Chinese cash is set to fuel Europe’s green mobility challenge. More than one in five cars sold in the continent last year was electric, making the region the world’s second largest market for e-vehicles after China. That offers an enticing new opportunity for the battery makers from the People’s Republic, which already supply European brands such as Volkswagen , BMW and Stellantis , as well as globetrotting compatriots like Volvo-owner Geely. Over-reliance on Chinese market leader CATL and its peers could be a risk. But rival European battery groups are still scarce, and global carmakers have more to gain than lose.
of EU carmakers facing tit-for-tat measures in the Chinese car market, the world’s largest.
first announced its mega factory in Shanghai in 2018, the plant’s mooted output of 500,000 vehicles per year was equivalent to nearly half of the entire country’s annual electric-car sales at the time, making it a formidable competitor for smaller Chinese brands. Indeed by 2020, a year after the first car rolled off its new production line, Elon Musk’s company sold more than twice that target and its flagship Model 3 was China’s best-seller. But Tesla’s giant factory also offered benefits for.
Given the chance, Chinese battery makers can power up Europe’s own supply chains, and its auto companies too.China’s global investments into the supply chain for electric car batteries rose to 14.2 billion euros in 2022, up from 3.4 billion euros a year earlier, according to a report published by the Mercator Institute for China Studies on May 9. Hungary and Spain together accounted for 8.2 billion euros of total investments.
The report also showed that Chinese greenfield investment into Europe's battery segment grew by 55% to 4.5 billion euros last year, driven by a series of large-scale investments into manufacturing sites by manufacturers CATL, Envision AESC and SVOLT.
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