in an interview with foreign media that CATL will invest US$5 billion to build a lithium battery factory in Indonesia. Keywords: engineering news, overseas news

It is also worth mentioning that on April 4, 2022, CATL’s first overseas factory in Thuringia, Germany, officially obtained the 8GWh battery cell production license, and plans to officially start production before the end of 2022. If the news of the construction of a factory in Mexico is true, the global layout of CATL will take another important step.Editor/XingWentao