Today we saw several interesting tweets that shed new light on the Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) and Tesla partnership in China.
According to the Chinese media (via Moneyball), CATL CEO Zhou Jia said that Tesla intends to produce its own batteries (no surprise here as they acquired Maxwell for a reason), but “their technical roadmap will not have an impact on us.” We are not sure whether it’s because Tesla making its own batteries is far into the future or initially small scale, or something else.
“Musk told me that Tesla wants to make its own batteries. From what I know, their technical roadmap will not have an impact on us. Currently, both parties are together exploring how to make batteries better, #China media citing #CATL CEO.”
The second thing is that CATL should start supplying batteries to Tesla during the second half of 2020, but it seems the agreement is not specific to a certain type of chemistry. It might be LFP (probably including cell-to-pack design) or NCM (including NCM 811).
“We should start supplying batteries to Tesla in H2. Supply is not limited to either #LFP or ternary batteries. What is supplied will depend on market demand, China media citing #CATL CEO.”
CATL is also busy at work with its latest cell-to-pack LFP batteries, called a “disruptive product”.
“Currently, the progress on our cobalt free battery R&D is going smoothly. We are currently trying to figure out supply chain as it is a completely new, disruptive product, #China media citing #CATL CEO on company’s #cobalt free #battery products.”