Contemporary Amperex Technology Thuringia GmbH (CATT), CATL's first battery cell manufacturing plant outside of China, has recently received its second partial approval for commissioning from the state of Thuringia, Germany. The plant is expected to roll out cells off its assembly lines by the end of this year.
The CATL's plant, which is also Germany's first battery factory, has got approval for an initial capacity of 8 GWh per year. With a total investment of 1.8 billion euros, the company plans to achieve a production capacity of 14 GWh and create over 2,000 jobs in Germany in the coming years.
It is located in the Erfurter Kreuz industrial area in Amt Wachsenburg, Thuringia state, which is considered a prime location to provide high-quality products and services for major carmakers in the country, thus promoting the electric mobility and energy transformation in Europe, according to CATL.
"CATT provides a fundamental impetus for the urgently needed energy transition, and we are glad to be the first company to receive approval to manufacture batteries 'Made in Germany'," said Matthias Zentgraf, CATL's President for Europe.
He further added that the cooperation with the authorities during the approval process worked in an exemplary manner.
CATT consists of two buildings - G1, an existing building purchased from another company and where cells are assembled into modules, and G2 - a newly-built plant where cells will be produced. The recent approval was issued to permit cell production of G2.
Construction of the plant is in the final stages, with the installation of machines going in full swing. The company claims that the plant is almost as complex as a chip factory, with clean rooms, technical cleanliness, and constant humidity. Meanwhile, the plant generates part of its power from the solar power panels on the rooftop of the building to produce energy sustainably.
CATL is one of the prime battery cell suppliers of Tesla, especially in China where the automaker is sourcing the company's lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells for its standard-range variants. It is yet to be seen whether CATL will supply to Tesla's new Giga factory in the Berlin-Brandenburg region in Germany.
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