Robin Zeng (Zeng Yuqun)
Data verified as of Sep 10, 2026
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), founded in Ningde, Fujian in 2011 by Robin Zeng and Huang Shilin, is the largest battery manufacturer on Earth and the single most important company in the electrification of transport and the grid. It took 40.2% of global EV battery installations between January and May 2026, roughly three times its nearest rival, and has ranked first worldwide in energy-storage battery shipments for five consecutive years, shipping 121 GWh of storage cells in 2025. FY2025 revenue reached RMB423.7B (about $61B) with net profit up 42% to RMB72.2B, and H1 2026 accelerated hard: revenue of RMB276.9B (up 54.8%) and net profit of RMB43.3B (up 42.0%), with grid storage now nearly a fifth of the business at RMB53.2B. The product line spans the Shenxing superfast-charging LFP battery (third generation charges 10-80% in 3 minutes 44 seconds), the Qilin and Qilin Condensed high-density packs, the Freevoy hybrid battery, the Naxtra sodium-ion battery entering full mass production by the end of 2026, and the TENER grid-storage family, whose sodium-ion variant launched in June 2026. CATL raised $5.2B in a May 2025 Hong Kong listing, the largest IPO in the world that year, and is spending it on a European build-out: a 40 GWh cell plant in Debrecen, Hungary and a 50 GWh LFP joint venture with Stellantis in Zaragoza, Spain. Its technology now reaches the US indirectly through licensing, with Ford's BlueOval Battery Park Michigan starting operations on CATL-licensed LFP chemistry in June 2026, even as CATL itself remains on the Pentagon's Section 1260H list of Chinese military companies.
Company OverviewRead the long-form profile of CATLThe LFP fast-charging platform that made four-minute charging a mainstream expectation. The third generation, launched in April 2026, peaks at a 15C charging rate and takes a pack from 10% to 80% state of charge in 3 minutes 44 seconds, holds above 90% capacity retention after 1,000 full cycles, and still charges from 20% to 98% in around nine minutes at -30C.
Third generation launched April 2026 and rolling out across Chinese automaker platforms
CATL's bet that the cheapest path past lithium is table salt. Naxtra reaches 175 Wh/kg, effectively matching LFP energy density while using no lithium, nickel or cobalt, and performs far better in extreme cold. CATL has said sodium-ion could eventually displace 30% to 40% of the existing battery market, and is deploying it across battery swapping, passenger cars, commercial vehicles and grid storage. The first mass-produced sodium-ion passenger EV, the Changan Nevo A06, was shown in February 2026.
Chief Scientist Wu Kai confirmed on May 30, 2026 that the four manufacturing bottlenecks were resolved; full-scale mass production remains targeted by the end of 2026
CATL's grid-scale storage family and the product behind its five-year run as the world's largest storage battery supplier. The original TENER packs 6.25 MWh into a 20-foot container with claimed zero degradation across its first five years; the TENER Stack raised that to 9 MWh in May 2025. TENER Sodium, launched June 22, 2026, is billed as the first field-validated sodium-ion grid storage system, rated above 30 MWh per system with 15,000 cycles to 70% state of health, roughly 25 to 30 years of service.
Shipping at scale (121 GWh of storage cells in 2025); TENER Sodium deliveries start in China in September 2026
CATL's battery system for passenger eVTOLs, built on prismatic cells with energy density as high as 350 Wh/kg. Around August 9-10, 2026 the system passed a thermal-runaway propagation test - triggering two adjacent cells simultaneously at both the center and corners of the pack - with no propagation to other cells in any test, a result CATL and China's CAAC, which was involved in manufacturing, inspection and testing, describe as a world first for a prismatic-cell aviation battery at this energy density.
Passed thermal-runaway propagation safety test around August 9-10, 2026 and ready for mass production; first application will be Autoflight's passenger eVTOLs, in which CATL is a strategic investor
Restart Jianxiawo after a new environmental impact assessment
Regulators revoked Jianxiawo's environmental approval after a brief informal restart in June and July 2026 left a tailings-pond dispute unresolved, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. CATL must redo the EIA; BMI cut 2026 mined output to 32,000 tonnes of LCE from 62,500 tonnes and said the review could slip into the fourth quarter of 2026 or 2027.
Deliver 3 GWh ContourGlobal order across three countries
ContourGlobal awarded CATL a contract, reported August 11, 2026, to supply containerized liquid-cooled battery energy storage systems for three projects: Los Maitenes in Chile (131 MWp solar plus 90 MW/360 MWh storage, targeted for commercial operation by end of 2027), Taxiarches in Greece (100 MW/400 MWh), and the Wallace project in Scotland (500 MW/2,000 MWh, still in advanced development). The roughly 3 GWh deal uses CATL's large-format LFP cells packaged in 526 containers, with delivery flexibility built in to match each project's development pace.
