CATL,Science Fiction Archives the world’s largest electric vehicle battery maker, will build a plant in Beijing, according to a document published by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform on Jan. 11 and viewed by financial media outlet Caixin. The city’s economic planner expects the move to shore up the new energy vehicle supply chain in China’s capital, but has not revealed other details, although a person close to the company told Caixin that construction had begun. China’s capital is making efforts to become a regional EV production hub, spearheaded by locally-headquartered Xiaomi and Li Auto which both recently began factory operations with an annual capacity of 150,000 and 100,000 units respectively, in the outskirts of the city. The Chinese battery giant has, since early 2022, been running an 80 gigawatt-hour (GWh) facility in Shanghai’s Lingang area for Tesla, selling 233.4 GWh of batteries between January and November, according to figures compiled by industry tracker SNE Research. [Caixin, in Chinese]
