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Exclusive | China’s Tianqi is looking at a lithium plant in Europe to supply electric car batteries
- Company is in discussions to co-invest in battery materials and battery production in Europe, Frank Ha Chun-shing says in exclusive interview
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Tianqi Lithium, one of the world’s largest producers of lithium-ion battery materials, said it is in talks with potential partners to co-invest in battery materials and production facilities in Europe to serve customers and meet sustainability requirements there.
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“We hope the potential cooperation will allow us to better meet market needs, and allow Tianqi to expand into downstream operations in the battery supply chain,” Frank Ha Chun-shing, the chief executive of the Chengdu-based company, said in an interview with the Post in Hong Kong.
He declined to name the countries where the company is seeking partnerships, but said it is exploring a key country in the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain in the European Union. Two of the world’s largest makers of electric car batteries are already in the economic bloc. Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL) of Fujian province opened a lithium-ion battery plant in Germany – Europe’s largest car market – in late 2022, while Shenzhen-based EV and battery producer BYD is building a plant in Hungary.
The rush to Europe underscores the strategy by Chinese carmakers to localise their supply chain closer to their market and to avert import tariffs and minimise logistics cost. The battery is the most expensive component of an EV, so locating battery materials, battery production and EV assembly close to each other would save transport costs, Ha said.
That need to localise became more urgent after the EU imposed tariffs of between 17.4 and 37.6 per cent on Chinese EV exports this month. That new tariff added to a 10-per cent duty already in place for made-in-China EVs.
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