Take Naxtra sodium-ion to full-scale mass production
Chief Scientist Wu Kai confirmed on May 30, 2026 that CATL has cleared the four manufacturing bottlenecks (extreme water control, gas generation in hard carbon, aluminium foil adhesion, and self-forming anode systems) and reaffirmed full mass production by the end of 2026. Commercial demand is already validated by an April 27, 2026 three-year, 60 GWh supply deal with Hyperstrong, the largest sodium-ion battery order to date. CATL said on August 20, 2026 it now expects sodium-ion cells to reach cost parity with LFP by end of 2026, citing over 90% capacity retention at minus 20 Celsius and roughly triple LFP's discharge power at minus 30 Celsius; China customer deliveries begin in September 2026 with global shipments to follow within a year. Success would put a lithium-free chemistry into volume cars and grid projects at once.
Start cell production at the 40 GWh Debrecen plant in Hungary
CATL's first greenfield European cell factory has finished construction with its 40 GWh initial capacity already fully booked, but cell production remains stuck behind final environmental permits - Hungary's new government is applying stricter standards than the prior administration, and CATL applied for a modified permit in mid-2026. A separate 5 GWh battery module assembly line at the site started production on June 27, 2026, ahead of schedule, but modules are still fed by cells shipped from other CATL plants (Mercedes-Benz has had to source Debrecen-bound cells from China instead), and BMW's supply of Debrecen-made cells is now only expected to begin in 2027. Regulatory friction continues: Hungarian authorities fined the plant HUF10M (about $28,000) on August 24, 2026 for violations of its integrated environmental permit, though officials said no pollution occurred. A new safety issue has since surfaced - CATL disclosed in early August that nine employees had elevated nickel exposure, and Hajdu-Bihar county's occupational safety authority carried out three inspections between August 11 and 25, finding workers had not been adequately provided with protective equipment; it has ordered work stopped in three cell-manufacturing areas (laser cutting of cathode/anode foils, electrode-foil winding, and cell drying) until the deficiencies are fixed, and CATL has suspended the ongoing commissioning of that equipment. Roughly 90% of the Hong Kong IPO proceeds were earmarked for this site.
Bring the 50 GWh Stellantis joint venture in Spain online
The 50:50 Contemporary Star Energy LFP cell and module plant in Figueruelas/Zaragoza, worth up to EUR4.1B and running entirely on renewable power, received final regulatory approval from the Aragon regional government (Project TORO) on July 27, 2026. Production, previously targeted for end of 2026, is now expected in the first months of 2027. Construction workforce is ramping toward full capacity (around 500 on site, including 172 from China in design, engineering and management roles), and the plant will create 4,000+ direct jobs supplying LFP cells for Stellantis EVs including the Peugeot e-Expert, Citroen e-Jumpy and Opel Vivaro-e.
Ship 1 GWh of TENER Sodium by the end of 2026
First deliveries of the sodium-ion grid storage system begin in China in September 2026, with roughly 1 GWh targeted by year end. It is the first real-world test of whether sodium chemistry can compete on cost and lifetime against the LFP containers that dominate grid storage. CATL has also signed an MOU with Dutch energy company Alfen to deploy 5 GWh of TENER Sodium across Europe, with global deliveries scheduled to begin in June 2027. As of late August 2026, CATL says sodium-ion cells are on track to reach cost parity with LFP by year end, citing over 90% capacity retention at -20C and roughly triple LFP's discharge power at -30C.
Begin international TENER Sodium deliveries
CATL said at the June 2026 Munich launch that global TENER Sodium shipments start in June 2027, a year after first China customer deliveries. The dated export window includes an MOU with Dutch energy company Alfen for 5 GWh of TENER Sodium in Europe and the export tranche of the three-year, 60 GWh HyperStrong order. It is the first scheduled date on which a commercial sodium-ion grid system is supposed to leave China at scale.
Reach 4,000 combined supercharging and swap stations
CATL plans to operate 4,000 integrated supercharging and battery-swap stations across 190+ Chinese cities by the end of 2026. It passed 2,000 Choco-Swap stations across 180 cities in 31 provinces on June 30, 2026, up from 700 stations in late 2025, and is adding more than 200 new stations a month, turning its swap standard into infrastructure rather than a product feature. CATL has since raised its standalone Choco-Swap target to 3,000 stations by end-2026 (from an earlier 2,500) and opened its first two stations in Hong Kong, part of a longer-term goal of 30,000 swap stations globally via franchising.
