Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Gotion High Tech Co, a Chinese battery company, said it plans to move one-third of its production capacit...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Gotion High Tech Co, a Chinese battery company, said it plans to move one-third of its production capacity outside of China by 2025. This is to meet the growing demand from electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers and home energy storage customers outside of China.
The company, which is based in Hefei, Anhui province, said in a statement on Tuesday that it plans to build a total battery production capacity of 300 gigawatt hours (GWh) in three years. This goal was first announced last year. In 2021, 16 GWh were made by Gotion.
The company said that 100 GWh of its total planned capacity would be located outside of the United States.
Chinese battery makers are speeding up their plans to increase production in markets outside of China, where competitors like Panasonic and LG Energy Solution are stronger.
Gotion's move is similar to that of its Chinese competitor CATL, which is the biggest battery company in the world and plans to start making cells at its plant in Germany by the end of the year. The chairman of CATL, Zeng Yuqun, said earlier that the company is also looking into ways to make cars for foreign automakers in their own countries.
Volkswagen is Gotion's biggest single investor, and the company said it will start building its first overseas battery plant in Gottingen, Germany, by the end of this year, with production starting as soon as September 2019.
The plant will be built on an old building that Gotion bought from Bosch last year. It will be updated, and it will develop and make batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage in Europe.
Monday, the company also showed off its first line of energy storage products for markets outside the United States.
Gotion, which makes lithium-iron phosphate batteries and is the fourth largest EV battery maker in China based on sales volume, sells its batteries to car companies like Volkswagen and Tata Group.
