CATL's New Battery Factory Able To Produce One Battery Cell Per Second

The latest CATL factory. (Doc. ArenaEV)

JAKARTA - World's largest electric vehicle battery manufacturer, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) built a new factory located in Baru Guian District, or in the southwestern region of Guizhou Province, China.

The factory, which is already operating in the first phase, is able to produce one cell every second, and can assemble a full battery in just 2.5 minutes.

This first phase factory, quoted from the ArenaEV website, Tuesday, October 31, has an area of about 590,000 square meters with an investment value of 895 million euros. This new factory has an automation rate of 95 percent.

While the production capacity reaches 30 GWh per year, and is targeted to reach 60 GWh per year in the second stage.

According to SNE Research, a South Korean market research firm, CATL has a global market share of 36.9 percent from January to August. This makes it the world's largest battery producer, and the only company that managed to surpass 30 percent during that period.

However, in the third quarter there was a 4.3 percent decrease in CATL's net profit, but the company still got an extraordinary increase, reaching 10.7 percent compared to last year.

In addition, CATL's domestic market share has also experienced a slight decline this year. Data from China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance (CABIA) shows that as of September, CATL's market share was 39.41 percent. This is the first time it has decreased below 40 percent since April the previous year.

However, it is possible that the battery manufacturer will achieve more success, as demand increases with the rapid development of the EV industry in a number of countries.