CATL to build battery packs in third-party factories

The battery packs produced there are used in electric cars from Aito, a brand of Seres and Huawei. With the so-called ‘factory-in-factory’ model, CATL wants to help its customers speed up production and delivery and thus shorten the waiting time for end customers, according to reports. In the case of the new production facility for Aito, it is CATL’s first production facility in Chongqing. However, the annual production capacity of the plant is not mentioned.

According to reports from China, the term ‘factory-in-factory’ should be taken literally. Although the CATL plant is fully integrated into the partner’s larger industrial site, it is operated entirely by CATL itself. As CATL CEO Robin Zeng stated at the opening, the new facility at the Seres plant is the company’s “CATL’s most advanced intelligent and digital production line.”

Aito was founded in December 2021 as a brand for premium electric cars. Aito is usually referred to as a brand of Seres and Huawei, but it is officially not a joint venture, instead being owned by Seres. Huawei is merely an important partner and supplies components and software. Huawei also sells the Aito vehicles through its own sales network.

CATL is also an important partner, as an agreement concluded between Seres and the battery manufacturer in August 2022 stipulates that all Aito vehicles will be equipped with CATL batteries by 2027. The brand has sold around 700,000 cars to date. However, the cooperation between Seres and CATL goes beyond vehicle batteries; a large photovoltaic project including buffer batteries for the energy supply of the Seres factory is also currently under construction in Chongqing.

However, the new CATL production plant at the Seres factory will probably not only produce lithium-ion batteries. As CarNewsChina reports, Aito is planning a new volume model called M6, which will be equipped with a “sodium-containing 12C battery pack from CATL.” The sodium-containing Freevoy battery pack is apparently to be used in the EREV version of the M6 with range extender, while the BEV version is to receive the Qilin battery from CATL. For the Freevoy battery, which is designed for plug-in hybrids and EREVs, it has already been confirmed that it also contains sodium-ion technology, but so far, the charging capacity has been stated as 4C. 12C would be a huge advancement and would enable very short charging times of just a few minutes.

yicaiglobal.com, carnewschina.com (production plans), carnewschina.com (Aito M6)