Chinese battery giant CATL, which soared on its Hong Kong debut Tuesday, is a domestic success story with a risk-taking founder and global ambitions — but has found itself in the crossfire of a superpower clash for tech dominance.
CATL — whose shares are already traded in Shenzhen — raised more than US$4.6 billion from its Hong Kong initial public offering, the world’s largest so far this year.
The company produced more than a third of all EV batteries sold worldwide in 2023, working with many major automotive brands including Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen.
Its batteries offer some of the fastest charging speeds in the world — this year, the firm said its Shenxing Superfast Charging Battery can add 520 kilometres (323 miles) of driving range after just five minutes of charging and withstand freezing temperatures.
That’s 30 percent faster than main competitor BYD’s Super-e platform, which claims to deliver around 400 kilometres of range in five minutes.
Founded in 2011, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited’s success has been buoyed by strong policy support from Beijing, which has poured billions into clean energy in the past decade and pushed to ensure self-reliance in high-tech sectors viewed as strategically vital.
Its cheap, ultra-fast batteries have also been cited as a key driver behind the rapid rise of the Chinese EV market, which is now the world’s largest.
It has also weathered a brutal price war between giants in the sector, with sales taking a hit as broader consumption in the country slumps.
Powerhouse
Billionaire CEO and founder Robin Zeng — once dubbed China’s “battery king” — is the country’s fifth richest person and the world’s 45th wealthiest, according to Bloomberg.
The firm’s name in Chinese pays tribute to his hometown, the coastal eastern city of Ningde.
On his blog Interconnected, tech writer and investor Kevin Xu described Zeng’s story as “classically rags to riches” in which he turned his “backwater town to a battery powerhouse”.
He describes Zeng as a risk-taker and a “gambler” who has deftly charted the firm through regulatory uncertainty and fierce competition from domestic rivals.
But CATL has also found itself at the centre of a struggle between the United States and China for tech dominance.
The superpowers are fighting for the upper hand in developing advanced technologies critical to the functioning of the modern economy, including batteries, computer chips and artificial intelligence.
CATL’s plans for a collaboration with car giant Ford on a US$3.5 billion plant in Marshall, Michigan, drew national security concerns last year.
And in January, the United States defence department released a list that designated CATL as a “Chinese military company”.
The firm has denied engaging in military activities, and Beijing has denounced the move as “suppression”.
Proceeds from the firm’s IPO could be used to ramp up its plans for overseas expansion — particularly in Europe.
It is currently constructing its second factory on the continent in Hungary after opening its first in Germany in January 2023.
‘Thrive under pressure’
And the firm said in December that it would work with Stellantis — which also owns the Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and RAM truck brands — to make EV batteries in Spain, with production slated to begin by the end of 2026.
It has even signed deals as far afield as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it signed an agreement in 2021 with one of the world’s largest cobalt producers to develop a mine.
And in Bolivia, its subsidiary CBC signed a US$1 billion deal last year to build two lithium carbonate production plants in the country’s southwest.
CATL is aiming to pre-empt shifting trends in the EV sector, launching last month a sodium-ion battery, viewed as a cheaper and safer alternative to the lithium-ion batteries that are widely used in both electronics and EVs but pose a fire risk if damaged.
“CATL became CATL because the government helped, but not so much that it became lazy,” investor Xu wrote.
“Competition… also helped, battle-testing its technology and supply chain, but not before it got a leg up from the protectionist subsidies first,” Xu said.
“Most intriguingly, it got an innate but prodigious gambler at the helm, who was born too poor to ever feel loss aversion… astute enough to read government policy tea leaves and paranoid enough to always thrive, not die, under pressure.”