Begin small-batch all-solid-state production
CATL targets small-scale all-solid-state manufacturing in 2027 at roughly 5 GWh of capacity. Chairman Robin Zeng and Chief Scientist Wu Kai have been pointedly cautious about what follows: as of August 2026 the technology, internally called Ningde Shidai All-Solid-State, sits at level four of nine on the readiness scale with a goal of reaching level seven or eight by the 2027 pilot stage, early applications will be limited to cars priced above RMB250,000, and Zeng puts the odds of million-vehicle solid-state installations before 2030 as very small. CATL reiterated this timeline to investors in an August 2026 Q&A, in a race with BYD over which company reaches small-scale solid-state production first; CATL's cells are reported at 500 Wh/kg energy density, though sulfide solid-state cells remain three to five times costlier than conventional lithium-ion.
Start mass production of the aviation battery system
CATL's 350 Wh/kg prismatic-cell aviation battery cleared a thermal-runaway propagation safety test around August 9-10, 2026 and is now described as ready for mass production, with passenger eVTOL maker Autoflight, in which CATL holds a strategic investment, first in line to fly it. Production lines are reported to run at 95% automation with thousands of quality checkpoints. No mass-production start date has been disclosed yet.
Extend carbon neutrality to the full battery value chain
CATL said on August 17, 2026 that it met its 2025 target of carbon neutrality across core operations, with all 20 battery plants certified carbon neutral and 100% zero-carbon electricity in core operations, and laid out a roadmap to extend that to its full value chain, covering raw materials, component production, transportation and recycling, by 2035. Procurement guidelines announced alongside the roadmap require suppliers to provide carbon footprint data starting in 2027, with favorable terms for suppliers with better emissions performance.
Expand Ning Service repair network to 100 cities
CATL said at its Ning Day 2026 event in Haikou, reported August 14, 2026, that its directly-run Ning Service after-sales network, which uses automated diagnostics aimed at cutting EV battery repair times to 72 hours or less, will expand to 100 cities worldwide by the end of 2026. Eight directly-run centers have opened across China plus two international sites in Norway and Istanbul, adding to CATL's existing network of 1,376 franchised service centers across 84 countries.
2 of 4 announced dates hit · 2 slipped
Bring the 50 GWh Stellantis joint venture in Spain online by end of 2026
Target Year-end 2026 · Resolved Jul 27, 2026
The Zaragoza plant did not reach production by end of 2026 as originally scheduled. The Aragon regional government granted final construction approval (Project TORO) on July 27, 2026, with production now guided to the first months of 2027.
Start battery cell production at the Debrecen plant by early 2026
Target Early 2026 · Resolved May 13, 2026
Construction finished and the plant's 40 GWh of capacity was fully booked, but cell production did not begin in the first months of 2026. By May 2026 CATL had missed its own March/April target for series production and was still supplying the Debrecen module lines with cells trucked in from other CATL factories, with cell output pushed later into 2026.
Complete a Hong Kong secondary listing in 2025
Target 2025 · Resolved May 20, 2025
CATL debuted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on May 20, 2025, closing 16.4% above its offer price. Proceeds reached $5.2B after the overallotment was exercised, making it the largest initial public offering anywhere in 2025 and returning Hong Kong to the top of global fundraising rankings.
CATL is the rare frontier-technology company that is both dominant and highly profitable: RMB72.2B of net profit in 2025 and RMB43.3B in the first half of 2026 alone. The mix is shifting fast. With Chinese EV demand cooling as purchase incentives taper, energy storage revenue grew about 88% year over year in H1 2026 to nearly a fifth of sales, and CATL was number one in global BESS battery shipments for the first half. Margins are the soft spot: overall gross margin slipped to 23.93% in H1 2026 from 25.02% a year earlier, with storage at 23.96% and EV battery systems at 20.63%, the price of holding share in a saturated Chinese market. On July 24, 2026, CATL paired the results with a plan to buy back and cancel RMB20B-40B of A-shares - the largest single buyback in Chinese A-share market history - plus an interim dividend, calling its own stock severely undervalued; shareholders formally approved the buyback and dividend at an August 12, 2026 EGM. The other pressure is geopolitical. CATL remains on the US Department of Defense Section 1260H list of Chinese military companies after the June 2026 update, which from June 30, 2026 bars the Pentagon from contracting with listed entities, and its route into the American market now runs through licensing deals such as Ford's rather than its own factories. Upstream, CATL's Jianxiawo lepidolite mine in Yichun, Jiangxi - China's largest lithium mine by capacity, with nameplate output approaching 150,000 tonnes of LCE a year and about 3% of global lithium supply - is back on care and maintenance after regulators revoked its environmental approval. Satellite imagery showed a brief informal restart in June and July 2026 after a June 29 work-safety permit, but Benchmark Mineral Intelligence said that restart bypassed an unresolved tailings-pond dispute, drew more than 70 formal complaints, and was halted in the first week of August, sending CATL back into the environmental impact assessment from scratch. BMI cut its 2026 mined-output forecast for Jianxiawo to 32,000 tonnes of LCE from 62,500 tonnes and left 2027 unchanged at about 99,000 tonnes, warning the review could slip into the fourth quarter of 2026 or 2027.
