CATL considers recycling factory in Europe

The Chinese battery market leader CATL is said to be in talks about setting up a battery recycling business in Europe. Negotiations are apparently already taking place with European governments about possible locations. Hungary is likely one of them.

This was reported by Bloomberg, citing Jason Chen, who heads CATL’s operational business in Europe. According to the report, the meeting took place in Budapest – not without coincidence: CATL is known to be building a large battery factory in Hungary, and the new plant in Debrecen will supply BMW and Mercedes-Benz, among others. Hungary has shown itself to be open to investment from China in the past: BYD is already building electric buses there, as well as a plant for electric cars.

According to Chen, CATL wants to alleviate “environmental concerns regarding the production and disposal of batteries” by setting up a recycling infrastructure – the company could then process its own used batteries and, above all, production waste. In addition to CATL subsidiary Brunp Recycling, European companies are also being considered as potential partners. However, Chen did not mention any names.

CATL already has an active cell factory in Thuringia in Germany; the one in Debrecen is to be added in the second half of next year with an initial 40 GWh per year – expansion to 100 GWh is planned at a later date. A recycling plant close to (or between) the cell factories would make sense in order to keep transport routes short. It is not known whether Germany is also in the running for the recycling plant – no countries other than Hungary are mentioned.

CATL customer Mercedes-Benz only recently opened its recycling pilot plant in Kuppenheim, Baden. However, nothing is known about a possible co-operation in Europe. In China, however, Mercedes is working together with CATL’s recycling subsidiary Brunp. The situation is similar at Volvo, where a recycling partnership with CATL has been in place since April, initially also for the Chinese market.

CATL’s recycling plans for Europe are not completely new: as early as mid-2023, CATL’s Head of Production Ni Jun made statements about negotiations for a European recycling project “with a specific partner”, although the name of this partner was not mentioned. At the time, there was also talk of not just one, but ‘many locations in Europe’. It is not known in detail whether the talks with the partner at the time have come to nothing, but it is likely. Chen is now talking about a search for a partner. This would be superfluous if the 2023 negotiations had been successful.

cnevpost.com, bloomberg.com (Paywall)