Cells, modules and packs for passenger cars, buses and commercial vehicles, supplied to BMW, Ford, Tesla, Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota and most Chinese automakers. Still the majority of revenue, at a 20.63% gross margin in H1 2026.
Energy storage battery systems
Grid-scale and commercial storage built around the TENER family. RMB53.2B in H1 2026, up about 88% year over year, and the fastest-growing part of the company at 19.2% of revenue.
Battery materials and recycling
Cathode and anode materials plus closed-loop recycling through subsidiary Brunp, extended in 2025 into an integrated Indonesian value chain covering nickel mining, processing, materials and recycling.
Licensing chemistry, cell design and manufacturing processes to partners who build and own the plants. Ford's BlueOval Battery Park Michigan, which began operations on June 30, 2026, is the flagship example and CATL's main route into a US market closed to its own factories.
Battery swapping and charging network
The Choco-Swap standardised swap network and integrated supercharging stations, sold as a service to automakers and fleet operators. 1,470 swap stations were live across 99 cities as of April 2026.
AI data center power infrastructure
A new push into power equipment for AI data centers: CATL signed transaction documents on August 14, 2026 to inject RMB4.1B into Hangzhou Zhongheng Technology Investment (controlling shareholder of Zhongheng Electric, a data center power system and HVDC equipment maker), taking a 49% stake and becoming its largest shareholder as CATL builds exposure to the high-voltage DC infrastructure AI data centers are adopting.
On April 21, 2026 CATL unveils the third-generation Shenxing (peak 15C, 10-80% in 3 minutes 44 seconds), the third-generation Qilin (280 Wh/kg, 1,000 km range), the Qilin Condensed battery (350 Wh/kg, 760 Wh/L), the second-generation Freevoy hybrid battery, the Naxtra sodium-ion battery at GWh-scale industrialisation, and a plan for 4,000 combined supercharging and swap stations by the end of 2026.
BlueOval Battery Park Michigan, wholly owned by Ford but built on CATL-licensed chemistry, product design and manufacturing processes, is completed and begins operations on June 30, 2026, the first LFP cell plant of its kind in the United States.
First-half revenue reaches RMB276.9B (up 54.8%) with net profit of RMB43.3B (up 42.0%). Energy storage contributes RMB53.2B, or 19.2% of revenue, up from 15.9% a year earlier, as Chinese EV demand cools and grid storage takes over as the growth engine.
CATL and Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners announce on August 15, 2026 that Stage 2 of the Supernode battery energy storage campus in Brendale, Queensland has entered commercial operation, while Stage 3 reaches financial close on A$469 million in debt financing (total financing across Stages 1-3 near A$1.2 billion). CATL supplies EnerC Plus systems for Stages 1-2 and TENER S for Stage 3, plus long-term lifecycle support; the three stages together are set to reach 780 MW / 3,074 MWh, making Supernode Australia's largest operating BESS campus.
Regulators revoked the environmental approval for CATL's Jianxiawo lithium mine in Yichun, Jiangxi, China's largest by capacity (nameplate approaching 150,000 tonnes of LCE a year), after a brief informal restart in June and July 2026 left a tailings-pond dispute unresolved. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence said more than 70 formal complaints followed, authorities halted operations in the first week of August, and CATL must restart the environmental impact assessment. BMI cut its 2026 mined-output forecast for the site to 32,000 tonnes of LCE from 62,500 tonnes and left 2027 unchanged at about 99,000 tonnes, warning the review could slip into the fourth quarter of 2026 or 2027.
On September 7, 2026, CATL signed strategic cooperation agreements with Xi'an Taijin New Energy and Materials Sci-Tech (TJNE), Shenzhen Huike New Materials and other partners covering centralized copper-foil equipment procurement, joint capacity development, cost-based pricing, shared R&D and renewable electricity. CATL plans to develop 400,000 tonnes of new copper-foil production capacity over three years with partners including Huike, using cost-plus pricing, volume commitments and CATL advance payments; TJNE is to supply standardized equipment for new and expansion projects.
On September 9, 2026 Energy-Storage.News reported that CATL raised list prices on its 314Ah storage cells from RMB 0.414 per Wh to RMB 0.423 per Wh. The hike follows China's 2% lithium-ion consumption tax that took effect September 1, 2026 and rises to 4% on September 1, 2027. EVE Energy and Lishen are also passing the tax through, with 314Ah cells in tight supply and sector utilization above 90%.
CATL and partners break ground on a roughly $6B full-value-chain battery project in Indonesia in July 2025, spanning nickel, materials, recycling and a 6.9 GWh first-phase plant in Karawang. In November it starts construction with Stellantis on a 50 GWh LFP plant in Zaragoza, Spain, a 50:50 joint venture worth up to EUR4.1B.
